Non DLC scenery is blurred

  • I know that the non DLC scenery is of a much lower quality than the HiRes DLC stuff but I cannot get that scenery not to be blurred. Would someone guide me as to what altitude i should be at so that the generic scenery appears non blurred. I have gone as high as 35000 ft and it is still blurry.

  • OK thanks for the info. I was aware that it was not developed but thought that it was just using a much lower definition texture that would look OK the higher altitude you went. Obviously not.

  • From the Steam Forum

    Quote

    ipacs aerofly [developer] May 14, 2016 @ 8:37am

    The initial version has most airports of California, Nevada and Arizona.

    However we already cover the whole earth with elevation data as well as aerial images. The aerial images have a resolution which is sufficient to recognize details from roughly 20000 to 30000 feet.

    The aerial images around our airports however are around 1-2 meter per pixel. You can roughly see that from our screenshots.

    Devons rig

    Intel Core i5-13600K - Core i5 13th Gen 14-Core (6P+8E) @ 5.5Ghz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB RAM DDR5 6000 / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070Ti GAMING OC 12G / Sound Blaster Z / Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 6x Samsung SSD/NVME's various sizes / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard DDR5

  • Thanks HiFlyer, I was aware of that statement hence my question. I do not see what it purports I should be able to see. The ground is blurry, never crisp no matter what height I am at.
    I don't think it is my GPU which is only a 780 but it was known as the baby 1080 for a while, and have no problems seeing any photo scenery in the "other" sim.

  • To add further details to my current problem, I have all my graphics settings to Ultra.
    Is there an equivalent of a LOD setting in AF2 or is all that done in the Graphics options?
    The problem i have is not related to the capabilities of the GPU as I have no problem in maintaining perfect visuals with the HiRes DLCs from any height, which I would have thought would be more taxing on the GPU than the low res.
    Any ideas, or is this what others see?

  • Yup, that's about what I get as well. I do know that JV over at orbx mentioned the hd sizes needed to make a worldwide scenery coverage at a higher resolution, (about the same as FS9) but his numbers seemed a bit optimistic.

    I suspect it would be ginormous, but I think many of us would go for it, especially if we could download state by state or country by country.

    Devons rig

    Intel Core i5-13600K - Core i5 13th Gen 14-Core (6P+8E) @ 5.5Ghz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB RAM DDR5 6000 / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070Ti GAMING OC 12G / Sound Blaster Z / Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 6x Samsung SSD/NVME's various sizes / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard DDR5

  • Thanks for the input sir. I will now leave this topic since you say you see the same as i do. Maybe a good reason to get something like a FTX Global Base type DLC to cover the rest of the world. That wasn't "ginormous" only "very large" but it certainly did a job!

    • Official Post

    At that level of blurriness the entire world requires 9GB of textures. If we were to increase the level of resolution by a factor of two it would still be blurry but take up 36GB (I think). If you would increase it by a total factor of 4 it would probably be an acceptable level for you but then the world would be 144Gb in size. If you would upgrade the entire planet at the high level seen near airports you'd have Peta-Bytes of textures on your PC. I'm guessing the entire US would be a terrabyte or so.
    Ergo: We provide local high resolution where there are modeled airports near by and have to compromise quality for disk space outside these areas.

    The quote says: recognizable, not crisp sharp from FL350. It's still better than default scenery in the other simulators I think. They are rarely recognizable, though when you fly low they provide auto-gen. Not realistic or convincing yet but at least something that your eyes can focus on, not just blurry plane textures.

    So for now I'd say: just stay inside the modeled areas, they are large enough for 3+ hour flights even in an airliner if you do it right.
    Even the entire grand canyon region is larger than the entire Switzerland and that is in fairly high resolution with the high res texture pack.

    Regards,
    Jan

    Regards,

    Jan

  • Can't speak for anyone else, but 144Gb wouldn't bother me a bit. I've now deleted and reinstalled Aerofly (125Gb) several times, and as I mentioned before, I've now specifically raised my connection speed so doing things like that doesn't tie up my internet for long periods.

    Heck, just yesterday, installing creators update destroyed my Steam folder and I had to download Aerofly again. (took about 3 1/2 hours)

    Anyway, I've just purchased a 4TB drive that I'm pretty much devoting to Aerofly (well, maybe all my flight sims) so there's no storage problem for the foreseeable future.

    If there was an optional 144gb download for higher resolution worldwide, I would certainly go for it.

    Honestly it's not incomparable to the 100s of gigs of add ons many simmers collect over the years, many warehoused and not even used, but lovingly preserved, just in case. :o

    Devons rig

    Intel Core i5-13600K - Core i5 13th Gen 14-Core (6P+8E) @ 5.5Ghz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB RAM DDR5 6000 / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070Ti GAMING OC 12G / Sound Blaster Z / Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 6x Samsung SSD/NVME's various sizes / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard DDR5

  • Yup, that's about what I get as well. I do know that JV over at orbx mentioned the hd sizes needed to make a worldwide scenery coverage at a higher resolution, (about the same as FS9) but his numbers seemed a bit optimistic.

    I suspect it would be ginormous, but I think many of us would go for it, especially if we could download state by state or country by country.

    This... I think most users would love to have higher res base scenery of their country or continent, and be able to selectively download just that area. For example, I would be more than happy to have a 100GB base scenery of the U.S., and then add the hi-res additions as they become available. I don't need Africa, or Asia or South America, etc, i.e. I don't need the entire world at 1m resolution. I do believe eventually this will happen for AFS2, we just need to be patient, hard as that is sometimes. :)

    Ken

  • In one of the replies I got to this post it was stated that the default world scenery textures were blurred in the other sims when first purchased. I do not recall them being blurred, just of not a very good quality or representation. Adding FTX Global Base changed that.
    The Global Base was a 4-5GB download and there is no blurred textures that I can see in the "world" non-enhanced areas.
    So I am not understanding why a Global Base type or even Global Base itself could not be an answer to the current situation. I of course can only judge things on comparisons to FSX and P3D and am fully aware that AF2 is a completely different animal. Would it not be possible to get the rest of the world scenery at least to look half decent. The HiRes DLC's could overwrite the Global sceneries when flying in a HiRes area. Dovetails sim has Global Base and yet again I emphasise that I know it is FSX based and not the same as AF2 so it maybe comparing apples to oranges, but would like to know if the concept at least is doable.

  • In one of the replies I got to this post it was stated that the default world scenery textures were blurred in the other sims when first purchased. I do not recall them being blurred, just of not a very good quality or representation. Adding FTX Global Base changed that.
    The Global Base was a 4-5GB download and there is no blurred textures that I can see in the "world" non-enhanced areas.
    So I am not understanding why a Global Base type or even Global Base itself could not be an answer to the current situation. I of course can only judge things on comparisons to FSX and P3D and am fully aware that AF2 is a completely different animal. Would it not be possible to get the rest of the world scenery at least to look half decent. The HiRes DLC's could overwrite the Global sceneries when flying in a HiRes area. Dovetails sim has Global Base and yet again I emphasise that I know it is FSX based and not the same as AF2 so it maybe comparing apples to oranges, but would like to know if the concept at least is doable.

    I think you're mixing up a few things : when you talk about other sims, I guess you mean FSX/P3D. By default the World is represented with a generic scenery : a finite set of tiles of textures and a landclass - a kind of database that spreads these tiles of textures around the world : some city texture where there should be a city, some woods texture where there should be wood, and so on. On top of this vectors display roads, rivers, railways, rivers, lakes and so on that cut abruptly across textures.
    It's a cheap representation of the World based on very few textures, the result is poor.

    Add-on sceneries allow to replace generic sceneries with photorealistic sceneries, based on aerial picture reworked as orthophotos, and more precise mesh (up to 4.75 m resolution instead of 19-72m by default) therefore the place actually looks like the real thing, but a carpet of photo doesn't make yet a realistic scenery, just like most Aerofly FS scenery : therefore sceneries add also autogen (millions of buildings and trees placed based on cadastral databases, so that you have the right house at the right place) and 3D for specific building shapes that cannot be featured with autogen. This makes the place really recognizable and VFR flyable.

    Products like FTX are only replacement textures and lanclass for the generic sceneries, it is slightly better than the default original scenery, but it's still very poor and inaccurate. It makes an acceptable background for IFR flying, but the place looks nothing like reality for VFR flying.

    Fortunately enough, Aerofly FS has no generic scenery. But there's also still no buildings autogen and no editor for the rather poor vegetation autogen in order to make flyable sceneries. Hope it will come soon to populate the excellent photo background

    Cheers
    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Thanks Antoine, I was dreading trying to answer that question without having to write a book. :D

    Devons rig

    Intel Core i5-13600K - Core i5 13th Gen 14-Core (6P+8E) @ 5.5Ghz / G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 32GB RAM DDR5 6000 / GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4070Ti GAMING OC 12G / Sound Blaster Z / Oculus Quest 2 VR Headset / Klipsch® Promedia 2.1 Computer Speakers / ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q ‑ 27" IPS LED Monitor ‑ QHD / 6x Samsung SSD/NVME's various sizes / Windows 11 Pro 64-bit / GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard DDR5

  • Many thanks for the detailed explanation Antoine. Maybe I am being a bit stupid here but despite all the explanation, my point was that the default sceneries in FSX/P3D ares not blurred. I also stated that I knew it wasn't accurate as far as being a true representation of the area, but it was not blurred.
    I am only asking if the non DLC parts of the world can be made in a texture that isn't blurry. it doesn't have to be HiRes but just a bit higher so that it could look similar to the default global scenery (without autogen or landclass etc, for now) of FSX/P3D. It is the quality of the global photo I am questioning.
    It is not really that important as AF2 in my opinion is great in the DLC areas, although my personal preference is to have autogen as well to enhance the low and slow immersion.
    By the way I think that the mesh quality in AF2 is absolutely superb, and also that the New York DLC is the most realistic scenery ever made for a flight sim, and my congratulations go to all at Ipacs for their work in that.


  • I am only asking if the non DLC parts of the world can be made in a texture that isn't blurry. it doesn't have to be HiRes but just a bit higher so that it could look similar to the default global scenery (without autogen or landclass etc, for now) of FSX/P3D. It is the quality of the global photo I am questioning.


    Understood your point, I would also love having a higher resolution worldwide. A compromise must however be found, but I agree for some areas at least a better compromise than today could be found.
    You meant it could be done with as low a volume as FTX, Jan's reply explains why it's not the case.
    The generic sceneries are sharp because its the same set of high resolution textures repeated all over the World, but it doesn't make sense doing the same in Aerofly FS2.

    Generic sceneries are good for Airline IFR simulation, where you don't rely on visual representation, but you need a global intercontinental world representation quality. Long history sims like FSX/P3D are way superior to early stage Aerofly FS2 for IFR and Airline simulation, there's no comparison and I'm afraid there's very little future for Aerofly FS2 in this area, it's light years behind.

    The real strength of Aerofly FS2 is the graphic engine allowing to display photorealistic sceneries fast and sharp, which could make an ideal platform for VFR General Aviation simulation, where sims like FSX/P3D/XPlane struggle.
    AFS2 aircraft still lack of systems modelization, but I'm very confident it'll improve progressively because everything seems prepared for it in the sim.

    Currently the sceneries are much more questionable and there, it's hard to understand what direction IPACS intend to follow.
    Mesh quality is ok and the orthophoto base texture is absolutely gorgeous within HighRes DLC.
    But currently, DLC's are merely flat photo ground texture projected on the mesh (a good start), with some aerodromes and more or less randomly spread ugly trees.

    It totally lacks of correctly-placed 3D houses and vegetation like we do in other sims to bring that necessary volume for a realistic VFR experience.
    DLC's show some patch featuring 3D buildings, like Manhattan, Salt Lake City or San Francisco. It's very nice and promising, but this technique is only suitable to represent tiny patches of land : there's no way editors can make a whole flight zone like that. The 3D part of NYC is flown across within 5 minutes aboard the default C172, it doesn't make a flyable region.

    IPACS is porting Orbx's LOWI aiport to Aerofly FS2, that's great, I'm looking forward to trying it out, but here again it's a micro scenery around the airport, currently in the middle of nowhere, and as far as I understand there's no way this technique can be implemented over the whole Austira to make a coherent flight region neighbouring existing Switzerland.

    Here, I see 3 possibilities:
    1) IPACS does nothing and LOWI remains a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. Nice demo but quite useless, no future.
    2) IPACS makes an Austrian DLC from scratch, or at least a part of it to make a link to the Swiss DLC.
    3) IPACS works together with Flugwerk Desing to port their nice HighRes Austria Photo scenery into Aerofly FS2, similar to their collaboration with Orbx.

    The 3rd solution would have many advantages since the base material exists, with high resolution corrected orthophotos, a coherent autogen of buildings and vegetation. No need to redo everything from scratch. It would also help IPACS to develop the necessary tools for scenery making. These data exists for many countries, so that could open a lot of doors to quickly improve Aerofly FS2's coverage.

    However, currently I'm afraid that in IPACS' developper minds Scenery Making consists merely of placing Orbx-like airports. As if people were spending their time making snapshots on ground.
    Airports are ok to start and end a flight, but the flight zone strongly needs improvements, and there's unfortunately no hints that tools will be ever made available to generate/edit vegetation and buildings autogen out of databases to make flight regions coherent.

    Cheers
    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Many thanks again for your response, time and effort in explaining some technicalities and giving your constructive opinion.
    I guess what I am hoping is that AF2 one day will be the "complete" flightsim, and not as it may well be going direction wise as a joyful game with stunning, very limited, flat photoscenery.
    The engine is superb. Currently it is like having a Mini with a restricted Ferrari engine in it. I am not impatient, but like others, am unsure of the intended long term direction of Ipacs. They proudly, and it is their right, state they do not necessarily communicate widely, nor frequently, which only leads to questions like mine being initiated.