Melbourne - I don't know what to say

[carlosqr]

Really, I don't know if crying, being sad, disappointed, angry or what. I just feel like when you are about to taste your icecream and it falls

 

I had so high expectations for this city. We waited months for it release then we waited more for it to be in the recent update and with all that excitement I went straight to it expexting something like Dubai, Adelaide, Sydney, Singapore or so but... I found this!

 

I know there is a lot of photogrammetry but it is so bad quality and so much that the great beautiful buildings are simple swallowed, like in London. Sorry about it but I needed to get this sensation out of me, This is a city we cannot show off in a video like any other you've made. I understand photogrammetry in on MSFS not on Orbx but I then think many key buildings need to be made to replace the photogrammetry. Even P3D looks better, I remember it!

 

I also find some issues neat Essedon (last pictures)

 

I don't intend to offend anybody is just that my eyes ache as I can not enjoy the beautiful buildings you made. I think that when you waited for something for so long with such anxiaty and you see this you get frustrated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are by Essedon

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading

 

Carlos

[BradB]

I know it's hot down under this time of year , but I had no idea .........

 

Give it time Carlos , everything will get sorted out .

[Adam Banks]

Maybe it's a server/bandwidth problem - and that the Asobo servers are currently under heavy load with WU7. It may just sort itself out later on.

 

One thing to try is to set a Data Rolling Cache - which could maybe take some load off scenery tiles downloads, so hopefully freeing up some bandwidth for the photogrammetry.

 

I'll give Melbourne a test flight to see what I see!

 

 

 

 

 

Looks fine here!

Edited February 1, 2022 by Adam Banks
Pics added

[Sniper31]

Carlos, I am seeing what Adam is seeing in his screenshots. No issues on my end either. 

 

Landon

[carlosqr]

Thank you Adam and Landon

I'll try the rolling cache stuff but I think Adam's scenry is default, I mean with no photogrametry enabled

You see the huge tower with a yellow something near the top in my last shot? You don't seem to have it

The color and texture of your scenery buildings seem all default to me, like off line I mean

 

I'll give it a seconf try tomorrow as it is 12:30 am here and got to be up at 7

 

Cheers and thank you again

 

Carlos

 

[Stillwater]

Crazy phenomenon to be seen here, looks like an "endtime movie", maybe the intro of a new Mad Max sequel?

 

I hope that things get sorted out for you Carlos, please let us know & learn.

[Adam Banks]

1 hour ago, carlosqr said:

I'll try the rolling cache stuff but I think Adam's scenry is default, I mean with no photogrametry enabled

You see the huge tower with a yellow something near the top in my last shot? You don't seem to have it

The color and texture of your scenery buildings seem all default to me, like off line I mean

 

 

 

I use the Google Map Tiles Replacement tool:

https://flightsim.to/file/19345/msfs-2020-google-map-replacement

 

As far as I could see, photogrammetry was working fine - but it was *not* the Bing version. I'll try another session without running the tool.

[Nick Cooper]

Hello Carlos,

photogrammetry is by Microsoft/Asobo.

If you are having trouble with it, this is not the place to post comments.

This is: Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

Orbx makes bespoke Points Of Interest which are scenery objects and do not melt.

You can read this from the horse's mouth:

Microsoft Flight Simulator Introduces World Update VII: Australia - Xbox Wire

[bernd1151]

Carlos, I just checked Melbourne. I see nothing of this. Mine looks like Adam's and Landon's. So maybe it is a server issue.

[adambar]

Looks good to me Carlos.

 

 

 

 

[Haggu]

I'm seeing a lot of autogen buildings in those screenshots. Did you guys download the 2GB+ file from the in game marketplace after running all the other updates? That update is needed to display the photogrammetry for the new Australian cities that were added in the update. You'd probably see what Carlos is seeing then. I only say that because I forgot that step when I first started playing after I thought I'd downloaded the entire update. But yeah, like Brad says, it'll get sorted I'm sure.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Haggu

[Haggu]

@carlosqrI loaded up my game and took a look at Melbourne myself. The handcrafted stuff looks amazing but I can confirm that the photogrammetry for Melbourne looks the same for me too in some parts. So you're not alone! To be fair, from high enough it does the job for now. But hopefully a landmarks pack will tidy up this stuff later :). 

 

Figured I'd attach a couple of screenshots to back you up

 

Melbourne 1

Melbourne 2

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Haggu

[JoseCFII]

12 hours ago, Adam Banks said:

Maybe it's a server/bandwidth problem - and that the Asobo servers are currently under heavy load with WU7. It may just sort itself out later on.

 

One thing to try is to set a Data Rolling Cache - which could maybe take some load off scenery tiles downloads, so hopefully freeing up some bandwidth for the photogrammetry.

 

I'll give Melbourne a test flight to see what I see!

 

Looks fine here!

Hi Adam,

 

What setting do you have for data rolling cache? I've seen some bad looking PG in the past and I want to avoid it if possible.

 

Thanks.

Jose

[Sniper31]

2 hours ago, Haggu said:

I'm seeing a lot of autogen buildings in those screenshots. Did you guys download the 2GB+ file from the in game marketplace after running all the other updates? That update is needed to display the photogrammetry for the new Australian cities that were added in the update. You'd probably see what Carlos is seeing then. I only say that because I forgot that step when I first started playing after I thought I'd downloaded the entire update. But yeah, like Brad says, it'll get sorted I'm sure.

I will double check to ensure that I did. I thought I downloaded all the extra stuff after the main WU download, but maybe not.

[Sniper31]

So, after going back and checking, I did have an additional update to install. Did that, took a flight around Melbourne with PG on, and although I do have some building imperfections, it's no where near as bad as Carlos' screenshots. Most features look pretty good actually. In case anyone wants to know, I am running a rolling cache of 32Gb, but not sure how much difference that makes with PG.

 

Landon

[JoseCFII]

2 hours ago, Sniper31 said:

So, after going back and checking, I did have an additional update to install. Did that, took a flight around Melbourne with PG on, and although I do have some building imperfections, it's no where near as bad as Carlos' screenshots. Most features look pretty good actually. In case anyone wants to know, I am running a rolling cache of 32Gb, but not sure how much difference that makes with PG.

 

Landon

Same here. I just set a 30 GIG rolling cache and my scenery still doesn't look like Adams. I also suffer from some melted PG buildings, but not as bad as OP.

[John Dow]

I'll have a look later but I seem to recall that the Melbourne scenery looked good without photogrammetry on, as most of the landmark buildings are modelled, and the generics in between are OK unless you are down low looking for a specific building.  And in my experience, when you do get down low and slow with PG on, you're mostly disappointed anyway.

[carlosqr]

Hi thank you all for having checked. I appreciate it

 

@Nick Cooper I understand but I did know Orbx made the POI, the city for Melbourne that is why I wrote here, being Orbx the creator

What I say is that the mix of photogrammetry and the handmade buildings doesn't look as good as in Frankfurt for example. as you can see in the images above.

I'll check the provided link, thanks

 

I am going to test with the PG on and without and will revert. Maybe I could have better luck today

 

Thanks

Carlos

Edited February 2, 2022 by carlosqr

[carlosqr]

Ok folks

I got it all solved

 

This is Melbourne with PG off

So it does look nice, like Adam's and Landon's

 

 

This is with the PG ON

The beautiful buildings are hardly seen

 

 

Another angle

 

Off

 

And on

 

Last

 

 

 

 

Now the thing is that I expected the mix of both to look as well combined as in Frankfurt

PG might not be the best but both combine nicely to the eye, acceptable

If one like PG

 

 

Specially if you compare to the PG off

 

 

But the conclusion is the following

I had very high expectations for the city, I expected a city pack like Sydney or so, lost of elements like shown below, but the thing is that there is no cityscape but just a few buildings/landmarks as Nick stated, that is why when the PG is on they are hardly seen

So, it's my fault for having expected a different product. Apologies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you

Cheers

Carlos

 

 

Edited February 2, 2022 by carlosqr

[Adam Banks]

Aaaaah! You never said you were using the Orbx Melbourne City Pack!!!! No wonder mine looks different to yours (as I don't have it).

[carlosqr]

Hi Adam

That is exactly the issue, there is no such thing as a Melbourne City pack or cityscene.

I assumed that Melbourne will be a cityscene in this update as Frankfurt was for the WU VI I think it was.

Having a cistyscene will reduce the amount of photogrammetry and will cause a better blend between both but this is not the case

They just did a few buildings, some POI not the city. I was expecting the city pack and that was why I was surprised.

 

Maybe some year they might do a proper Melbourne cityscene.

 

Thanks for your concern

 

Cheers

Carlos

Edited February 3, 2022 by carlosqr

[John Dow]

I tested the Melbourne scenery last night.  With Photogrammetry on I took off from Essendon in the Optica and flew at 1200' over and around the city.  The mix of PG buildings and the Orbx modelled buildings gave an excellent representation of the city.  I saw a couple of melted structures, the most obvious being the crane in the middle of the CBD, but all the important buildings were the modelled version, and PG filled in the gaps.

 

If your PG is very bad you might have a bandwidth issue, and also don't expect to fly at a lower than legal altitude of 1000' plus, because the scenery is designed as a background to a flight, not an architectural representation of the city.

 

If I get the chance I'll grab a couple of screenshots tonight and add them to this post.

 

[Adam Banks]

That's pretty well what I'm seeing, John.

 

Also - my original screenshots are totally wrong - as I hadn't enabled WU7 from Marketplace. I had thought the original mega-download would have enabled it by default. I wonder how many other people got caught out by that one, LOL! I don't remember needing to have to do that extra step in the past.

 

I'll post some updated shots soon, I hope.

[Stillwater]

For a non-MSFS-user like me this is an interesting report of observations, especially with the screenshots.

To me it seems to have the best details with PG active, but it does not work properly. And It might be the bandwith (that one can not change easily) or the hope for a future update (which would mean my hesitation is good).

In addition, it seems the Melbourne City Pack by Orbx was the best replication, but does not yet work with the new WU7? That would also mean waiting is the key.

My understandings may be wrong, do not hesitate to correct them. I´ll keep on reading...

[Adam Banks]

Well (Nick?) .. I think we can safely put this one to bed now ... IMHO I don't think it's anything whatsoever to do with Orbx - or the Orbx Wu7 AUS addon.

 

Here's what I think to be a quite reasonable/acceptable PG view (at around 2,000ft):

 

Zoomed in, we can see PG at its worst - but, as Jon has already pointed out, it's not really designed to be looked at this close:

 

If you don't get bandwidth issues, you should see views like this:

 

 

 

Without PG, that canopy of the railway station is totally flat. With PG, it's quite an improvement, IMHO.

 

Diversion over - I'm off to explore Sydney!!!!

 

[JoseCFII]

That's always how its been done. After every WU, the user need to go into the marketplace and buy (free) the updated area and download.

 

BTW, that's how my pics appear on my screen. Some melted objects. Thankfully it has nothing to do with my internet or setup.

 

MSFS PG can and eventually will improve.

[DModjo]

I turn photogrammetry off as well. Unfortunately my 50mbps connection struggles to keep up and I prefer to see actual structures rather than obscure polygons.

 

However even with photogrammetry off the buildings look very well represented in shape, size and color. When upping the terrain LOD everything is very crisp. The algorithm works very well.

Edited February 3, 2022 by DModjo

[carlosqr]

19 hours ago, John Dow said:

also don't expect to fly at a lower than legal altitude of 1000' plus, because the scenery is designed as a background to a flight, not an architectural representation of the city.

Actually yes, I was with the drone very low as I like to take shots of the cities very close, but in this case I understand now it is designed as a background to a flight, thanks for that.

 

How do you test the bandwith? I have 200 mgb internet speed and I thought I should not have problems related to internet with that speed

 

Thank you John

 

 

[carlosqr]

11 hours ago, JoseCFII said:

That's always how its been done. After every WU, the user need to go into the marketplace and buy (free) the updated area and download.

 

BTW, that's how my pics appear on my screen. Some melted objects. Thankfully it has nothing to do with my internet or setup.

 

MSFS PG can and eventually will improve.

Or someday Orbx could do the cityscene and not just a few POI to look more to the roadmap shots, that would be even better

Cheers

Carlos

[johnobono]

I'm also not a big fan of PG as the melted building look is just another immersion killer for me.

 

I do however understand it may be perfectly suitable for some (inc if you are maintaining proper heights & flight paths etc at all times or if you don't want to pay for city packs).

 

In some locations though, you do get a bit closer to building on approaches / takeoffs so you may notice it (i.e landing 16L/R into YSSY)

 

Performance of PG appears dependent on a number of factors & bandwidth to your ISP alone is not the only factor (as Carlos clearly has a large enough connection). I think distance/ping time to the nearest MS server, the performance of the server itself & in some Internet providers cases - application/server specific data bandwidth throttling.

I suspect my ISP is doing this & I would often get insufficent bandwitth errors in MSFS for PG & Bingmaps data even though I have a 100mb connection & it would speed test as such. As soon as I started using a VPN the errors stopped. Turn the VPN off & the errors started happening again.

 

I still think there's a market for citypacks/scenes & these are some of my favourite releases from Orbx (& I own all of them).

They really add realism (with no melted buildings), let you get up close to explore VFR (inc in a non real world way ; ) & don't have a bandwidth dependency.

 

I hope these still play a part in Orbx's product mix & hope to see future releases for more Australian cities & others around the world.

 

Cheers.