±Recent Visitors

Recent Visitors to Com-Central!

±User Info-big


Welcome Anonymous

Nickname
Password

Membership:
Latest: HighestAce
New Today: 0
New Yesterday: 0
Overall: 6648

People Online:
Members: 0
Visitors: 545
Total: 545
Who Is Where:
 Visitors:
01: Community Forums
02: Home
03: Community Forums
04: Community Forums
05: Home
06: Home
07: Downloads
08: Member Screenshots
09: Photo Gallery
10: Community Forums
11: Photo Gallery
12: Photo Gallery
13: Home
14: Member Screenshots
15: Member Screenshots
16: Home
17: Photo Gallery
18: Home
19: Home
20: Community Forums
21: Home
22: Community Forums
23: Community Forums
24: Community Forums
25: Downloads
26: Community Forums
27: Downloads
28: Community Forums
29: Home
30: Home
31: Community Forums
32: Downloads
33: Statistics
34: Community Forums
35: Member Screenshots
36: Member Screenshots
37: Home
38: Community Forums
39: Member Screenshots
40: Community Forums
41: Downloads
42: Downloads
43: Member Screenshots
44: Home
45: Home
46: Community Forums
47: Community Forums
48: Photo Gallery
49: Statistics
50: Member Screenshots
51: Member Screenshots
52: Photo Gallery
53: Photo Gallery
54: Community Forums
55: Photo Gallery
56: Community Forums
57: News Archive
58: Community Forums
59: Home
60: Home
61: Community Forums
62: Community Forums
63: Home
64: Home
65: Member Screenshots
66: Home
67: Home
68: Home
69: Home
70: Home
71: News Archive
72: Photo Gallery
73: Community Forums
74: Home
75: Community Forums
76: Community Forums
77: Community Forums
78: Community Forums
79: Community Forums
80: Community Forums
81: Home
82: Home
83: Home
84: Home
85: Photo Gallery
86: Home
87: Photo Gallery
88: Home
89: Member Screenshots
90: Member Screenshots
91: Home
92: News Archive
93: Home
94: Photo Gallery
95: Home
96: Community Forums
97: Photo Gallery
98: Member Screenshots
99: Photo Gallery
100: Community Forums
101: Member Screenshots
102: Home
103: Member Screenshots
104: Community Forums
105: Member Screenshots
106: Photo Gallery
107: Community Forums
108: Home
109: Home
110: Downloads
111: News Archive
112: Downloads
113: News Archive
114: Community Forums
115: Downloads
116: Home
117: Statistics
118: Photo Gallery
119: Home
120: Downloads
121: Community Forums
122: Member Screenshots
123: Downloads
124: News Archive
125: Home
126: Statistics
127: Home
128: Member Screenshots
129: Photo Gallery
130: Member Screenshots
131: Photo Gallery
132: Member Screenshots
133: Home
134: Home
135: Photo Gallery
136: Home
137: Community Forums
138: Home
139: Home
140: Home
141: Photo Gallery
142: Home
143: Member Screenshots
144: Member Screenshots
145: Photo Gallery
146: Home
147: Photo Gallery
148: Home
149: Community Forums
150: Community Forums
151: Member Screenshots
152: Community Forums
153: Home
154: Community Forums
155: Home
156: Downloads
157: Home
158: Community Forums
159: Community Forums
160: Member Screenshots
161: Home
162: Home
163: Photo Gallery
164: Community Forums
165: Member Screenshots
166: Home
167: News Archive
168: Home
169: Community Forums
170: Home
171: Member Screenshots
172: Member Screenshots
173: Community Forums
174: Home
175: Downloads
176: Downloads
177: Home
178: Member Screenshots
179: Home
180: Member Screenshots
181: Community Forums
182: Community Forums
183: Home
184: Home
185: Photo Gallery
186: News
187: Home
188: Community Forums
189: Home
190: Community Forums
191: Community Forums
192: Downloads
193: Member Screenshots
194: Community Forums
195: Member Screenshots
196: Community Forums
197: Photo Gallery
198: Community Forums
199: Statistics
200: Home
201: Community Forums
202: Photo Gallery
203: Home
204: Home
205: Community Forums
206: Community Forums
207: Community Forums
208: News Archive
209: Community Forums
210: Home
211: Home
212: Home
213: Community Forums
214: Home
215: Statistics
216: Photo Gallery
217: Home
218: Downloads
219: Member Screenshots
220: Community Forums
221: Member Screenshots
222: Home
223: Member Screenshots
224: Community Forums
225: Community Forums
226: Home
227: Home
228: Community Forums
229: Home
230: Community Forums
231: Home
232: Home
233: Member Screenshots
234: Home
235: Member Screenshots
236: Community Forums
237: Home
238: Home
239: Home
240: Home
241: Home
242: Member Screenshots
243: Member Screenshots
244: Member Screenshots
245: Statistics
246: Home
247: Home
248: Downloads
249: Home
250: News Archive
251: Home
252: Home
253: Community Forums
254: Photo Gallery
255: Downloads
256: Community Forums
257: Home
258: Home
259: Home
260: Home
261: Home
262: Home
263: News Archive
264: Community Forums
265: News Archive
266: Downloads
267: Downloads
268: Home
269: Member Screenshots
270: Home
271: Community Forums
272: News Archive
273: Downloads
274: Member Screenshots
275: Home
276: News Archive
277: Member Screenshots
278: Community Forums
279: Home
280: Member Screenshots
281: Home
282: Home
283: Community Forums
284: Home
285: Community Forums
286: Member Screenshots
287: Home
288: Photo Gallery
289: Home
290: News Archive
291: Member Screenshots
292: Community Forums
293: Member Screenshots
294: Photo Gallery
295: Home
296: Home
297: Community Forums
298: Community Forums
299: Member Screenshots
300: Community Forums
301: Member Screenshots
302: News Archive
303: Home
304: Member Screenshots
305: Community Forums
306: Home
307: Member Screenshots
308: Downloads
309: Downloads
310: Community Forums
311: Home
312: Home
313: Community Forums
314: Photo Gallery
315: Member Screenshots
316: Downloads
317: Home
318: Home
319: Home
320: Member Screenshots
321: News Archive
322: Community Forums
323: Home
324: Downloads
325: Home
326: Home
327: Community Forums
328: Photo Gallery
329: Member Screenshots
330: Home
331: Home
332: Downloads
333: Home
334: Community Forums
335: Home
336: Downloads
337: Home
338: Home
339: Community Forums
340: Downloads
341: Home
342: Home
343: Community Forums
344: Photo Gallery
345: Member Screenshots
346: Community Forums
347: Downloads
348: Member Screenshots
349: Community Forums
350: Community Forums
351: Home
352: Photo Gallery
353: Home
354: Home
355: Photo Gallery
356: Downloads
357: Home
358: Community Forums
359: Home
360: Member Screenshots
361: Downloads
362: Home
363: Home
364: Photo Gallery
365: Statistics
366: Home
367: Member Screenshots
368: Community Forums
369: Home
370: Community Forums
371: Photo Gallery
372: Home
373: Home
374: Photo Gallery
375: Home
376: Home
377: Community Forums
378: Home
379: Photo Gallery
380: News Archive
381: Home
382: Photo Gallery
383: Member Screenshots
384: Community Forums
385: Photo Gallery
386: Home
387: Community Forums
388: Home
389: Community Forums
390: Home
391: Home
392: Downloads
393: News Archive
394: Community Forums
395: Home
396: Member Screenshots
397: Community Forums
398: Member Screenshots
399: Community Forums
400: Home
401: Home
402: Member Screenshots
403: Home
404: Community Forums
405: Community Forums
406: Home
407: Home
408: Home
409: Member Screenshots
410: Home
411: Photo Gallery
412: Member Screenshots
413: Community Forums
414: Downloads
415: Your Account
416: Home
417: Member Screenshots
418: Member Screenshots
419: Photo Gallery
420: Home
421: Member Screenshots
422: Community Forums
423: Member Screenshots
424: Member Screenshots
425: Downloads
426: Downloads
427: Community Forums
428: Statistics
429: Member Screenshots
430: Community Forums
431: Community Forums
432: Downloads
433: Home
434: Home
435: Member Screenshots
436: Home
437: Member Screenshots
438: Photo Gallery
439: Downloads
440: Photo Gallery
441: Member Screenshots
442: Home
443: Home
444: Home
445: Member Screenshots
446: Home
447: Photo Gallery
448: Member Screenshots
449: Photo Gallery
450: Home
451: Downloads
452: Home
453: Member Screenshots
454: Member Screenshots
455: Home
456: Home
457: Community Forums
458: Downloads
459: Home
460: Member Screenshots
461: Member Screenshots
462: Downloads
463: Community Forums
464: Member Screenshots
465: Photo Gallery
466: Home
467: Community Forums
468: Home
469: Home
470: Home
471: Home
472: Member Screenshots
473: Home
474: Home
475: Home
476: Home
477: Home
478: Home
479: Photo Gallery
480: Photo Gallery
481: Home
482: Home
483: Community Forums
484: Photo Gallery
485: Home
486: Community Forums
487: Home
488: Photo Gallery
489: Home
490: Photo Gallery
491: Home
492: Home
493: Community Forums
494: Community Forums
495: News Archive
496: Community Forums
497: Home
498: News Archive
499: Community Forums
500: Downloads
501: Photo Gallery
502: Home
503: Home
504: Home
505: Home
506: Community Forums
507: Member Screenshots
508: Community Forums
509: Home
510: Home
511: Community Forums
512: Home
513: Home
514: Statistics
515: Member Screenshots
516: Home
517: Home
518: Downloads
519: Home
520: Home
521: Home
522: Community Forums
523: Home
524: Home
525: Community Forums
526: Home
527: Community Forums
528: Home
529: Home
530: Home
531: Home
532: Member Screenshots
533: Home
534: Home
535: Photo Gallery
536: News Archive
537: Home
538: Home
539: Community Forums
540: Member Screenshots
541: Community Forums
542: Home
543: Community Forums
544: Community Forums
545: Community Forums

Staff Online:

No staff members are online!
Stoop :: Archived
A forum for Microsoft's Flight Simulator X
Post new topic    Revive this topic    Printer Friendly Page     Forum Index ›  FSX

Topic Archived View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
401RCAF_Sly
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: Jan 12, 2005
Posts: 223

PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2007 8:01 am
Post subject: Stoop

Hi Stoop

Interested in your tile proxy experiments

I am not up to speed with ground textures in FSX, but if I wanted to fly a particular route is it possible to change texures along that route and use satellite images?

What I mean is can I make replacement ground texture tiles from satellite images and then replace them in my FSX textures folder... yep each one would be specific so how big an area does a tile cover?

How would satellite imagery look on a night flight?

Is The ground still light?

If tiles were made and darkened in photoshop would that give an impression of nightime in your opinion?

Any other ideas on how to get a reaalistic set of nightime textures for a trip from UK to Dresden 1943 style would be most welcome

Sly
Back to top
View user's profile
JG300-Stoopy
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: Jan 05, 2005
Posts: 5840
Location: Group W bench
PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2007 5:02 pm
Post subject: Re: Stoop

Hiya Sly,

Well let's see....for starters, TP creates it's replacement scenery automatically in add-on scenery folders it automatically creates and enables (as you normally would do through the Scenery Library). So, as you fly a particular route the first time, the new tiles which are created by gathering sat images along the way and "collected" by being added to the scenery folders that TP uses. This way, the second and third time you fly a route, it doesn't go out to the source and re-fetch them. So yes, you can re-use those satellite images in a sense. Since the whole process of continually grabbing new sat images and converting them on-the-fly is very network-intensive, you're realistically limited to ground speeds of about 100-150 Knots (depending on your bandwith and sim setup) in order not to "outrun" the process and have the scenery keep up. One strategy to counter this is to have a very slow-flying plane fly a particular course on autopilto and "collect" the images for your later, faster flight.

However, a drawback is that the auto-gen scenery (buildings and trees) are a function of the default, normal FS texture tile set and since the tiles are being replaced by new sat images which don't include the layer that FS uses to look at what kind of auto-gen scenery to add, you completely loos all your auto-gen buildings and trees - the ground is completely flat, which actually is fine at altitude but looks very uninteresting when close to, or sitting on, the ground.

There are THOUSANDS of tiles, the size is only a few miles by a few miles, so on a very long flight, mixing and matching the sat image tiles by hand with the default scenery is an absolute TON of work - someone already tried to start doing this and has a very small area of France done, I think, but man, that's more dedication (and time) than most people have.

As for how the images look at night, well, they don't look all that hot. The whole purpose and advantage of TP is to collect and display highly-detailed VFR scenery whihc can be very breathtaking during daylight hours and especially in rugged, mountain terrain or city areas whihc have high-resolution sat images available.

At night, that benefit is lost and also the result of how the tiles look can depend on which two sources you assign TP to use. The author of the project prefers they remain unnamed (by proper name) lest any search-bots draw undue negative attention to this project and get it killed off by blocking access by this tool, but they are either G**gle Erth (GE) or Micrusuft Vurtyal Erth (VE). The GE sat images can be very high detailed but coverage and performance is a bit finicky in my opinion, VE is more stable but the images are in black-and-white and colorized on the fly by TP - generally they look very good, and I hear that VE has just added hi-res images for all of Germany this week, but the coloring for nighttime is "iffy" at best and nowhere realistic as the default scenery.

I suppose you could take the tiles and modify them in photoshop or whatever if you were really diligent and had a lot of time, theoretically of course. I don't believe it would be well worth it - I mean especially since you loose so much detail at night anyway. And the thing is, if you use either GE or VE and look at the sat images they offer, you notice they load in seperate "stages" of resolution - low, med, high, higher, etc as you zoom in. The same thing happens when flying over them in FS - in the distance they are low-res and then the res increases as you get closer, becuase TP is fetching the higher-res images based on your location drawing closer to them. So for each scnery tile, you'd have to process the different resolution sets the same way.

The count of scenery texture files in just one of the 84 scenery/texture folders is 86,015 files. I don't know which area this is for, since the folder name is 0101 which corresponds to somewhere on the FS world map grid that I don't know but have obviously flown in. So thats a lotta images to process, brother.

Personally I'd stick with the default scenery and focus on the planes and the flight planning itself.

Anyway, here's a sample image of a flight I tried at night, taking off from Biggin Hill an hour after sunset and heading toward Dresden (where they just make innocent little cuckoo clocks and oughta be left alone anyways IMHO Wink ) and as you can see it's kinda...yucky.....of course my TP setup is having problems right now, since SP1 came out the latest beta version of TP has been flaky for me and has been dropping out, and I keep having to restart it to keep the connection for the sat images going.

Oh yeah the other drawback is when starting a flight it can take 10 minutes or so just for TP to grab the initial sat images, at which point FS is displaying the "Loading Fllght" progress bar...so it's S L L O W W W w w w .....well worth the wait for daytime VFR in breathtaking places like Hawaii or whatever, but making it less worthwhile if the images are compromised by dark lighting.




_________________
"Once your reputation is ruined, you can live quite freely."
Back to top
View user's profile Visit poster's website Photo Gallery
401RCAF_Sly
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: Jan 12, 2005
Posts: 223

PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2007 9:48 pm
Post subject: Re: Stoop

thanks Stoop... a ton of good info there


As you prolly guessed I want to fly a lanc to Dresden at around 15000ft and 200 knots at night Laughing

The nighttime textures are the problem and by the sounds of things there are gonna be an awful lot of em... but city lights didn't happen in Germany circa 1943... except by courtesy the RAF Laughing

Maybe the black and white textures from 15000 ft with some tweeking of the monitor luminesence might give a representative nightime scenario?.... because navigation would be attempted by dead reckoning its quite important to be able to pick out landmarks like rivers etc and adjustment of the FL to get the right level of detail / imagry would not be a problem..... neither would preflying the route..
the loss of autogen is not a problem,I have mine turned off anyways Laughing


One problem that I could forsee is that all participents would have to prefly the route.....
Is it viable to set up a full set of dummy texture folders in FSX, prefly the route which would then place the D/L textures into the dummies?....these could then possibly be redistibuted or at least I would know which textures were relevant to the route..

Will FSX load if there are no textures in the folders to start with?
Do the sat images require daata from the original textures to set the locale?.... I presume from scanning the avsim boards that it uses the aircraft position so hopefully that would not be an issue Laughing

Dunno if this will ever get off the ground but its an interesting concept...

Thanks again for your input

Catcha

Sly
Back to top
View user's profile
HF_SlowHand
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: Aug 27, 2005
Posts: 767
Location: Meeechigan
PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2007 10:10 pm
Post subject: Re: Stoop

Sly,

You may want to see if Fled cant dream ya up some textures to remove the lights... he has done some very nice things in fs9 with enviro pak etc....

_________________
I deny everything
I lie about everything
And everything I deny
Is a lie!
Back to top
View user's profile Send e-mail Visit poster's website
JG300-Stoopy
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: Jan 05, 2005
Posts: 5840
Location: Group W bench
PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2007 11:24 pm
Post subject: Re: Stoop

- 401RCAF_Sly

Maybe the black and white textures from 15000 ft with some tweeking of the monitor luminesence might give a representative nightime scenario?....


Actually.....you got me thinking here......there is a setting in TileProxy as to what level of 'colorization' it applies to the black & white VE-sourced images. Although it's a very simple control without any luminescence capability per se, but still maybe it might be possible to come up with something that approximates

- 401RCAF_Sly
Is it viable to set up a full set of dummy texture folders in FSX, prefly the route which would then place the D/L textures into the dummies?....these could then possibly be redistibuted or at least I would know which textures were relevant to the route..


You know, here's another idea on how it may be possible with the stock scenery.....in Phil Taylor's blog there's a tweak listed that has to do with dawn/dusk lighting and controlling at what phase it kicks in. Maybe, with luck, it's capable of turinging night lighting off completely? The tweak in question is this one:

For the dusk/dawn textures some people feel, subjectively, the result is too dark or too light. There are 2 items that allow the transition time to be changed:

[GRAPHICS]

DAY_THRESHOLD
NIGHT_THRESHOLD

acceptible values are 0 to 65535.

Defaults:

DAY: 32768
NIGHT: 4096

These represent the amount of 'ambient' light at the ends of the day/night blend threshold. Zero is perfect dark, 65535 is full day sun at noon in the summer.


Of course, this may apply only to the dawn/dusk threshhold and not the whole nighttime...haven't tried it.

- 401RCAF_Sly
Will FSX load if there are no textures in the folders to start with?


Oh yes, it certainly will! Trust me, I've had this happen when the connection to the sat image server gets dropped at the begtinning of the flight. Result is...YUCK, black empty square tiles. Your basic wartime blackout on steroids.

- 401RCAF_Sly
Do the sat images require data from the original textures to set the locale?.... I presume from scanning the avsim boards that it uses the aircraft position so hopefully that would not be an issue Laughing


The sat images don't require any data from the original textures insofar as I know. They act as complete replacements.

Pre-flying the route and collecting the images would be one way to go, then the question of sharing them with other users comes up since getting everyone to set up with TP isn't a likely proposition....but then, well, there's some questionable legality of sending the files to them since the images are really the "property" of the image source. Not to put a damper on the idea but it's something you'd want to be aware of.

I kinda like what Slowy suggests although it puts some pressure on Fled Wink ...maybe something along the lines of an altered envmap.bmp file might do tha trick.....not an expert there.

_________________
"Once your reputation is ruined, you can live quite freely."
Back to top
View user's profile Visit poster's website Photo Gallery
401RCAF_Sly
Power User

Offline Offline
Joined: Jan 12, 2005
Posts: 223

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 7:10 am
Post subject: Re: Stoop

Thanks Slow N Stoop

I think I've gotta try this Tile proxy and or night textures thing on a small scale to start with... Laughing
Ive not tried the tile proxy because I don't have sufficient room on my drive.... time for a clear out Rolling Eyes

I will have a try with night threshold etc and see what happens.. dusk/dawn are too dark on my machine anyways so I may learn something there Wink

Yep redistributing could be a problem, Thinking about it it could open up comercial possibilities of companies producing routes Airport to Airport if a licence was available to them

Thanks again all good stuff... I will drag Fled in here too, the more brains the better Wink


Catcha Sly
Back to top
View user's profile
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic    Revive this topic    Printer Friendly Page    Forum Index ›  FSX
Page 1 of 1
All times are GMT - 6 Hours

Archive Revive
Username:
This is an archived topic - your reply will not be appended here.
Instead, a new topic will be generated in the active forum.
The new topic will provide a reference link to this archived topic.