***OLD*** EasternAlps 2.0 pictures

Everything regarding the Eastern Alps scenery...

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TimKuijpers
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Post by TimKuijpers » Wed Apr 19, 2006 11:50 pm

Nice solution by putting those houses in line.
It makes a nice compromise between 3d and flat photo-realisme.
Think positive, flaps negative.

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mach_one_man
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Post by mach_one_man » Thu Apr 20, 2006 12:05 am

Wow, very beautiful, it really brings Condor to life with the cities and small parts of land with phototextures. The cities look wonderful. Im still not 100% convinced by the glacier as I feel the phototexture quality and satallite photo is slightly low quality, but the way the cites and the buildings merge to standar scenery is wonderful.

I really do love that city - incredible work. :D

No one can refuse that city - as long as the FPS stays good :lol:

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swt
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Post by swt » Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:38 am

Texture under city is typical example of ugly blurred thing. Sorry guys, but it is awfull, maybe even more than glacier. Nothing against positioned houses, but underlaying texture ...
Ohly thing I can imagine acceptable is drawn (art) underlying texture carefully created to look acceptable even when blurred.

I say again, when You put on texture something ppl know from real how it should look it degrades good feeling from scenery 100 times more than something thats abstract. With abstract (like Condor "art" textures) when it becomes blurred You do not look for further detail as You look with "real" textures.

For me - stick to "sharpened" abstract textures is the way.

To all with simillar opinion - please be heard. Sound Your opinion. Do no let Condor slip into common blurred ugly scheme as other sims do because of these "ooohs" and "wows" and "greats" sounded here. Influence future of "your" sim!

To water textures - definitelly better looking than defaults. I like it!

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Post by markjt » Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:30 am

This just shows how hard it will be to please everyone :) First let me say I think both WAlps and EAlps will be great additions to Condor, whatever the debate about cities etc. Well done to all the developers!

I voted for "mostly artwork" in the poll, because I really like the WAlps re-worked photorealistic field textures.

But I have to partly agree with swt on the city textures in both WAlps and EAlps 2. They do not look as good. And putting a small number of 3D houses on top actually makes it worse.

However, I really like the glacier.

Why? Well it's actually due to a very basic way that the brain processes our environment and looks for visual ques to depth and scale.

Most shapes and objects in the natural landscape are "organic". That means they have complex curves, angles etc. The brain will adapt to, and accept, many things that are similar to, but not photographs of nature. that's why the artwork landscape is acceptable to most people after a while.

But, man-made objects are mostly quite restricted geometric shapes, and mostly have very "hard" outlines. Compared to a tree or hillside a house has very simple lines, angles and symmetry.

So when we see a "blurred" city-scape it looks wrong. In particular the edges of buildings and roads always look odd. Our eyes and brains are constantly trying to bring them into focus. We can't help it. We need to focus on them to try and guage the distance and scale, so our brains keep trying.

The field textures work well because field boundaries, hedges and textures are never very sharp, so our brain accepts the fuzzy outlines very easily. They are also much easier to blend into the artwork of the other Condor textures.

This is one of the two the main reasons European pilots often have problems in judging distances when flying in Australia: The paddocks in Oz are huge. Many times the size of most European farm fields. But our brain says "that's a field, so it's the size of a field". It does not look for sharp lines to focus on. It just accepts the general shape. And there are very, very few buildings in the outback. So there are very few "hard" objects for the brain to latch onto and make a size comparison.

Our brain adapts to the artwork in Condor's Slovenian scenery because it is consistent. In contrast the satellite image towns will always look blurred. The juxtaposition with the artwork is the thing that makes it look "wrong".

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Vertigo
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Post by Vertigo » Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:20 pm

mixed emotions; IMHO it doesn't look all that great (the city), but otoh, having no cities at all, isn't quite my idea of immersion either.

IF its feasable to make a relatively low polygon count "cardboard" city, I think that would be the best solution, maybe even in combination with ground textures to give a realistic sense of size.. but its probably too much to ask for.
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mosquito
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Post by mosquito » Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:21 pm

Hm, do you know what i don't like?

People are telling me (or us) that things look stupid, and that we shouldn't do it this way, but it seems as if the same people NEVER thought about other solutions?! At least they don't post any of them here (except Vertigo).
So, please, if all these cities look that bad, do you have other solutions? I haven't and thats the reason why we make'em this way. I (and also raiki) haven't got time to work 24/7 on a scenery just because some people think they always have to critizise things which is ok, as long its just a bit constructive. :roll:

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maymar
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Post by maymar » Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:45 pm

Mosquito - do what you do and don't worry about critic voice about scenery :)

If someone want to have abstract texture for cities first let make it for ex. 100.000 citizens town (all road include :) ) and then try to compare abstract textures to low-resolution satelitepic. Then he will know how much freetime it kill.

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Post by Cadfael » Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:58 pm

I believe, that it is not criticism, only a consideration "how" to find the best solution, because it is really not easy. On one side for lot of us are unacceptable "photorealistic texture" like MSFS, on the other side we want to have more detailed landscape, cities... I am sure, that we all, include "critic" will download new Apl scenery and we all will have a pleasure from it... Thank you boys, who are creating new "areas" for our passion..
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Tima (TSD)
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Post by Tima (TSD) » Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:59 pm

Fully agree with maymar. What i would like to add to the scenery is not only cities but small villages - doesn't matter how their places will correspond to the reality but this will make landscape more "live". Right now if you fly over the flatland it looks like dead area. Small artificial villages even all having the same shape will make things better. Imho.
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swt
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Post by swt » Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:19 pm

:arrow: markjt Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:30 am

Salute! Lot of in this post is exactly what I think, only I was unable express it properly, thanks.



:arrow: Mosquito

I expressed several times before, and I can repeat it forever. I bow before work You and others developers do. I did some work of this kind (kiddie sandboxes compared to your work) so I am aware how tremendous work it is - again and again big respect to your work and skills, although I might not like results. You do what You want to do, and You are doing it perfectly (only I would like to see You work a bit other way :wink: ).

I am aware that negative opinions are kinda hurting developers, but do You prefer "positive only" kind of feedback? I do not think it is sensible not to talk about other opinions.

And because I feel lot of people who do not like phototextures are thinking "well its made so in every sim so I have to resign to it" and they are not expressing their opinion, also because they feel it is not pleasant for devs, and on opposite ppl who like it do not hesitate to cry out "wow" "great" "nice" ---- it seems most of people would like it. So I am writing against phototextures maybe more aggressive than I feel apropriate to compensate for this fact - poll results agree with me, at least in majority of aspects.

As I feel Your last post was aimed mostly at me - well, what to say? I went to path of criticism so I must accept all beating. I did ofered other ways, maybe not so directly. I am EVER thinking about alternatives - if i do not have one, I do not say criticism. Maybe I should express these options more explicitly.

Let me sumarise options as I see it:

-- blurred photo underlying - for me it is acceptable only in dillema "fly with these or DO NOT FLY AT ALL" - as I will be out of LLC because big part of LLC was taken in Alps

-- oldschool Condor "cities", with more houses - OK for me, rather this or no cities at all against blurred nightmare

-- no cities if they cannot be done in pleasant way - OK for me as stated above, better (IMHO) than blurred cities accented by pleasant 3D houses

-- 3D houses over optimised "artwork" generic city texture - THATS the way I would like to see. Unfortunatelly, I am unable (unskilled) to contribute with such an texture, and I understand it will place more burden on devs to create such an texture, but maybe not so much in comparsion to adapt phototexture and blend it with Condor art landscape.
- subvariant to this is just plain abstract "dark ground" texture dotted with 3D houses, just to make city area and contours with that. For me still better than something that resembels reality but plays havoc with Your eyes and brain when You want to focus on it.


I wish You punch some silver pins into voodoo doll of mine to make me puke or have hedache as revenge, but please think it over.

Do not think too bad of me, I am not Your enemy, I also fly up there :) My target is just to try to influence way where it will go.

SWT

Edit: some errata
Last edited by swt on Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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swt
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Post by swt » Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:27 pm

I started writing just after mosquito post. Some people jumped meantime in between that and my reply.

About Cadfael Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:58 am
yes, I agree with him, thoug I must say for me it will be some pain to use it, but thats my very personal aspect to thing, and most people will do as Cadfael wrote. Again, I WILL be grateful (and I am) for any scenery despite my personal "problems".

About Tima (TSD) Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:59 am
I concur to that. This is two of main issues i have with condor default scenery - it will be nice to have some artificial villages as he wrote. Secon my issue is - abesnce of roads&rivers - in FS it is I believe some kind of "vector" layers, I think it is in FS defined in form of "from this point to that poit please lay road of type 1" - dunno if it is in some way possible to do that in condor (suggestion to devs :wink: - maybe even directly convert FS fromat of road/rivers network into Condor ) :twisted:

Edit: typos
Last edited by swt on Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

markjt
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Post by markjt » Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:34 pm

mosquito wrote:People are telling me (or us) that things look stupid....
NO WAY :!: Your work is excellent! I don't think anyone is saying that at all. I certainly intended my post to be constructive.

"stupid" is not what any of us think I'm sure. I'm sad if that's how we made you feel :(

Like I said, both sceneries will be a great addition.

In the end everyone has their own eyes and visual preferences.

It just happens that I studied design and photography (then spent 17 years in TV and film), so I had to learn a lot about the theory of visual perception and composition etc. blah, blah... That does not mean I'm right about how Condor sceneries should look :)

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swt
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Post by swt » Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:49 pm

markjt, it is clearly aimed at me and I must admit that I am using words as "ugly" etc. as they express my personal opinion. It is a bit more rough than my usual talk but I intendet to say it in more agressive way as I feel lot of people with simillar opinion is silent, in opposite to those-who-say-wow ...

Though I hope I did not intentionally dehonested mosquito work in other way that persolal POV "like/dislike". Their effort and skills are not to be doubted!

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Adam
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Post by Adam » Fri Apr 21, 2006 3:48 pm

Sorry but it looks like SWT and I will be on a server all on our own. There is no doubt that the photorealistic schene looks great at hight, but I know to well that gliding at speed often comes with flying low, low enough to see the bluring. If I was a 10,000 foot learjet sim pilot I would think this was great. Sadly I must say that when flying low over high ground I know how much more disappointed people will be.

I wonder if the split between lovers and haters is base around sim only pilots and real life pilots. As a RL pilot I prefer the artwork and don't need to see the realism.

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Post by Uros » Fri Apr 21, 2006 3:49 pm

My opinion is that the city is great, the best so far and certanly done with care. The city texture seem to fit good into the terrain and there certainly isn't that "photorealistic merge" feel like on some similar screenshots of cities we've seen before. Of course with a lot of work and trying, for sure some even more appealing cities can be made, but as it is now, it certainly works for me.

Edit: I also don't like the city around the lake though. The colors don't seem right and the edges are too sharp/artificial. Doesn't look nearly as good as the last one.
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