NOTED Problems in Dorset - EU Eng

[Grumpyrocker]

Was very excited to install EU Eng this morning, but to be honest I'm a little disappointed. Just flying around the area where I live I've noticed some errors.

This first image is the village of Broadwindsor, where I live. It's fabulous it is finally represented in Flight Sim as it does not appear in UTX Europe or the stock FSX scenery. However as you might guess taking a quick look at the image, the autogen hasn't been placed correctly. You can see the detailed roads - including the little one way system loop - but the buildings of the village seem to be heading off on a visit to Yeovil. The autogen should be located around those roads with the loop at the centre of the village.

Just down the road from the small village of Broadwindsor is the town of Beaminster. It's quite a bit larger than Broadwindsor. But here it hardly exists at all. Here's the image of Beaminster - the town is mostly missing. There should be many more autogen buildings here.

.

Heading to the coast from Beaminster one meets the larger town of Bridport which is well represented in EU Eng. However as one reaches the coast we arrive at the small town of Westbay. This is another location neglected by Ultimate Terrain and the stock scenery. Here in EU ENG there is some improvement, some boats have been added. But again the town itself, which surrounds the harbour - is missing.

This coastal area is known as The Jurrassic Coast and is a World Heritage Site. The cliffs along this part of the coast are famous. And it's a shame they aren't represented. Here's a shot from Burton Bradstock just east of Westbay. You can see the cliffs aren't represented, nor does the town extend towards the seas as it does in the real world.

Perhaps I'm being nitpicky. But having been delighted to see my village finally appear in FSX I felt a little disappointing that the good work of adding the autogen to create the village, and the work to make the roads accurate, didn't meet up at some point and make sure both were in the same place. Similarly the almost missing town of Beaminster, which is much larger than my village but almost missing compared to the little place I live.

EU Eng is clearly gorgeous. I was very impressed with the detail and accuracy as I took off from Westland in Yeovil and followed the roads to Broadwindsor. It was only once I arrived in that area, and noticed missing places like Westbay, Beaminster, Misterton etc that I became disappointed. I'm sure these are only small fixes though and easily solved.

[Andrew 737]

Perhaps I'm being nitpicky. But having been delighted to see my village finally appear in FSX I felt a little disappointing that the good work of adding the autogen to create the village, and the work to make the roads accurate, didn't meet up at some point and make sure both were in the same place. Similarly the almost missing town of Beaminster, which is much larger than my village but almost missing compared to the little place I live.

EU Eng is clearly gorgeous. I was very impressed with the detail and accuracy as I took off from Westland in Yeovil and followed the roads to Broadwindsor. It was only once I arrived in that area, and noticed missing places like Westbay, Beaminster, Misterton etc that I became disappointed. I'm sure these are only small fixes though and easily solved.

I don't think you are nitpicking at all, I like you am buying EU England so I can do VFR flights - I have horizon scenery (v3) and IMHO (and only in IMHO) it is awful.

I am about to buy my copy of England now. Whilst I had high hopes this sort of thing was not going to be a problem I do so hope ORBX intend to patch England at some point soon. Hopefully over the coming months there will be a patch and it will be all we hoped for )

I would pay double without a second thought if this sort of thing was guaranteed to be fixed.

Kind Regards

Andrew

[Sinamuab]

Perhaps I'm being nitpicky.

Yes you are. we all know how our neck of the woods should be like, and are keen to see it 'just so'.

But you have to appreciate that FTX EU is covering Over 130,410 sq km of terrain and it is just not possible to recreate that amount of terrain

as accurately as you would like. Think of it as a representation of the real world and enjoy it for what it is.

[Andrew 737]

Yes you are. we all know how our neck of the woods should be like, and are keen to see it 'just so'.

But you have to appreciate that FTX EU is covering Over 130,410 sq km of terrain and it is just not possible to recreate that amount of terrain

as accurately as you would like. Think of it as a representation of the real world and enjoy it for what it is.

Do you think this is the best we are going to get then?

I sincerely hope not - I think I will hold off for now in the hope ORBX announce they will patch the places we are not satisfied with. I wanted to practice real world nav's before actually flying them and with inaccuracies like that I am not sure if it will be of any help to me.

Regards

Andrew

[Grumpyrocker]

Yes you are. we all know how our neck of the woods should be like, and are keen to see it 'just so'.

But you have to appreciate that FTX EU is covering Over 130,410 sq km of terrain and it is just not possible to recreate that amount of terrain

as accurately as you would like. Think of it as a representation of the real world and enjoy it for what it is.

Hold on a second. I'm explaining that there are inconsistencies I know very well the limits of Flight Sim scenery. But when ORBx has actually gone to the trouble of (1) placing my village autogen into the sim (2) placing the roads of my village into the sim - do you not think it might be worth mentioning that both have not been put into the same place? Or that my small village is included, but the larger town down the road is almost none-existent? Meanwhile up the road Misterton (which is larger than my village) is missing completely. These are not limitations of the sim, nor of the detail one normally sees in ORBx products. And are also the kind of small errors I'd expect that ORBx would like to hear about and can be easily fixed in the next update.

I'm not actually from Dorset. I'm from Manchester. And I've also lived in Lancaster, North and West London, Essex and Morecambe. I just been looking around at the Morecambe Bay area in the game, and also around the South Manchester/Stockport area too. Both are very well represented and I've no issues there. But I didn't think it was worth starting a thread on saying "yes that bit of road in Stockport is right, so's that bit, that bit is right too". As far as I can tell from my first flights much of the scenery is spot on. But my issue is with some areas where there are errors.

This isn't a case of "just so".- what if everyone who bought this saw such errors in their local area? Wouldn't the result be a product that showed no accuracy anywhere? Perhaps you have lots of money to fling around at products that aren't up to scratch. But I think that it's worth getting value for money and also helping products improve.

[Paul Webster]

This isn't photoreal scenery so you won't see every house/street as in real life, we have tried to place towns/villages everywhere (or as close as possible) to there correct location and yes if you know the area you will find errors. Due to the way we place villages they don't always scale correctly (small or big).but i will note these down to be looked at.

The road network should be correct for all Motorways and major A roads (plus others).

Paul

[Grumpyrocker]

Thanks Paul, reply much appreciated.

I know it's not photoscenery (horrid stuff!). I didn't complain that our road or house wasn't on there .

More the difference between where the village is road wise, and that the buildings are not in the same location. I appreciate that these things may not necessarily always come together. But given much of the scenery I've looked at so far is correct in that regard I thought it was worth mentioning.

[Andrew 737]

This isn't photoreal scenery so you won't see every house/street as in real life

I completely understand this and was not expecting to see every house, just the towns and villages roughly the right shape and size without any missing; the roads and rail lines and any lakes and waterways - Paul please can you tell me if I am expecting too much?

I new there were going to be errors, that's just the nature of the beast, I am happy to be an 'alpha tester' in the safe knowledge that as Grumpy Rocker quite rightly pointed out some errors could actually be corrected. How else can the product be patched to perfection?

[Keith Lewis]

Any comments that can help us improve our work and make for a better product, are warmley welcome. thanks

[Andrew 737]

Any comments that can help us improve our work and make for a better product, are warmley welcome. thanks

Awesome - bought and downloaded

[Grumpyrocker]

While I'm talking about my local area some praise. Great to see the detail of the large radio antenna's on the A356 between Beaminster and Maiden Newton shown. Really surprised to see them. (though Maiden Newton itself seems to be missing).

Also good is that the new Weymouth relief road is in the scenery despite not being there that long. Dorchester is well represented. And am surprised and glad to see Charlton Down (a few miles north of Dorchester) appear because (1) it's a pretty new development (2) Until last year I lived there.

Interestingly EU ENG does something that UTX Europe does too in that the world famous Chesil Beach is represented as the same farmland as the mainland scenery - in fact it's a shingle barrier beach separate from the coastline. I've a feeling this is related to the size of landclass squares and the only way round it might be to have a bespoke texture for the feature.

[Sinamuab]

This isn't a case of "just so".- what if everyone who bought this saw such errors in their local area? Wouldn't the result be a product that showed no accuracy anywhere? Perhaps you have lots of money to fling around at products that aren't up to scratch. But I think that it's worth getting value for money and also helping products improve.

Harry,

I was trying to strike a balance for peoples expectations, whereas ORBX has improved over basic FSX a thousand fold, it is bound to have some errors

here and there.Your comments are of course valid and I hope that they will be reflected in a future patch.

Best regards,

[John Dow]

My two cents worth from years ago when I was fiddling with landclass... the default landclass tile in MSFS is a 1km square, which can be urban, partly urban, forest, woodland, open field, moor etc. The developer must choose a tile from a range of possibilities, but without manually tweaking the tile boundaries and annotating scenery in a labour intensive process, the entire square km has to be the one type of landclass. My attempts in FS2000 or FS2002 to patch the area around my city took me weeks and only ever ended up as a rough approximation, often with a choice of a large village 1km square or no village at all.

Google tells me that England comprises 130,395 sq km. That's 130,395 individual landclass tiles that had to be converted from the MS default to the ORBX standard. I believe the dev teams get a helping hand from publicly available GIS data for general landclass types and the position of roads, railways etc that can set up a basic template from which the individual tweaks can start to be applied.

From what I've seen, the dev team must have put in an enormous amount of work making sure that geographical features were modelled as well as the MSFS landclass engine allows without having to annotate each and every sq km in England, a task that would be impossible without a team of hundreds of developers.

Take my local city, Canberra, as an example. Maurizio has been working on the Cityscape project for nearly four years to render an area of approximately 187 sq km to the kind of precision that would be needed to have every village and hamlet (with their attendant roads and rural features) in England modelled reasonably accurately.

Hope this helps you understand why, with the limitations of the MSFS landclass model, it's not feasible to expect that every little detail will be modelled to the kind of precision that a local inhabitant will not be able to find errors in.

[John Venema]

We always welcome critique from customers especially if they take the trouble to show us screenshots of things that are missing. Since we founded the company we have always quickly released many patches and service packs for our regions and a good many improvements to them have come from customers posting inconsistencies like these on our forums.

So I guess I am saying keep posting these reports and we'll do our best to make ENG a lot better with each patch.

In terms of a post-release patch we are already planning to release one within the next two weeks to fix missing roads traffic and some last minute bugs we found.

[Grumpyrocker]

Harry,

I was trying to strike a balance for peoples expectations, whereas ORBX has improved over basic FSX a thousand fold, it is bound to have some errors

here and there.Your comments are of course valid and I hope that they will be reflected in a future patch.

Best regards,

Fair enough.

My two cents worth from years ago when I was fiddling with landclass... the default landclass tile in MSFS is a 1km square, which can be urban, partly urban, forest, woodland, open field, moor etc. The developer must choose a tile from a range of possibilities, but without manually tweaking the tile boundaries and annotating scenery in a labour intensive process, the entire square km has to be the one type of landclass. My attempts in FS2000 or FS2002 to patch the area around my city took me weeks and only ever ended up as a rough approximation, often with a choice of a large village 1km square or no village at all.

Google tells me that England comprises 130,395 sq km. That's 130,395 individual landclass tiles that had to be converted from the MS default to the ORBX standard. I believe the dev teams get a helping hand from publicly available GIS data for general landclass types and the position of roads, railways etc that can set up a basic template from which the individual tweaks can start to be applied.

From what I've seen, the dev team must have put in an enormous amount of work making sure that geographical features were modelled as well as the MSFS landclass engine allows without having to annotate each and every sq km in England, a task that would be impossible without a team of hundreds of developers.

Take my local city, Canberra, as an example. Maurizio has been working on the Cityscape project for nearly four years to render an area of approximately 187 sq km to the kind of precision that would be needed to have every village and hamlet (with their attendant roads and rural features) in England modelled reasonably accurately.

Hope this helps you understand why, with the limitations of the MSFS landclass model, it's not feasible to expect that every little detail will be modelled to the kind of precision that a local inhabitant will not be able to find errors in.

Completely agree. Which is why I'm helping along with screenshots rather than moaning on Twitter or AVSim.

[Mark Abdey]

Interestingly EU ENG does something that UTX Europe does too in that the world famous Chesil Beach is represented as the same farmland as the mainland scenery - in fact it's a shingle barrier beach separate from the coastline. I've a feeling this is related to the size of landclass squares and the only way round it might be to have a bespoke texture for the feature.

I see Chesil Beach as it should be, a beach, and not farmland... see screen shot.

Do you not see it like this?.

[Grumpyrocker]

No I don't. I see trees and farms and the like on it.

[Mark Abdey]

No I don't. I see trees and farms and the like on it.

Obviously that is not correct... I don't have the knowledge to offer support, but can only say the version of EU ENG I'm running, which was the RTM version, is clearly correct in this area, and that should be the same as the one you downloaded.... could another product be causing a conflict here [you mention using UTX]?

[Grumpyrocker]

I'll check it out. I thought I had UTX disabled. Will report back following more checks. Perhaps this could also be the source of some other thing I mentioned earlier in the thread.

[Grumpyrocker]

Just tried deselecting every bit of addon scenery in my library other than EU Eng. I still see an incorrect Chesil Beach.

[Mark Abdey]

I just checked with a different season... 'Fall' month '10' to match yours [just in case], and still see the beach as it should be, and certainly nothing like your image.

Sorry I can't be of further help.

[Paul Webster]

ok do you have any addons that affect the water?

I have checked and the beach should be there, can you check the date modified on the following file please

"YOUR-FSX-FOLDER\ORBX\FTX_EU\FTX_EU_ENG_06_CVX\scenery\cvx_FTX_EU_ENG_water_4714.BGL"

Paul

[Grumpyrocker]

13/11/2012

I do have a couple of water related programs - FS Water Configurator and Real Environment Extreme.

[Grumpyrocker]

Back to my original issue of misaligned road and landclass in Dorset/Devon/Somerset. Seems it is quite widespread. Down the road from Broadwindsor is Drimpton, then Winsham. Winsham is shown below. The village size is right. But it should start along the tip of the arrow I've added.

Now below is the same area using UTX Europe and SceneryTech Landclass. As you can see the village of Winsham is actually more correctly placed along the road - though it should extend a little more to the arrow.

The FTX scenery has the shape and size of the village mostly correct. The problem is it is in the wrong place. While someone suggested earlier one could be nitpicking about a place close to home, I'm finding much of Dorset shows exactly the same error. It seems someone did a good job of creating the roads - these are pretty accurate. And someone else did a pretty good job of the landclass (with a few problems with villages missing/wrong size). But there's been a dramatic error in lining these two systems up. Rather than just a small local issue it seems like a pretty widespread error around this part of the country.

[Grumpyrocker]

Sorry to bump my own thread again. But I've been looking more into this mismatch of roads and urban landclass again. Of course what I hadn't checked first time around was which of the two was wrong in relation to the actual terrain mesh. My suspicion - given the roads seem rather accurate and the urban landclass is often missing or the wrong size - was the roads were probably in the correct place.

Investigation this morning has borne this out. I've taken some very low level ultralight flights around many locations I know well (an area covering over a hundred square miles before some cry "nitpicking") following the roads. The roads are very well placed into the terrain mesh and so very familiar. And this showed even more how inaccurate the urban landclass placement is in this part of the country. With villages appearing on hills where they actually sit in the valley below along the road. Am really surprised this stuff wasn't picked up in development or testing, because it is widespread in this part of EU Eng. I'm rather disappointed, back to UTX for now.

[Adam Banks]

I'd like to add my 2c worth here - seeing as the devs have said comments warmly appreciated (!!).

Whilst I agree that it's unrealistic to see every house or airfield depicted, my problems are with insane autogen - and one that shouldn't be too difficult to correct.

1) The are many *clearly designated* areas of England that are National Parks, National Trust land etc. - where building is strictly controlled (or non-existent). In some quick flits around Yorkshire and Gloucestershire (both areas I know relatively well) I see buildings scattered all over the landscape - even a whole village on top of Ingleborough. I haven't tried the Peak District, but have seen screenshots of the Lake District (which looks good!). Someone just needs to look at a map of the larger National Trust areas and do a quick check on the autogen in them.

2) As with most countries, England has very specific architectural styles. I see no stock Gothic cathedrals anywhere (other than the hand-made York Minster) yet default France is littered with them. Worse still, NZNI (which has no cathedrals in reality) has them peppered all over the place - more common than filling stations! Yet in England ... where these buildings are such classic landmarks ... hardly any. Aren't they a stock FSX object?

Sorry, Grumpy ... for being maybe slightly off-topic ... but I do agree with what you say!

[retep49]

13/11/2012

I do have a couple of water related programs - FS Water Configurator and Real Environment Extreme.

I also have FS Water Configurator and REX 2 Overdrive and this is what I see.

Peter

[rockliffe]

Mmm, it's late at night and I've just been flying around in my local area, I am also aware a couple of local villages that are simply not present, and the village of blagdon which is nestled by the side of Blagdon lake and not a mile away where it should be.

[Andy H]

Sorry to bring this up again, but I'm having exactly the same issue as Grumpyrocker with Chesil Beach. Post-patch (thank you very much - I appreciate the work that went into it) . I've checked and the water BGL mentioned above is installed - modified 13/11/2012. Any further ideas, chaps?

A bit of a downer seeing how it should look from screenies posted, and hopeful a solution is at hand.

[Andy H]

Anyone?

[Paul Webster]

Hi,

Starting your own topic rather than adding to an old one would of got noticed a lot quicker and stops any confusion.

1. Did you see the beach properly before the patch?

2. what other addons are you using?

Paul

[Adam Banks]

Starting your own topic rather than adding to an old one would of got noticed a lot quicker and stops any confusion.

Paul, I hate to be picky ... but not all of us get notified of ALL the new threads that pop up on the board (whereas you as a developer probably do). Once we've contributed to a topic, we'll almost certainly get reply/notifications.

As a case in point - I'm interested in exactly this sort of problem and rely on notifications to it. There's no way I'd have known a post on a similar subject had been made.

Adam.

@Andy - I'll switch to the UK and see what my Chesil Beach looks like.

[Adam Banks]

OK ... here we go ...

Looks like you have a stuff up somewhere, Andy

That said, I think the texture for beaches used throughout FTX/ENG is a very strange colour. We have wonderful beaches here in NZ (quite well portrayed in NZSI/NZNI) but there definitely are sandy beaches in the UK (or there were, last time I was there!). Have UK beaches gone all slimy and green?

Credit where credit's due (England being a mammoth task!) ... but I find FTX/ENG very "patchy" in quality. Some areas seem fine, whilst others really seem to lack the same attention to detail. For instance, the big yellow "blob" below totally destroys the effect for me. It's plainly unrealistic and very ugly.

Looks like we have some sand around the pier <??> ... shouldn't the beach be the same colour?

Adam.

P.S. I use FTX/ENG (patched) + REXE/OD + FEX and have no other add-ons (Water Configurator or whatever) that may affect secenery.

[Andy H]

Hi,

Starting your own topic rather than adding to an old one would of got noticed a lot quicker and stops any confusion.

1. Did you see the beach properly before the patch?

2. what other addons are you using?

Paul

Hi Paul, thanks for reply, I've never seen the beach properly. As for add-ons, I'm using REX + OD and a few (de-activated) airfields (UK 2000 Portland demo, JF Denham & White Waltham, Duxford + airshow add-on), That's it, scenery wise. I've recently uninstalled and reinstalled FSX itself.

Hi Adam - thanks for comparison. I'm with you on the 'mammoth task' and appreciate the work that's gone into England. I'm not expecting to see every house, wall and garden, but Portland could do with a tweak - those blob quarries for starters. I know, I know...if the dev's spent all thier time geting it to look right for the locals, they'd never release anything.

[Adam Banks]

As for add-ons, I'm using REX + OD and a few (de-activated) airfields (UK 2000 Portland demo, JF Denham & White Waltham, Duxford + airshow add-on), That's it, scenery wise. I've recently uninstalled and reinstalled FSX itself.

Hmmm ... the UK2000 Portland demo ... could be a likely suspect! Try totally uninstalling them, then re-installing FTX/ENG (plus patch). Then if all is OK, re-install those 3 add-ons and see what happens!

Fingers crossed!

Adam.

[Paul Webster]

Paul, I hate to be picky ... but not all of us get notified of ALL the new threads that pop up on the board (whereas you as a developer probably do). Once we've contributed to a topic, we'll almost certainly get reply/notifications.

As a case in point - I'm interested in exactly this sort of problem and rely on notifications to it. There's no way I'd have known a post on a similar subject had been made.

I get the same notification as you, i just have to keep checking the board which is why adding your problem to somebody else gets missed sometime.

That said, I think the texture for beaches used throughout FTX/ENG is a very strange colour. We have wonderful beaches here in NZ (quite well portrayed in NZSI/NZNI) but there definitely are sandy beaches in the UK (or there were, last time I was there!). Have UK beaches gone all slimy and green?

Credit where credit's due (England being a mammoth task!) ... but I find FTX/ENG very "patchy" in quality. Some areas seem fine, whilst others really seem to lack the same attention to detail. For instance, the big yellow "blob" below totally destroys the effect for me. It's plainly unrealistic and very ugly.

The beach texture we used is the same as used in NZ, yes we have sandy beaches but we all have a lot that are shingle beaches.

Now the so called "yellow blob" which is a chalk mine (which doesn't look yellow to me) what would you suggest we do to it?

Hi Paul, thanks for reply, I've never seen the beach properly. As for add-ons, I'm using REX + OD and a few (de-activated) airfields (UK 2000 Portland demo, JF Denham & White Waltham, Duxford + airshow add-on), That's it, scenery wise. I've recently uninstalled and reinstalled FSX itself.

Hi Adam - thanks for comparison. I'm with you on the 'mammoth task' and appreciate the work that's gone into England. I'm not expecting to see every house, wall and garden, but Portland could do with a tweak - those blob quarries for starters. I know, I know...if the dev's spent all thier time geting it to look right for the locals, they'd never release anything.

My guess would be that the UK2000 portland demo is the problem try deactivating/remove it and check again.

As for the "blob quarries" what would you suggest?

Paul

[Adam Banks]

The beach texture we used is the same as used in NZ, yes we have sandy beaches but we all have a lot that are shingle beaches.

Now the so called "yellow blob" which is a chalk mine (which doesn't look yellow to me) what would you suggest we do to it?

As for the "blob quarries" what would you suggest?

I agree there are a lot of shingle beaches (probably the majority). Is it possible to use different textures - one for sandy and one for shingle? I'll compare my NZ beaches, but in my mind's eye I'm sure they're yellower/whiter.

As for those quarries ... ahem <!!> ... I'd say nuke 'em . I'd be interested to see a screenshot of the same quarries from your system, as mine are definitely on the lurid side - and I'm pretty anal about GFX card and monitor calibration (I'm an ex-graphic designer). Any way to tone done/blend those edges at all? To me, they look like custard pies from hell.

Do you agree that they look pretty horrific, or do you think they're acceptable?

Adam.

[Paul Webster]

I agree there are a lot of shingle beaches (probably the majority). Is it possible to use different textures - one for sandy and one for shingle? I'll compare my NZ beaches, but in my mind's eye I'm sure they're yellower/whiter.

As for those quarries ... ahem <!!> ... I'd say nuke 'em . I'd be interested to see a screenshot of the same quarries from your system, as mine are definitely on the lurid side - and I'm pretty anal about GFX card and monitor calibration (I'm an ex-graphic designer). Any way to tone done/blend those edges at all? To me, they look like custard pies from hell.

Do you agree that they look pretty horrific, or do you think they're acceptable?

Adam.

Hi

we do use 2 types of beach.

As for the quarries i can't nuke 'em as people want them in. Unfortunately the way we place them means you get them edges.

I think they are acceptable but we will listen to any suggestions on improvements.

Paul

[Andy H]

Removed Portland scenery, reinstalled Orbx England + patch.

Has made no difference, whatever the season...

As for better quarry textures, I had something like this in mind.

How possible it would be to implement something approaching this texture-wise....I don't know.

[Adam Banks]

Drat, Paul ... another idea up the spout! Just a thought ... but you did have Europe selected when you did the update? Perhaps an ORBX dev could pinpoint the actual tiles used and you could compare filesize/dates <??>. Maybe some previous install of a UK2000 scenery overwrote some base FSX textures.

No disrespect, Paul ... but if you think the current ones are acceptable, then I'm seriously worried!