matabhaine Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 Is there someplace where I can point out certain discrepancies with TE scenery; I am not wishing to complain or anything, just when I see POI objects with the wrong orientation, or a dozen wind turbines placed in the north sea I thought it would be conducive to inform ORBX about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtrjones Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 2 hours ago, matabhaine said: Is there someplace where I can point out certain discrepancies with TE scenery; I am not wishing to complain or anything, just when I see POI objects with the wrong orientation, or a dozen wind turbines placed in the north sea I thought it would be conducive to inform ORBX about it. By all means post here, I did and my wish has been granted! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gussgull Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 is sp1 due out in the next few days ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted March 8, 2019 Author Share Posted March 8, 2019 Yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinfirth Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 Ive found 2 issues which occur frequently across TE-UK P3D... 1. many of the roads are not correctly aligned with traffic. Means traffic goes off road and doesnt look correct... 2. Many of the extrusion bridges that are included dont appear to be hardened, so traffic goes underneath them.. A prime example of this is the elevated length of the M6 north of Birmingham. More often than not they also dont 100% match the mesh, being too short at one end, kind of defeating the object of a bridge! It would be lovely as well if bridges didnt all have the up and down ramps at each end. Most real bridges offer a seamless transition between terrain and bridge and those in TE should reflect this IMO please. Happy to provide examples if necessary to illustrate the issues Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longranger241 Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 4 hours ago, kevinfirth said: More often than not they also dont 100% match the mesh, being too short at one end, kind of defeating the object of a bridge! It would be lovely as well if bridges didnt all have the up and down ramps at each end. Most real bridges offer a seamless transition between terrain and bridge and those in TE should reflect this IMO please. Hmm, I can guess what the problem is. P3D and X-Plane don't have the same mesh. P3D is still based on the old regular mesh of FSX, this means its height measuring points have always the same distance from each other, it doesn't care what kind of terrain you have to model. And ,if I remember correctly, it further complicates the problem by using tesselation, this means the terrain can different if you change settings or GPU. X-Plane on the other hand uses an iregular mesh. You can position the measuring points, wherever you like. So it can follow the edge of a cliff or a mountain with a huge number triangles, while you only need very few triangles to describe even terrain. In the case of a bridge you now have a real problem. The bridge is a simple 3D object with a predefined size. But you only have one model for all simulators and their meshes. And you position them directly into the terrain mesh. The problem: While the differences in the meshes aren't always obvious at a first glance they differ from each other by several meters. But if you add a measuring stick like the 3D model of a bridge you suddenly see some of the differences. While there are a number of tricks to work around some of the problems, there aren't always solutions. And I think in the future we will have even more differences, not less, since they will all use dynamic elements like tesselation. We will have to see what kind of tricks will be invented to modify the 3D models for their environment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Low Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 I just noticed an autogen building in the Thames (just upstream from the Queen Elizabeth II bridge)....P3D v4 version Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinfirth Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 1 hour ago, Longranger241 said: Hmm, I can guess what the problem is. P3D and X-Plane don't have the same mesh. P3D is still based on the old regular mesh of FSX, this means its height measuring points have always the same distance from each other, it doesn't care what kind of terrain you have to model. And ,if I remember correctly, it further complicates the problem by using tesselation, this means the terrain can different if you change settings or GPU. X-Plane on the other hand uses an iregular mesh. You can position the measuring points, wherever you like. So it can follow the edge of a cliff or a mountain with a huge number triangles, while you only need very few triangles to describe even terrain. In the case of a bridge you now have a real problem. The bridge is a simple 3D object with a predefined size. But you only have one model for all simulators and their meshes. And you position them directly into the terrain mesh. The problem: While the differences in the meshes aren't always obvious at a first glance they differ from each other by several meters. But if you add a measuring stick like the 3D model of a bridge you suddenly see some of the differences. While there are a number of tricks to work around some of the problems, there aren't always solutions. And I think in the future we will have even more differences, not less, since they will all use dynamic elements like tesselation. We will have to see what kind of tricks will be invented to modify the 3D models for their environment. I dont have XP so I cant speak certainly, but I dont think thats the problem. Some of the extrusion bridges are just too short, and they characteristically have sharply inclined ramps at each end. It's not the end of the world, but this aspect of the scenery feels...a bit rushed if I'm honest, without the attention to detail that is apparent in other aspects. Either that or they have been procedurally generated without much attempt to have the end results reflect the elevations of these bridges in real life. Hopefully they can be reviewed at some point Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvdboomen Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 I don't know if it belongs here but in P3D many of the airport polygons are not matching very well with the PR underground. It seems that the airports come directly from FTX EU England which suit very well in there but now with the PR the difference becomes visible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Low Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 I would like to see a control panel option to remove those extrusion bridges. I really do not like simple models of bridges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aeroflux Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 ...I am getting a bit tired of waiting tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted March 9, 2019 Author Share Posted March 9, 2019 And we tire of people’s impatience. We are looking at Thursday or Friday for it to be released. We have to optimise 17.6 million autogen objects amongst other things. We’d rather do a proper job of it than rushing it out because folks are anxious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david broome Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 33 minutes ago, John Venema said: And we tire of people’s impatience. We are looking at Thursday or Friday for it to be released. We have to optimise 17.6 million autogen objects amongst other things. We’d rather do a proper job of it than rushing it out because folks are anxious. But Thursday and Friday were last week! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinfirth Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 53 minutes ago, John Venema said: And we tire of people’s impatience. We are looking at Thursday or Friday for it to be released. We have to optimise 17.6 million autogen objects amongst other things. We’d rather do a proper job of it than rushing it out because folks are anxious. Good to hear John, thankyou Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aeroflux Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 1 hour ago, John Venema said: And we tire of people’s impatience. We are looking at Thursday or Friday for it to be released. We have to optimise 17.6 million autogen objects amongst other things. We’d rather do a proper job of it than rushing it out because folks are anxious. This was announced 6th Nov 2018...it is now March 2019! What impatience we talking about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F737MAX Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 I'm going through waves of absolutely loving TE GB South for P3D to being a bit disappointed with parts. Some places suffer from buildings not sitting on top of their photo footprint closely, as you can see below in central Cardiff. I like that most of London has 3D-modelled bridges (I'd prefer if all of them were given proper models), though I'm not a fan of these 'ramps' at either end - some of the bridges should be elongated to reach the river banks correctly. I don't think this is asking for perfection (maybe it is?), I believe that I'm asking for ORBX to meet their usually incredibly high standards. When you can get detailed scenes like the one below, I think that the high standard is very nearly reached. (We'll debate seasons another time, however). 7 minutes ago, Aeroflux said: This was announced 6th Nov 2018 last year...it is now March 2019! What impatience we talking about? ORBX should rightly take their time on getting the SP done right. I've had to move the '3DM' building models to a separate 'OFF' folder to get acceptable performance. I'm getting a bit tired of other developers hastily bringing their products to market when they're patently not ready. We're all impatient as simmers and it's leading to 'early access' / open beta products. I'd much rather see developer comments like this: 1 hour ago, John Venema said: We’d rather do a proper job of it than rushing it out because folks are anxious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Low Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 I am still desperate for GB Central though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinfirth Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 8 minutes ago, Christopher Low said: I am still desperate for GB Central though! We're going to have to wait til next year I think Chris... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longranger241 Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 5 hours ago, kevinfirth said: Some of the extrusion bridges are just too short, and they characteristically have sharply inclined ramps at each end. This is the problem that I talked about. In X-Plane the size of the river can be as big as you want. And the custom 3D building will have the correct size for the X-Plane mesh. In P3D you can't push the measuring points for the mesh around, instead you have to decide if the river bank is in this line or the next. In X-Plane the renderfarm can simply add some additional triangles to the mesh that follow the correct location of a riverbank ( https://www.simflight.de/2014/08/15/mesh-und-landclass-der-x-plane-welt/ ) , The result: the distance between two riverbanks can be significantly different between the X-Plane and P3D mesh. Since they use the same custom object... And if we are talking about London and so on: Not all bridges and buildings can be custom buildings. On the one hand it would be extremly expensive to draw every single object. If you use the same object multiple times the computers can simply index these buildings. If you draw the same kind of building hundreds of times the GPU doesn't need more resources than to draw 10 buildings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted March 9, 2019 Author Share Posted March 9, 2019 I think people have set their expectations too high. This is a £30 addon covering a huge area and we see complaints about misaligned bridges? Consider other products you may have purchased that cover maybe 30km2. We understand there may be shortcomings but please put things into context before you critique too deeply. We are releasing an SP1 next week which has cost us a six figure sum to produce. In other words: we still have not made a profit from TE GB. Please consider that for a moment before you brandish the knives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david broome Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 45 minutes ago, John Venema said: I think people have set their expectations too high. This is a £30 addon covering a huge area and we see complaints about misaligned bridges? Consider other products you may have purchased that cover maybe 30km2. We understand there may be shortcomings but please put things into context before you critique too deeply. We are releasing an SP1 next week which has cost us a six figure sum to produce. In other words: we still have not made a profit from TE GB. Please consider that for a moment before you brandish the knives. It must be difficult when you put your heart and soul into something which then gives such good value for money, only to receive criticism as well as praise but I don't think there are any knives out. Perhaps devs should see clamour for their release dates and suggestions on small imperfections as people enjoying their product and enthusiastically embracing it as that is the way it comes across to this neutral reader rather than any pettiness or nastiness. Could people be more diplomatic and understanding or offer constructive criticism in a more considered manner? Sure, and I get it, it's your baby and you are rightly proud of it but not everybody can appreciate what goes into development or how difficult to overcome some technical problems can be or be a diplomat and wordsmith. I'm sure you will be rewarded for all your hard work with bountiful praise and ultimately deserved profits in due course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g0emf Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 Just remember, No profit No Business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flsm (Frank) Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 1 hour ago, John Venema said: I think people have set their expectations too high. This is a £30 addon covering a huge area and we see complaints about misaligned bridges? Consider other products you may have purchased that cover maybe 30km2. We understand there may be shortcomings but please put things into context before you critique too deeply. We are releasing an SP1 next week which has cost us a six figure sum to produce. In other words: we still have not made a profit from TE GB. Please consider that for a moment before you brandish the knives. John, I fly for real, been simming for ages, was an engineer, ran a business, worked for the government, appreciate the complexities of IT and that there are pros and cons to everything, ran a successful business, learnt patience, etc ....... so let me tell you that orbx is doing a great job. I was previously a bit anti payware until orbx came to XP. I take every opportunity to say positive things about orbx on other forums. People only need to point out any cons politely and constructively and orbx will look at them. I think your ocassional explanations about how orbx does things, the technology, the costs etc are very useful to calm down the “knife brandishers”. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinfirth Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 2 hours ago, John Venema said: I think people have set their expectations too high. This is a £30 addon covering a huge area and we see complaints about misaligned bridges? Consider other products you may have purchased that cover maybe 30km2. We understand there may be shortcomings but please put things into context before you critique too deeply. We are releasing an SP1 next week which has cost us a six figure sum to produce. In other words: we still have not made a profit from TE GB. Please consider that for a moment before you brandish the knives. Just trying to add a little constructive commentary in areas that I know a little about and I thought there may be an easy win for further improvement :) Im certainly not brandishing any knives John, and I have been careful to make clear my constructive criticism has been well balanced with praise for many other aspects. (to pick an obvious one the colour corrected PR itself is worth the scenery cost alone!) I made sure I flew the scenery for some time before even making a comment. I'm confident that all the extrusion bridges for example dont exhibit the same characteristics. Some have traffic that go over them, others dont. That suggests to me that perhaps its not too difficult to do at this price point (separate debate but I think its actually too cheap!), but is a matter of process and or data? I have an idea for a separate solution as well but I want to be able to test it before making an idiot of myself... I'm always going to try to niggle you for a little bit more detail, no apologies for that, but I also fully understand I'm not entirely representative of your average userbase. :) Thanks for listening, cheers K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CalypteAviation Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 On 11/6/2018 at 2:51 PM, John Venema said: As a sneak preview of TE GB Central, here's the view of Liverpool from Bidston Hill, comparing a real-life photo to TrueEarth. I like your trees better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Low Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 Quote We're going to have to wait til next year I think Chris... I really, really hope that you are way off the mark with that comment, Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byron Farrow Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 On 3/9/2019 at 12:55 AM, matabhaine said: Is there someplace where I can point out certain discrepancies with TE scenery; I am not wishing to complain or anything, just when I see POI objects with the wrong orientation, or a dozen wind turbines placed in the north sea I thought it would be conducive to inform ORBX about it. The dedicated POI forum or the support forum would be best. And there are many dozens of wind turbines in the North Sea in real life! But they should be in the correct places. Let us know if not. Cheers, Byron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aeroflux Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 ...while we wait …and talking about points of interest ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matabhaine Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 My comment was not intented to pick fault with TE North. I just thought ORBX would like to know when a POI object is facing the wrong way. I did not even realise at first that the object was the Inverness Museum because of its west facing orientation. I was wrong about the wind turbines, just looked into it after reading someones comment here, wind turbines in the North Sea, who'd have thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyger Posted March 11, 2019 Share Posted March 11, 2019 I'm sure I saw something somewhere stipulating a release for TEGB South (XP11) today? I know i did...................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted March 11, 2019 Author Share Posted March 11, 2019 Features list and preview today: Release in the next day or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aeroflux Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 20 hours ago, John Venema said: Features list and preview today: Release in the next day or so. O Great...thought was on Friday ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aeroflux Posted March 13, 2019 Share Posted March 13, 2019 On 3/11/2019 at 2:59 PM, John Venema said: Features list and preview today: Release in the next day or so. ...So where is it then ? :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g0emf Posted March 13, 2019 Share Posted March 13, 2019 2 hours ago, Aeroflux said: ...So where is it then ? :-) Might be Thursday or Friday, not long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Merowinger Posted March 13, 2019 Share Posted March 13, 2019 Probably a stupid question: this SP is for XPlane or P3D4? Soemtimes it would be better to separate informations for products which came out for more than one platform. Kai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtrjones Posted March 13, 2019 Share Posted March 13, 2019 12 minutes ago, KaiUweWeiss said: Probably a stupid question: this SP is for XPlane or P3D4? Soemtimes it would be better to separate informations for products which came out for more than one platform. Kai No idea... TE GB South XP11 SP1 - List of features and improvements (FYI at the time this thread started there was only XP11 TE GB South as P3D version hadn't been released) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtrjones Posted March 13, 2019 Share Posted March 13, 2019 4 hours ago, Aeroflux said: ...So where is it then ? :-) I'll be happy when it's released as well so I don't have to put up with these messages. It's ready when it's ready and we shouldn't be holding John and his team to any dates. If QA spot something dates can shift so lets just let them get on with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g0emf Posted March 13, 2019 Share Posted March 13, 2019 16 minutes ago, dtrjones said: I'll be happy when it's released as well so I don't have to put up with these messages. It's ready when it's ready and we shouldn't be holding John and his team to any dates. If QA spot something dates can shift so lets just let them get on with it. Agree Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Merowinger Posted March 13, 2019 Share Posted March 13, 2019 35 minutes ago, dtrjones said: (FYI at the time this thread started there was only XP11 TE GB South as P3D version hadn't been released) Yeah, I remembered that too. But after releasing the P3D-version and showing its bad performance an SP (with the ability to control the amount of objects e.g.) was announced too. That's why my question came up. Kai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtrjones Posted March 13, 2019 Share Posted March 13, 2019 2 minutes ago, KaiUweWeiss said: Yeah, I remembered that too. But after releasing the P3D-version and showing its bad performance an SP (with the ability to control the amount of objects e.g.) was announced too. That's why my question came up. Kai Cool Kai, well it looks like your post worked! I can't be sure when it happened but this post has a nice shiny xp11 tag! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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