active FTX England SP5 - Missing Trees and Hedges - Peak District

[pan7285]

Hi All, 

 

I installed the SP5 update to FTX England last night on P3d v3.3, and upon my first flight found that the northern peak district was completely void of hedges and trees.  I'm guessing theres a reason for this as looking at the KMZ file in Google Earth, this area is highlighted (amongst others) with a purple outline and an extra section i added in red which is also lacking .

 

Is there any way to get these trees back? This area is quite heavy on trees and hedges, and losing them is like reverting back to old flat VFR scenery, and so loses the whole immersion element within that area.

 

I'd rather not revert to back to SP4 as the surrounding areas of Chesterfield and Sheffield in SP5 look fantastic, and much better than SP4 but if thats the only solution then so be it.

 

I've also attached a couple of pictures i've taken in the area to show how tree and hedge heavy the area should be (as it was in SP4 although no SP4 comparison i'm afraid)

 

Thanks in advance, and thanks for the great products.

 

Paul Nixon

[pan7285]

SP4 and SP5 comparisons of Hope Valley in the Peak District.

I changed the resolution in SP5 just to get the screen shots via a remote connection as normally i run in 5760x1080 over 3 monitors, however you can see the lack of trees and hedges.  

 

Wide image = SP4

Smaller Images = SP5 in roughly the same spot

 

On the smaller images you can see a small amount of trees, but nothing like it should be, and its not a loading issue as areas around this to the west, east and south all load fine as you fly around.  they just aren't there in this area.

 

Sorry, i forgot to add that I am also using FTX Trees HD.

 

 

[Guest]

Hi Paul,

You are lucky because the first sprint for SP 5 had changes much wider than  what it released.

If you can confirm the boundary of what should be change with a satellite view (F12), I could integrate it into the next service pack.

To have trees or not to have, that's is the question

[pan7285]

26 minutes ago, Richard Bui said:

Hi Paul,

You are lucky because the first sprint for SP 5 had changes much wider than  what it released.

If you can confirm the boundary of what should be change with a satellite view (F12), I could integrate it into the next service pack.

To have trees or not to have, that's is the question

 

Hi Richard

Thank you for the reply.  I will have a look into this in depth this evening and get some information together for you.

 

Thanks

Paul

[pan7285]

Out of interest, could you clarify what the Purple outlines symbolise in the google earth file please?

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, pan7285 said:

Out of interest, could you clarify what the Purple outlines symbolise in the google earth file please?

That's the limits of excluding trees areas requested by users

[pan7285]

Hi Richard

I hope you don't mind, but i amended the KMZ file supplied by ORBX and added the red shaded area where the autogen appears to be missing. I thought that might be easier that trying to annotate a top down screen grab? If this is not sufficient, then please let me know.

 

Having scrutinized it further, i found that it appears to be void of all autogen, not just trees and bushes, so buildings are missing too.

 

I Appreciate that Derwent Dam, Ladybower Dam, and howden Dam are in the purple zone, however i have requested they be added back in as they add to the realism of flying this area.

 

Hope this helps

 

Thanks

Paul 

 

 

Peak District AutoGen Required.kmz

[DAVIDF4]

This goes back to the the wrong land class being used in several upland areas when FTX England was originally released.
As it was, there were trees on moor land and hill tops where they should not be an dthis was pointed out be several customers.
The new autogen exclusions were added to remove these trees, but you can't really do this for such a huge area (valleys running through the area will often still have trees and buildings in the real world) and it's not the best approach anyway because the underlying land class textures still suggest trees and buildings.
Ideally a suitable landclass would need to be used for selected upland areas. One that has no tree and building autogen to start with.
Other foliated and populated areas in the same region would keep thier current land class to present trees and building where appropriate and the the autogen exclusion could be removed.

Richard, you're doing a great job with FTX England and I'm really impressed with the quality of the SP5 additions, but these autogen exclusions are a bit problematic.
I don't think the people who requested this change had properly thought out what was going to happen when they got it. The upland trees were wrong yes, but this was always a landclass issue and not an autogen one in my opinion.
 

[DAVIDF4]

Just had a look at the Lake District and I might have to take a little of what I said above back.
The autogen exclusion has made a big difference here and It does look very much improved with no trees on the fell tops in most places. 
Cat bells (54.571240, -3.170421) and Blencathra (54.631545, -3.055744) are still sporting trees they should not have, but on the whole it's not come out too badly.

I am correct about the landclass though. Some of it is badly chosen. There's a sort of purply-red landclass with white paths all over it, that's been used extensively and it's wrong for this area. It has tree and bush autogen and looks to be some kind of heathland, but for lower elevations.
I think it's the use of this landclass that was the main culprit for screwing up the look of the area. The colouring is a bit off for me (with too much contrast with the other textures in use), but when the autogen is stripped from it at least you can't tell that it should have had trees (which is lucky). If it could be swapped out in the lake district for a grass+rock+bog texture with no tree autogen (i.e. change the land class GUID used for a different one, whilst leaving the boundries the same), then I can't help thinking the whole place would look more reaslistic.

The autogen exclusion boundries have been carefully and sensibly placed in the most part, but there are some areas where they extend out too far . 
The slopes on the Eastern side of Borrowdale (54.549561, -3.141080) are in reality forested. The landclass texture actually depicts this correctly, but the autogen trees are excluded.
There's another thread describing a problem on the coastal plain south of Sellafield (sort of around 54.389704, -3.404038, but also southwards down the coast for quite a way). This does need fixing.It looks like the exclusion extends out onto the flat and a lot of farms, villages and woodlands appear to have lost their autogen. The exclusion boundy needs to hug the edges of the fell slopes and go no further.
However, this area does look almost photoreal, making me think that I might be missing something about it...did it ever have autogen?

I haven't had a proper look at the peak distrct (the area the OP describes), but I have noticed that it uses that crappy reddy coloured texture again, rather too extensively.
There are some areas of peat cutting that are sort of mottled like this, but most of the area should be upland bog and grass landclass. And indeed as the OP points out, some of the area does have fields and forests (replanted and managed in the main).
If the land class isn't to change then it sounds like the exclsuion boundries here need a little tweaking so that relatively lower lying areas near to or within the current exclusion zone don't have exclusions.

I'm convinced though that exorcising a lot of that reddy coloured landlclass would probably sort this out without the need for many of the autogen exclusions.

[DAVIDF4]

I suppose as a general rule, if the landclass shows a village/buildings, or fields with tree lined boundries, or obvious green woodland then it should not have an autogen exclusion.
And where ever that reddy coloured landclass is used in a very upland area, there probably should, in most cases, be an autogen exclusion.

Alternatively, remove the autogen exclusions and...
(a) Edit the reddy landclass itself to have no autogen (NOT really recommended, since this land class might be used in areas where it legitimately should have autogen).
OR
(b) Swap the landclass IDs used by problematic England upland areas for ones belonging to landclasses that fit better (have no autogen trees/have suitable autogen and have textures that represent the real world ground cover better), whilst leaving the actual landclass polygon boundries the same.

To my mind (b) is the real fix here for all of this, because it basically represents what the original FTX England developers should have done in the first place.

Looking at a heather map of the UK, I'm guessing that the reddy-purple landclass is supposed to match that. That would have been great if it looked more like heather (with proper seasonal variation) and didn't have large trees sprinkled in it.
I think this might be the root of the whole problem...an inappropriately chosen or designed landlass.
 

[pan7285]

I have to agree that the land textures don't look the best (compared to the rest of the product) when the autogen isn't there., and as an addition to this, the Textures around the dams (Derwent, Ladybower and Howden) seem a little unusual as there appears to be a chalk like texture from the water half way up the hill and then it changes to heather.  

 

Ultimately, i can't thank Richard and the rest of the ORBX enough for the fantastic work that they do, and the amount that they have transformed my sim in to something that looks far more real world than I've ever had before.  i am eternally grateful.  Apologies if it looks as though i'm being overly picky, because i am truly grateful.

[Guest]

Hi guys,

I let you meditate about which part of the exclusion of trees should be more suitable and which kind of landscape it should be locally. The process I made was too wide to be accurate enough at some points. I count on you to provide information next time I request people to submit request for service pack.

[pan7285]

3 minutes ago, Richard Bui said:

Hi guys,

I let you meditate about which part of the exclusion of trees should be more suitable and which kind of landscape it should be locally. The process I made was too wide to be accurate enough at some points. I count on you to provide information next time I request people to submit request for service pack.

 

This whole Web forum thing is new to me, but i will be happy to contribute in the future where i can.  

Thank you for the opportunity to do so.

[DAVIDF4]

Thank you Richard.