Let's improve the scenery quality.

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Jan Oorthuijsen
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Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by Jan Oorthuijsen » Fri Nov 23, 2018 12:38 pm

When I look at some scenery I notice a few things.



* Not flattened airports.
A crash yesterday after landing was caused by the airport not being flattened.
* No thermal map.
* No water effect.
* No trees.
* Airports with no or only one Object and non or missing textures.
* The possibilities for making runways are not used like: Grass,
Grasspaint, Asphalt and Asphaltpaint.
* no correction of deviant ugly landscape textures (clouds and color difference)
* No _ns applied to world c3d objects where necessary, which results in unwanted
shadow effects occur (for example shadow that does not follow the slope but hangs in the
air) a 3D object may only have a shadow if it is on a flatsubsurface. In some scenery the flicker drives you crazy
while ridge flying at a low sun level caused by these shadows.
* Not use the scenery check tool from Philippe, resulting in missing textures or other errors that are not removed.
* No updates.

The Condor developers have made a very nice product (V2) and developed the CST tool to make beautiful scenery’s please use all the possibilities of it.

My advice:

If you want to make or create a scenery, you set yourself the minimum requirement to take at least a year to learn all the techniques first, and make use of all the possibilities, and check your scenery for the realise to limit the number of mistakes.
I myself am also still in this learning process.
So, all together keep on doing the good job.

Jan
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When You’re surrounded By Turkeys

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Bre901
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by Bre901 » Fri Nov 23, 2018 2:01 pm

Jan Oorthuijsen wrote:
Fri Nov 23, 2018 12:38 pm
My advice:

If you want to make or create a scenery, you set yourself the minimum requirement to take at least a year to learn all the techniques first, and make use of all the possibilities, and check your scenery for the realise to limit the number of mistakes.
I myself am also still in this learning process.
So, all together keep on doing the good job.

Jan
I would add one thing : before releasing a scenery, take time for beta-testing , it should not be difficult to find some users ready to perform thorough tests, especially on airports (objects & flyability : "mole" tow planes are not nice for beginners).

Some scenery designers already do that, providing a list of sectors to be tested.
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maymar
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by maymar » Fri Nov 23, 2018 5:55 pm

Maybe Condor Team should give the title of the recommended scenery that meets the minimum requirements ;-)

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OXO
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by OXO » Fri Nov 23, 2018 10:33 pm

Easy.

Slovenia 2
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Ikarus
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by Ikarus » Sat Nov 24, 2018 11:25 am

hi Jan,
I agree with you.A good built scenery maximizes the fun flying C2.And yes, an airfield , next to reality with nice Infrastructure, is a handsome goodie. On the other hand, we are 99,5% of the time airborne using C2 , so we really don`t enjoy this costly work reasonable.
I also want to thanks again all this scenery designers, who gives us very quickly the chance, to fly in different landscapes from the very beginning of C2. Due to this , sometimes, quick and dirty approach to make theses sceneries, I can understand that there are quality issues.
Personally, my absolut focus are the texture quality ,accuracy and a next to reality thermal map.
With C1 we had this "golden standard" by Michel DGT's ArcAlpin AA scenery.
As we know,AA C2 is work in progress, would be lovely, if we get a chrismas present.
cu in the air
Ikarus

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OXO
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by OXO » Sat Nov 24, 2018 12:13 pm

Many Condor pilots are low hours and use it for training. This is why well made airfields are important, using our textures, and adding realistic building, trees and other objects
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AUBUISSON
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by AUBUISSON » Mon Nov 26, 2018 9:59 am

So, show us your talent as a stage designer :mrgreen:
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pstrzel
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by pstrzel » Sun Dec 09, 2018 7:24 pm

Create a scenery user's rating system (Condor-club). Competition organizers can say that landscapes rated less than e.g. 4 stars will not be used. This may motivate developers to be more diligent since most probably want their creations to be downloaded, praised, and used in competitions. We probably look at the number of downloads as a rating system, but area popularity isn't the same as quality. We know that anything in the Alps will be more popular than say SouthernNorway4, which is very good quality.

I also think that greater cooperation between experienced individuals will result in better products. Most on here don't do it for financial reasons, but for a sense of achievement and peer accolades.
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by Capricorne » Wed Dec 12, 2018 11:19 pm

Give us a 64-bit LandScapeEditor that works fine for DXT1 dds in 4096 x 4096 and without the water hole bug, and we'll make small buildings to decorate airports...
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by Andy1248 » Tue Apr 26, 2022 12:22 am

I have refreshed this thread from 2018 with a aim to get some more current comment on the topic. At the time I took the comments a bit personally although I had to admit there was truth in the first post. Scenery quality will vary on who has designed them and no doubt there will always be the view that no Condor user is under any obligation to download and use a new scenery. In fact observation of download numbers will confirm this.
No doubt many of us have seen the advanced scenery within the MSFS 2020 flight sim with its auto loading of Bing imagery and can even be changed to Google if that is what you prefer. Also the photometric buildings are simply stunning but some may say are not applicable or necessary in a soaring sim.

I think it would be interesting to see a debate on where Condor users would like to see Condor scenery progress to. Is the simply lacking in detail scenery preferable or do they want high quality scenery matching the high quality of the gliders modelling in current Condor. Or would they like to see the auto generated Microsoft type scenery?
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by 6266 » Tue Apr 26, 2022 6:32 am

Thanks Andy for digging up that thread, haven't read it before. I started with making landscapes now. Seeing the list of things I should do to build a landscape here will stopp my motivation to do it.

But no, I make the landscapes in a way I like them. No objects on the airfield, only a windsock. No grass, because in my opinion it's ugly, no watereffect, because I miss the small details like ships on the water, not to speak about the amazing wadden sea.

If the community can't accept those "bad" landscapes, there is for me one option: Not to share them via CC. I make them first of all for me. And I do it for free ...
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by wickid » Tue Apr 26, 2022 7:54 am

Andy1248 wrote:
Tue Apr 26, 2022 12:22 am
I think it would be interesting to see a debate on where Condor users would like to see Condor scenery progress to. Is the simply lacking in detail scenery preferable or do they want high quality scenery matching the high quality of the gliders modelling in current Condor. Or would they like to see the auto generated Microsoft type scenery?
World wide sattelite images are very expensive. MSFS can do it because Microsoft is behind it. Bulk download of google images and sharing them without credit is not allowed. Some countries release sattelite images for free, for example the US landsat images.
PH-1504, KOE

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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by Fabry » Fri Apr 29, 2022 7:08 pm

OXO wrote:
Sat Nov 24, 2018 12:13 pm
Many Condor pilots are low hours and use it for training. This is why well made airfields are important, using our textures, and adding realistic building, trees and other objects
I agree completely, high quality free scenery are only a few especially for the USA there isn't a singe one that can match Slovenia 2 or CW quality
I would like to see many more payware sceneries similar to Condorworl's series from Doc.Ing.Miloš Koch which are worth every penny, it takes lots of work to create such a product and it's just fair to pay for it.
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6266
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by 6266 » Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:55 pm

I think there are 2 different aims for Condor landscapes.

1. Local training

Create a little landscape, maybe 3x3 tiles and spend all your time in making the one realistic airport

2. XC flying

Create a bigger landscape with a lot of airports and less or nearly no objects

If you combine both aims you will get a huge project. If that should be done professionell, calculate the price. Maybe you need for every realistic airport 10 hours (I only guess how fast a prof will be). I call an airport realistic if there are buildings on the airport like IRL, not an airport with some objects on any place. Take only 100 airports you have 1000 hours. I think it's for less including the research of the real airport. How many people will buy that landscape? 100? So each has to pay for 10 hours. What will be the price per hour? 20 Euro is very low in my opinion. 200 Euro for a landscape? And 100 buyers? Can't believe it.

My conclusion: take and accept what you get or make it yourself
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Re: Let's improve the scenery quality.

Post by bluefang » Tue May 31, 2022 5:59 am

Jan Oorthuijsen wrote:
Fri Nov 23, 2018 12:38 pm
When I look at some scenery I notice a few things.

* Not flattened airports.
A crash yesterday after landing was caused by the airport not being flattened.


My local airport has a very sloped runway (see picture below - the first 300 feet or so is flat, and then it is all downhill from there). I realize that Condor currently doesn't support sloped runways, but the solution is not to simply "make all airports flat". Condor is used as a training tool - and landing at your local airport should be as similar to real life as possible. At my local airport, we have to learn how to land on a slope.

runway-with-yellow-callair.jpg
Jan Oorthuijsen wrote:
Fri Nov 23, 2018 12:38 pm

* No _ns applied to world c3d objects where necessary, which results in unwanted
shadow effects occur (for example shadow that does not follow the slope but hangs in the
air) a 3D object may only have a shadow if it is on a flatsubsurface. In some scenery the flicker drives you crazy
while ridge flying at a low sun level caused by these shadows.

Could you explain this one a bit more? I have noticed some weird clipping to some of the 3D objects I have personally created in Blender - but have never figured out what causes the flickering / clipping.



Jan Oorthuijsen wrote:
Fri Nov 23, 2018 12:38 pm

The Condor developers have made a very nice product (V2) and developed the CST tool to make beautiful scenery’s please use all the possibilities of it.

Jan

I would have to disagree a bit with this point. Condor 2 is indeed a nice product. The CLT however, is a miserable tool to use. The zooming / panning / selection tools are the most un-intuitive I have ever used in any program. The thing is, there are established UI/UX paradigms for 2D navigation - and the CLT seems to have ignored all reasonable approaches. Here's a hint. 2D surface navigation / UI-UX is not a patentable property. As landscape developers, we spend most of our time in professional applications like Photoshop or Blender. Just copy the navigation / selection concepts used by either one of those apps and I would be happy.

Also, we need better tools for surface mesh adjustments. This kinda is inline with the need for sloped runways - but the tools currently implemented for surface mesh editing are only helpful if you want to flatten an entire area. The world isn't flat. Give us mesh curves, lines, and softening tools.

I look forward to Condor 3.0 and hopefully the improvements in the CLT.
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Get my scenery on condor.club: RDU-USA (Raleigh/Durham area of NC)

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