ANSWERED Repeating Textures / LCs in AU blue

[Stillwater]

Hi there,

 

I found some repeating structures around Mildura - repeating in a very obvious way:

 

 

Is there any chance to change it, or will this be better dealt with in the next patch?

[petfy]

Just flew north of Mildura and seeing repeating textures also. I have AUSP4 and Global.

 

I note that AU regions don't entirely cover the land and leave portions of the default textures showing through. I presume this is what is happening here. I for one are thankful that it is the Global textures being seen and not the default FSX ones.

 

It sounds as if Open LC, when released, will remedy this to some extent, but the Oceania LC is about 2 years away.

[Stillwater]

Thanks for your cross-check, Petfy. However, i would always expect a "full-fat" region like AU blue presents more details than Global (even incl. LC & vectors).

[teecee]

Strange that you should mention this Stillwater.. I have noticed of late that I am once again seeing repeating textures.. mentioned it to a couple of mates on a MP flight just the other day. I wonder if one of the new releases (global or some other?) is causing this?.

Also I am seeing these tiles at reasonably low altitude, between 2 and 4 thousand feet.

I wondered if it was my system, as I am definately "mid range" but I know that yours is a "high end" system,so it's not that.

Sad because it was the one thing I was so  pleased to see in Orbx dedicated areas, no repeating tiles. Teecee.

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi guys,

 

actually, the very point of the landclass-based system of FSX is to repeat tiles instead of requiring TBs of data for each region. Given that each specific landuse class in FSX -- say a type of agricultural field -- only has a handful of distinct variants they are bound to visually repeat, especially in vast contiguous urban or agricultural areas seen in the screenshots above.

 

We are trying our best to minimize those visual issues when creating and placing our custom textures, by interspersing different classes, adding local detail in polygons, providing matching blendmasks, etc. but there's only so much one can do when the real-world landuse type is very uniform itself.

 

 

 

I note that AU regions don't entirely cover the land and leave portions of the default textures showing through.

 

That's definitely not the case as each of our regions covers 100% of its land surface with custom textures. If you believe you're seeing default textures somewhere please start a separate thread with screenshots and locations so we can verify whether you have a correct installation.

 

Cheers, Holger

[teecee]

Sorry Holger, I am a bit lost here.. are you saying that, basically, nothing has changed? because it definately has.. it may well be my fault, I don't know about that, but for a few years now I have not seen these repeating textures, and now I do.. Can you suggest (if this is my system causing this) what I can try to fix it?

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi Teecee,

 

assuming we're still talking about FTX Australia then, no, nothing has changed since SP4 other than converting to the FTX Global lighting system, which has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

 

If you're talking about flights outside of the FTX regions, with FTX Global installed, then you need to keep in mind that the Global textures rely on the default landclass placement files, which are much less diverse and accurate than the custom versions in our regions and thus tiling can indeed be quite pronounced. That's where the upcoming OpenLC products come in; see http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/61929-ftx-global-what-is-it-all-about/

 

Cheers, Holger

[teecee]

Thanks Holger.. I have only seen this anomoly a couple of times, always within the Orbx "world" and to be honest, I think I can live with it.. If I see another area where the problem is clear, I will post again here.. Again, thanks for your time. Teecee.

[Stillwater]

We are trying our best to minimize those visual issues when creating and placing our custom textures, by interspersing different classes, adding local detail in polygons, providing matching blendmasks, etc. but there's only so much one can do when the real-world landuse type is very uniform itself.

 

Cheers, Holger

Understood. So it is a problem of landscapes, that are very uniform in reality.

 

I do not know, how these are created in orbx, so I just suspect a bit:

- there is a number of textures available fo a given type of landclasses (in this case LC "boring farmland").

- usually, the variation of LC and therefore textures is sufficient, in order not to place many idetical tecture tiles next to each other

- in this huge plain area, we reach the situation that the same texture is requested more often than n times next to each other.

If this would be the situation, could there be a limit to n, so that in cases like these any other texture tile for the same LC type is chosen?

 

Maybe a stupid question. However, if there is nothing you can change, we will be able to survive...

[John Dow]

One thing you can do (not always possible if you're using real weather) is to set the visibility to 30km - 40km which is the realistic distance most of the time here in SE Australia.  

 

Have a good Christmas.

[petfy]

Hi Holger

 

There are "maps" present that show in the AU regions what orbx "full fat" land class has been substituted over the fsx default textures. These areas are lime green on the map(s). However, there are small areas that are not lime green, which I assume, are not orbx land class areas, and therefore must be default land classes. In the AU Gold user manual there is such a map on page 14 showing that there is a large patch of non orbx land class just west of Brisbane (as well as other smaller patches).

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi guys,

 

 

I do not know, how these are created in orbx, so I just suspect a bit:

- there is a number of textures available fo a given type of landclasses (in this case LC "boring farmland").

- usually, the variation of LC and therefore textures is sufficient, in order not to place many idetical tecture tiles next to each other

- in this huge plain area, we reach the situation that the same texture is requested more often than n times next to each other.

If this would be the situation, could there be a limit to n, so that in cases like these any other texture tile for the same LC type is chosen?

 

As mentioned above we do try to mix other classes into areas of uniform agricultural or urban landuse. However, we only have a limited number of textures available that have similar content and thus are suitable for any given location. FSX limits us to about 100 unique classes in an area. They need to represent all different natural and human land cover types meaning we generally only have about a dozen slots for agricultural classes. Those then need to represent all regional uses, such as large fields in grid patterns, irregular fields, vineyards, pastures, mixed crops, specialty crops, etc. In short, one very quickly runs out of options for allocating more than 2 slots for any given landuse type.

 

 

 

 

There are "maps" present that show in the AU regions what orbx "full fat" land class has been substituted over the fsx default textures. These areas are lime green on the map(s). However, there are small areas that are not lime green, which I assume, are not orbx land class areas, and therefore must be default land classes. In the AU Gold user manual there is such a map on page 14 showing that there is a large patch of non orbx land class just west of Brisbane (as well as other smaller patches).

 

Good observation, I can see how those maps can be misinterpreted that way. When we first start working on a region we cover the entire project area with a single class, usually the most common landuse or vegetation type. That has the advantage of making it obvious to our landclass team which areas they've completed already (rather than getting confused by a mix of their work and the underlying default landclass) but also that they will never have to manually place that particular "base" class, saving them thousands of mouse clicks. That base class gets merged with the manually placed classes at the end of the project so there's always 100% coverage. The maps are meant to depict the manually placed tiles, prior to merging in the base. 

 

Cheers, Holger

[Stillwater]

Hi guys,

 

As mentioned above we do try to mix other classes into areas of uniform agricultural or urban landuse. However, we only have a limited number of textures available that have similar content and thus are suitable for any given location. FSX limits us to about 100 unique classes in an area. They need to represent all different natural and human land cover types meaning we generally only have about a dozen slots for agricultural classes. Those then need to represent all regional uses, such as large fields in grid patterns, irregular fields, vineyards, pastures, mixed crops, specialty crops, etc. In short, one very quickly runs out of options for allocating more than 2 slots for any given landuse type.

 

Cheers, Holger

Thanks for your explanations, Holger. I like discussions like these, as they show how we all would like to improve FSX (or P3D?) further. And I am confident that you take the challenge in the best possible way. Keep our big, big thanks in mind - as well as the ideas for enhancement.

 

If you like, you may move this post from active to answered - I think we cannot do much more currently.