That's a real game changer! Looking forward to new areas, freeware or paware as well.
Kind regards, Michael
For those who are interested, it's all there...
http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/…cenproc.441173/
Read ScenProc Manual chapter 5.9 to see how to proceed.
There are however a lot more things to investigate and define.
One aspect is the size and structure of TOC files.
I tested on purpose 1 single TOC file, with approx. 280k buildings.
My feeling is we may write separate TOC files for plants, buildings and lights, for easier maintenance.
As well we should split the data into cells, i.e. several TOC of reasonable size to cover a country.
Of course, ScenProc has everything built in to do it. No need to split to agn file size, we could think of 1 degree by 1 degree cells, or 30' by 30' cells and name them according to coordinates.
Cheers
Antoine
holy sh..
Antoine, you get things going really, my compliments.
Please give Arno our all regards and thanks.
What it needs now is some sort of comprehensive tutorial,
so a 3-year-old can start something.
Current tuts here are confusing, kills my creativity, i don't even feel starting something.
just curious on 2 things:
1. LOD, when do these trees normally load? at what distance?
2. Assuming Switzerland will be completet with the woodlands, what is the expected performace impact?
Interesting! 'Autogen' might get me interested in AFS2 again. (Though I need a weather system to really get interested. 
)
What it needs now is some sort of comprehensive tutorial,
so a 3-year-old can start something.
I had a look, but definitely lack the time (and patience) to go through the present manual. In the present form it is for hardcore developers only - which is a big jump into the future already despite.
However, I am sure, a lot of "ordinary" folks would jump train If the process could be simplified to the level of use of Geoconvert Helper.
Kind regards, Michael
This is great news! Were you able to install the update? I cant!
Rob - just having you in the game is like a big breath of fresh New Zealand air.
Toprob said it all.
Even if you work with OpenStreetMap, be it shapefiles or osm data, attributes and formats may change from a place to another.
And you can get beautiful shapefiles from various sources.
You then definitely need a GIS to check what's in and how to feed ScenProc with suited parameters.
The manual looks tough, but if you start slowly it isn't so difficult. A tuto could be done with a specific piece of osm data (known format).
Cheers
Antoine
just curious on 2 things:
1. LOD, when do these trees normally load? at what distance?
2. Assuming Switzerland will be completet with the woodlands, what is the expected performace impact?
Antoine? any idea?
Just FYI there are a few video tutorials on scenproc here:
Antoine? any idea?
If you talk about trees, they're already featured in the scenery by default, I didn't add a single tree yet in my test, only buildings and street lights.
Buildings load exactly like trees, as far as the eye can see. No popup effect, no flickering.
I don't know how memory handling is managed, how cultivation is cleared from memory when leaving a place, this is an important key for dense scenery making...
Cheers
Antoine
I conducted an experiment with ScenProc today that may be of some interest to some of you.
It occurred to me that some of the issues being reported concerning FPS reduction and occasional stutters could possibly be connected with the extra load cultivation is putting on the system, even though it is not supposed to hurt performance that much. Personally, I've been on the fence with regards to adding thousands of residential houses to the scenery, though I do prefer having POI's, bridges, industrial buildings, full airport scenery, etc. Today, in my home area, I eliminated all residential buildings (houses), and kept industrial buildings as well as whatever trees would be cultivated with ScenProc based on my OSM data. My theory was that houses show up well with a 3D look anyway when geoconverted at 1m resolution when flying, with the benefit of different shapes and roof colors done naturally at high resolution, and when making approaches or taking off enough industrial buildings would be visible to provide that populated feeling that enhances the sensation of flying and provides that extra bit of realism.
I couldn't be more pleased with how this turned out; residential houses still look good at 1m res and there are hundreds of industrial buildings everywhere in my scenery providing that 3d look that enhances the photoreal scenery. In addition, I also cultivated lights but cut out several sections of road lighting (tertiary, residential, and living street) and still maintained a pleasing atmosphere of night lighting.
Performance impact? My cultivated area is approx. 25 x 30 miles and with all data cultivated my FPS in certain areas was dropping down into the 70's in the cockpit view vs. a locked 120 without cultivation at all. With today's experiment? Steady 160's in cockpit view and 200-250 in outside views with unlimited frames selected. Now, with the FPS counter turned off you probably would not even notice what your frame rate is even with full cultivation, depending on your area and it's size, so I'm not sure what the real relevance of this is for most users, but there are some who are experiencing some performance issues that IPACS is currently trying to solve in regards to the latest update. I did this mostly for my own benefit to see what the result would be and whether or not I would be pleased with it, and I can say most definitely I like the result visually and performance wise was pretty surprised to see the resulting impact on FPS.
Here are a few screenshots to show the visual impact:
I don't promise this adjustment to your cultivation file(s) is for everyone; I would guess most users would prefer to have residential houses as well as all the available lighting in your own scenery areas. But if you've been wondering if you could remove some of the buildings like I did or reduce the lighting somewhat and what the result would be, well here you go.
