alpilotx

Here is a very interesting study, which has made some statistics about the OSM coastline quality (I found this while searching infos about Alaskas OSM coast - which is mostly from a 3rd party source, PGS ... Prototype Global Shoreline ... and the quality is not soooo overwhelming). Assessing the OpenStreetMap coastline data quality

OK, I repeat what I already wrote on the facebook picture (about the glaciers in your pictures):

John, I see that you winter trees are not "optimal" ... but did you know, that there is already a winterized texture set, which can replace 1:1 the default (XP10) tree textures? The current XP10 tree texture sets are all taken from my old XP9 forest scenery. And at that time, I once did a winterized (made by hand) version of those textures. You can find them here: http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/old-forest-downloads/ You need to look for: Euro_trees_winter_v9.1.1 usa_trees_winter_v9.1.3 There you get 3 textures, which have exactly the same layout as the default tree textures (even the name of the default textures has a little hint at this, by having an "e" for Europe, and "uw" and "ue" for USA West and USA East texture set)

For me, the way normal maps are used here looks rather unreal here ... but this is only my opinion, and just a question of taste.

Even after years of building / polishing / improving the Global Scenery (and even making special versions like NZ Pro or other extras) its always great fun to see, how the virtual landscapes improves ... and because neither I have ever seen all the planet (the entire "Level 1" as Chris K put it ) - not even a fraction of it - it always has some nice (visual) surprises and gives me a vague feeling that this planet has quite a few beautiful corners. (then I didn't even start to talk about, how much the fantastic contributions of the community can amaze me .... etc. etc. )

Fantastic stuff in the works here!

A dead (or dying) RAID controller is the admins nightmare. I have seen a few failing RAIDs in my life ... even one or two with complete disasters etc. ... so I can understand the implications quite well. Nice to have you back, and good to hear that you had a sound (and whats more important: an obviously working!!) disaster recovery plan!

http://youtu.be/PFnh-77I5QE This video is showcasing the beautiful landscape of the free (donationware) X-Plane 10 scenery New Zealand Pro created by me (a few months ago). Its my first experiment with a "larger" video, as I haven't done much (well, nothing) in this area before (especially as I am on Linux ... but I was surprised how polished video tools are nowadays). The scenery can be freely downloaded from my website: http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-new-zealand-pro/ Music is by Mike Andrews from http://audiofarm.org/mikeandrews. Titles are: softnessstrings and guitar

Big like !

If you - well I don't mean Camreon, but "Wetted Area" - are interested in higher res version of the Global Scenery, I have cut a few areas of the planet in "HD" quality (approximately doubling the mesh resolution and also inducing better representation of the raw landclass data), like Alaska, USA West, some parts of Europe. This way you can check out what the extra res can (or can't) give you (its free): http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-hd-scenery-mesh/ Or there is an even more "special" scenery (with non OSM based data, and also very high res mesh) for New Zealand (its free too): http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-new-zealand-pro/ Both of them are meant to showcase, what X-Plane can do (but at the cost of higher space usage, more strain on graphics hardware ... and in the case of NZ Pro, the need for outstanding geodata and a lot of extra processing needed). Well, I do point to this article every now or then, but I think it wont hurt to do it again (as not everyone can know about this old piece ). In it, I gave a more or less detailed description about how the base mesh etc. (of the Global Scenery) works, how it is done, what data it uses. Its a lengthy read, but has quite some info in it: http://xsimreviews.com/2011/12/10/developer-interview-andras-fabian-mr-x-terrain/

Great video, which shows the beauty of NZ Pro (I am not so good with videos - especially on Linux - so I like it when others, who are better at this, do some nice ones).

Hi Flo, There are many good reasons why I would not do that (academic, financial, social and hard facts of what can be done and what not) ... Nevertheless, thanks for you positive response (and Chris has already answered your question about free airports).

Ah, yes, I forgot to put in the "Requirements" section on my site (now its there) ... indeed you should be careful with this one. If you already have problems with default Global Scenery, then this one will definitely NOT improve your situation ... Also, I highly recommend to use it with 64bit X-Plane (though, it works on 32bit too) and lots of RAM!

The wait is over, and after 3 months of work, the X-Plane 10 New Zealand Pro scenery is released! X-Plane 10 New Zealand Pro is a complete replacement scenery package for New Zealand (North and South island). It is a combination of two parts. An extremely high resolution base mesh (even a bit higher than the other HD Scenery Mesh regions) with updated (and more detailed) landclass data (riverbeds, mines and morains are entirely new - compared to default Global Scenery), very detailed road / railroad/ powerline vector, and highly accurate water data (you should find most of the relevant rivers / streams, tiny lakes, and more detailed coastlines). An additional overlay scenery, which adds treelines (this time they are "real", derived from GIS data) and tons of objects (mostly houses, but there are also barns, churches, substations, schools, hospitals, shelters - outside the area, which are filled in by XP10 autogen). This scenery is for X-Plane 10 only, and ideally, you should have X-Plane 10.20 Beta 5 or above (as it brings some art assets - textures - in its default set, which NZ Pro uses). But don't worry, if you have an earlier version of XP10, there is a "workaround" for you on the download page. Best of all - as always - this scenery is donationware! Which means, you can freely download and use it, and if you like, you might donate for it (and even then, you decide what its worth for you). The link below will bring you to the - obligatory - screenshots (lots of before-after shots included): https://picasaweb.go...alandProRELEASE And here you go to my website, where the download links and detailed instructions can be found: http://www.alpilotx....ew-zealand-pro/

Roads (and almost all other art assets) can be "removed" dynamically with add-on scenery by using so called exclusion zones (XP9, this was the case with the default LOWI scenery, which removed roads in a rectangular area surrounding LOWI). Maybe this is the case here with you ...

No, in X-Plane 10 the roads are not designed to be flat, but to be "draped" dynamically on the landscape. So no, they - usually - should not disappear in mountains.

Hmm, maybe I was wrong with the attribution ... I have just quickly (maybe too quickly) looked at what I might have "downloaded" from the ORG as add-on

Of course it does ... better data has always the potential (if someone can translate that potential) to yield better end results

I wanted to share some first preview screenshots of my upcoming “X-Plane 10 New Zealand Pro” scenery. All screenshots come in pairs, with before-after comparison (I recommend to browse trough them one-by-one at picasa, as this way you should see the differences more easily)… so you can see for yourself what its (and what its not) all about by following this link: X-Plane 10 New Zealand Pro – PREVIEW (some of the pictures have 3rd party scenery included, which I have named in the picture captions … all of those you can download freely here at the org) You can read detailed - background - information on my website: http://www.alpilotx.net/2012/10/26/x-plane-10-new-zealand-pro-preview/

This depends on your point of view ... because, if you see that there are other 1000 guys/girls (the number of those, who voice their wishes at all) who have their own "most important" wish, then you realize, that this feature request is one in a lot of others. And I think, most of you did already understand, that Laminars resources are not unlimited ... thus, they always need to prioritize. And if you would be willing to "pay a little extra" ... then there is no reason why Laminar would need to be the one you pay to. Any 3rd party could then "develop" that script/plugin ... if he would see a "market" for it.

Xflyer (Albert - the guy who works on XP10 ground textures) did a recolored set of XP9 textures in 2010 .... Its free (and weighs about 278 MBytes): http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=9772

Hard to tell ... I would need to check how the areas for the Gefabrik OSM Exports are defined. Essentially its based on all you can see here (expect the big Canada chunk - which I might consider adding in the future). http://download.geofabrik.de/osm/north-america/

Update: 25th July, 2012 – In both packages (Europe and USA) I have updated the draped ground textures (thanks to Albert, my long time friend and great texture artist of the XP10 Global Scenery) which now have colors better matching the Global Scenery textures. If your downloaded ZIP file has a little “_2″ postfix, then its already the new version. So, its not a big thing (no tree lines, or farm objects have changed), but just in case ...

BUT - very important - do NOT expect farms where they would be in real life. I have NO data about the real location of farms - neither of tree lines. All this is procedurally generated scenery, which tries to place these assets in - halfway - plausible locations. This might work quite well in some cases, and quite badly in others ... but definitely never replicate reality!

Yes, Norway should be covered (well its essentially what is covered by the http://download.geofabrik.de/ OSM download for Europe) ... Though, remember that all of this only works well, where: the landuse is agricultural, grassland, pasture or sparse OSM has some roads there! So, I don't know exactly how many nice regions this generated for Norway