tonywob

Same here, I'm not good with graphics at all which is why we really need someone who knows all this stuff and has some free time to create some high quality facades and objects for the library.

Thanks Shaun, I look forward to seeing your work. It's great seeing someone working on UK airfields in such detail as yourself. These would look fantastic along roads I think, especially in Cornwall, Yorkshire etc.. I've had a look into the file you sent me and .fac v10 is actually quite simple once you've seen an example. Once 0.6.0 is out and I'm back from my holiday I'm going to have a go at making some fancy industrial v10 facades. I already have a good collection of building bits, so if I can get these working inside a facade, then it will massively simplify the world-models library and improve industrial, supermarket, commercial and European city centres a lot. I already also have a large collection of textures from Caruso waiting to be turned into v10 facades. However, I don't think we can use facades for normal houses, as I'm not sure how a slanted roof would work too easily. P.S. I'd really love for someone to come along and help out with all these facades and objects, so if you have free time and enjoy that sort of thing, please please come along and help out. OverlayEditor is good, and I prefer it much more to WED. OverlayEditor allows you to have Bing imagery like JOSM so it's really simple. It has its quirks and can be unstable at times, but I much prefer it than WED. I've created 2 missing airports in WED (Pocklington and Eddsfield in Yorkshire), and then used OverlayEditor to add the buildings and some static planes. I'll dump them on the .org when I can, as they contain custom terminal buildings from photographs which can't be uploaded to XP Gateway.

Thanks Shaun, that fixes the issue and looks good. Are you going to build the entire town in WED? (I have complete respect if you manage to do that without going insane ) Yes indeed there are , looks much more realistic. If it's tagged in OSM then it will be added to the scenery.

Great Shaun, thanks for the info. I only want to add a basic runway and some small buildings and then upload it to the airport gateway. There are a couple I've found which are missing (mostly privately owned clubs)

Thanks for the info guys, will save me some hassle. Presumably I just enter the bounding rectangle coordinates into WED to align the image it downloads.

This is will great, as there will not be hundreds of them appearing in every town. Some people go to extremes when mapping some objects though, such as adding the cross in full 3D glory. If the building footprint matches your model inside OSM then it will be chosen, however there is no guarantee you'll get the exact model (Especially if it finds several the same size). Generally, World2XPlane isn't designed to do this, and is meant for producing large scale scenery. If you need that level of control then you'll either have to place the buildings manually inside WED, or force World2XPlane to assign a particular object based on its ID inside OSM, e.g, You could say "When you see way #323453424 (Which you can get from JOSM), place old-stone-house.obj". To make this easier for you, I'll add in a simple CSV file which lists the way ID and the model to use and bypasses the best-fit. However, the size will still have to be similar inside OSM for the object to be rotated and fitted properly. People have asked for similar ways of adding landmarks, and it's a fairly trivial feature to add. Completely off-topic, can anyone tell me how to get an orthoimage into WED, I'm trying to add a missing airstrip in Yorkshire, but I don't know how to get google imagery or Bing into WED (for reference only). I'll send you and some other testers v0.6.0 in the next few days (Although the fill-in-the-gaps autogen I was talking about isn't working too well, so it's disabled). I've got a very busy month in October, so I'm not going to get much done, and so I might release this earlier as a pre-beta.

Thanks Caruso, if you can get people to try and donate their objects to the library then great. Do you have write access to world-models? I don't remember if you do, so if you don't set yourself up an account and send me a PM with your details. Mostly anything can be accepted (Including VFR obstacles, wind turbines, woodland, fences, etc), however it has to follow three simple rules: 1) Not contain too much detail, e.g. A house with the window ledges and roof sidings mapped. Simple objects are the best. For models that are likely only to appear every now and then, e.g. A large supermarket, then some detail is fine, and we can always simplify if it becomes a problem. 2) The most important rule (and I had to reject quite a largish library because of it), is that the buildings must be centrally/axis aligned, i.e. The 0,0,0 point is directly in the middle of the buildings, and not (as I've seen) in some arbitrary position like in the garden or left wall. Such buildings can be fixed, but it's a pain to do so (No importer in Blender 2.70). Unaligned buildings will end up colliding with roads. N.B. Lots of the buildings in the R2 library are like this, and you'll often see them colliding with each other and onto roads. I've been trying to replace them slowly, but simply don't have the time or the energy to replace them all. 3) Have a basement area so that the building doesn't appear to float in mountainous terrain. Again, we can accept without and live with it, but much better to have. The name of the folder makes no difference, it's simply a way to organise the library. The file you are interested in is residential.csv in world-models which contains the model name and ICAO code/codes of the country or US state it should appear in. e.g. You'll see buildings marked as DE;CH;AU for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc.. Every single rule can be configured per region, e.g. You can change the tree type or density in Southern Spain, etc.. At the moment, lots of countries share the same buildings, however there is a lot of regional buildings for the UK and Poland. You'll notice that lots of the buildings in the UK folder are also used in Ireland and some in France, etc.. Yes, there is a tolerance setting (currently set to 1m). W2XP will look for a building which will fit approximately into the building footprint in OSM. It will prefer buildings to face the nearest road, and match the height information. It uses a scoring algorithm to find the best match, so the best fitting and most suitable building will be placed. If no building is found in the library for the footprint (or there is a building but it is set not to show in the country), then a facade is used. So if the buildings cover the most common sizes for buildings, you'll hit most of the buildings, i.e. Normally from 4x4 up to 20x20. Generally, when I create a building I'll simply create several sizes of the same building, it's very easy to do in Blender, just resize the building and adjust the texture slightly. Edit: Shape of the building isn't taken into consideration at the moment, it uses the tightest fitting rectangle around the entire building to choose a suitable model. This means that if the building is an L shape inside OSM, it wont' necessarily receive an L shaped building, but one that would fit neatly inside a rectangle surrounding the L.

Thanks for the info. I could add a parameter to break long lines up so it will slope better, and we'll see how it goes. I actually simplify most shapes for performance reasons, so I'll need to do the reverse :-). Industrial buildings are difficult to do as objects, the best bet is actually creating these as facade textures. Industrial units, unlike houses, are often complicated shapes and it is often difficult to find a good match in the library. Blacky75 did some industrial models which work well, but we could certainly do with more variety. I know .fac v10 format supports far more features than we are currently using, and maybe marginal can give us some advice on these. I think I added just a single one from Wales. However, I'm currently modelling some older style Edwardian style terrace and detached properties which look good in the countryside. As you can see in the above screenshot I posted many Eastern European style buildings still there, which don't suit too well. Also, I have added a config file in v0.6.0 which supports regionalisation per UK county as an experiment. It's a bit extreme, but with enough regionalisation in the library, it could be possible to add regional style varieties of buildings. e.g. There is a difference between the building styles seen in West/North Yorkshire, and those seen in the East. Yes, another killer for immersion in a UK village, bright white coloured churches. There are 2 UK style churches in the library, but lots more or needed to cover various sizes. I'm intending on getting some of these done when I can get some photos. If you do manage to create any buildings for the library (And I really hope you do, as I'm on my own doing this at the moment ;-)), then remember to keep them as simple as possible. I've seen many really complicated UK objects on the xplane.org, e.g. A red telephone box, which contains over 11000 triangles. Placing these everywhere would quickly kill X-Plane, so I've kept most houses simple, i.e. A box and roof, and i try and detail like shadows into the texture so it makes the object look more complicated than it actually is.

Thanks Shaun. I've just added them and generated the Yorkshire Wolds, here is a screenshot of a village The hedges look fantastic, however I did find a couple of issues: 1) If the land is slanted, which is certainly is here , the hedge doesn't follow the curve of the land, and either goes into the ground or up into the air. 2) It seems it doesn't like really large areas and it ends up with graphical artifacts. I think the .fac needs the GRADED objective adding to it, but I'm not sure if this works on v10 version of the .fac format 3) Performance suffers quite badly (Which is understandable). We'd need to limit the usage quite a lot, although it does look very nice. Rather than going around every field or road, I've set them up so that if you tag something in OSM as barrier=hedge, then one of the 2 hedges will be chosen. So this gives you exact control over where you wish to place the hedges inside OSM. I've added them into the world-models library, and of course you are also free to use any of the models in there for your own scenery (There are hundreds of different style UK houses). Also, if you'd like write access to the library to add in new files or make changes then please let me know, and I'll set you up with an account.

Shaun, that looks fantastic. Can I use this in World2XPlane?

Thanks for the kind words Shaun :-) Regarding the waterway, World2XPlane doesn't generate the mesh, just the roads, buildings, woodland, obstacles, etc.. The rivers/streams are part of the base mesh inside X-Plane (or the photoscenery) and also come from OSM. However, the good news is that alpilotx (Author of HD Mesh v2) is about to recut his mesh again for v3, so if you've already fixed this inside OSM, then HD Mesh v3 (and any photoscenery based on it) will have the corrected data (and also be slightly more higher definition). I've found a lot of these ditches and streams tagged incorrectly and badly aligned, and I've fixed a lot of them. Andras has given us a deadline (I think mid October) to get any mesh based changes into OSM for inclusion into v3, which is why i've also been fixing up/realigning rivers and coast lines. BTW, I've just noticed that you've added names to all the fields (as "field" etc) in OSM. OSM recently had a cartostyle update which now shows all the names everywhere for any closed-way, so all your labels have just started appearing. I'd recommend you use the "notes=*" tag and not name=*, unless you are specifically naming the field or feature with its real name.

No, nothing to do with World2XPlane. The ships are enabled in X-Planes setting, and can be used to land on, etc.. It places them everywhere and in strange places Roads are a real pain. One option if you have high quality photoscenery is to make the roads all transparent. It looks good, and the traffic still drives along. I'll await Ben Supnik to return into development (I think he's on paternity leave), and see if he can help me out with some documentation or simple examples. In 0.6.0, UK roads will actually already be lined with small hedges/shrubs if they are bordering a farm. The effect looks quite good and better than large trees

Thanks Caruso, this is what the experience is all about, and there are lots of little surprises to look out for in the scenery. Here's some more examples that you'll see in 0.6.0 Tractors along farm tracks in fields, going the right direction using a new type of rule.Construction vehicles around quarriesBeaches and mud flats inside waterBus Stops and billboard aligned correctly with the roadsRandom silo placed on some farmsOf course, the possibilities are endless, and you can do anything you like with the data and combinations of tags in OSM, and I'm always finding new things to play with and map out :-) The scenery is meant to be flown low-and-slow. If you like flying a 737 then this type of scenery is pointless and wasteful on resources. But flying over the scenery at 500ft in a helicopter where there is good data is great. Regarding 0.6.0, I'm not sure when it will be out. I'm still having lots of problems with the autogen rules for filling out blank areas with buildings. Basically, generation time is appalling and the results are somewhat mixed. I'm trying out various things to see what works, but at the moment I'm falling behind a bit here.

Yes, this is exactly what I'm working on at the moment :-)

Yes, this is a huge annoyance of mine, even residential roads are too big. Problem is, I haven't been able to decipher the roads.net file. I can make small changes like removing street lights and pavements, but then it isn't possible to distribute the changes. It's either you completely replace the road or nothing. At the moment I've only managed to do basic farm tracks. If anyone wants to help out and take up the challenge then I'd be more than happy with the help BTW, I do still have you photos and artwork to go through and add into new buildings. Just need to get myself some time to go through it

v0.6.0 Update It's been a while since I've posted an update so I'll show what's being worked on and what will be in the next release. In 0.6.0, several new advanced rules have been added which allow placement of autogen where there is no data, this can fill out towns and cities with regional buildings in-between the real data in OSM. e.g. Houses can be placed to follow roads and similar groups of buildings can be grouped together and fitted in seamlessly with the real data. Additionally, lots of work has gone into the world-models library for the UK, France, Ireland and the Netherlands. Less red-roofed buildings and more darker, older style village houses. Since 0.5.0, around 100 new regional buildings have been added. (Also, the world-models library is currently being ported to Outerra and is available for scenery there as well). Here are some screenshots I took this morning using the new artwork: Collision detection for line rules and advanced spacing and grouping options (Can be used to place random houses and other buildings along roads)Angle from road option, which will rotate objects to their nearest road. e.g. Churches, bus stops, billboards, even post boxes will be rotated and aligned with roads if they are not attached to the road in OSM.Polygon placement rule and some new default rules for placing beaches, mud and tidal flats.New shrub and tree textures. Shrubs surrounding farmland look more realistic. Shrub areas in OSM now contain proper shrubs and not sparsely placed trees. e.g. You'll see a mixture of small bushes, rose bushes, etc..Lots of bug fixes for random placement and options to make random placement look a little more naturalNew collection of supermarket and industrial buildingsToned down lights and trees in residential areas to look more realistic. I'm not sure when release will be. The autogen random placement is very slow (in generation) and needs some optimising. Additionally, I'd really like to get custom roads, i.e. Removing the dark and big US style roads and adding smaller more European style roads (With left-side traffic in the UK and Ireland).

Thanks Frank Yes, renaming as you've suggested works, so it was due to the case sensitivity. Thanks for your help. The new version looks brilliant BTW Tony

Please do share screenshots if you get it looking good ;-)

Yep, you can just use the facade rule. This works just fine if you point it to a .pol file, and I've used it before to make rudimentary beaches and mud flats

Thanks Ben, sent you an email

Tried reinstalling X-Plane completely, and reactivating Skymaxx Pro, I still get the same error in the log file and no clouds If I move it to another drive (which isn't formatted as Mac OS Case Sensitive) it works, but that drive is a slow HD drive. I have my OS installed on an SD drive which I formatted as case sensitive. Is there anyway this can be fixed to work, I really don't want to have to reinstall my entire OS again

I've seen this error before, and it happens when something is clipped incorrectly, i.e. An object has had nodes removed which it needs, e.g. A road might have been removed, but a forest might share nodes with the road and still reference them. I believe you need to pass this into osmosis, but I can't remember what the command was, something like "clipIncomplete".

There is no line saying it was initialized. I can PM you the log file if this helps. Also, no clouds appear whatsoever, even when set to completely overcast

Hi I've updated to Skymaxx Pro 2, and I no longer have any clouds at all. Inside the log file it only mentions SkyMaxx Pro: Whiteout enabledSkyMaxx Pro: Alt is 13.908702 I'm using 10.30b8, and all other plugins have been disabled. No matter what settings I change, I never see any clouds. Is there something else I need to do or activate for this to work? (I had no problems with v1)

The building tool really helps when the building is just a square, so you hit the "b" key, and simply trace lots and lots of squares. Works well when there are lots of simple houses to map. Although I try to be as precise as possible when mapping houses, some people simply trace squares (i.e. An approximation of the building) and this is fine for World2XPlane. Also, if you use the OS OpenData layer in JOSM, most of the houses and buildings will be simplified to rectangular shapes.