Comments on: DSF Mesh Formats – v9 vs v10

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:20:20 +0000

In reply to Nick.

You make draped orthophotos by checking the “uv map” button with the draped polygon tool.

DSF overlays are already less than 1 degree. We are not going to use GeoTIFFs for shipping scenery; you can already use them in WED though.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:20:05 +0000

In reply to Ben Supnik.

Good thinking. Is the draped othophoto the draped polygons tool?

Any plans for anything less than 1 degree tiles, and using 1 GeoTiff rather than polygons? 🙂 🙂

Cheers

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Sun, 05 May 2013 00:46:39 +0000

In reply to Nick.

No. In X-Plane you currently have to provide mesh data in 1-degree lat/lon tiles.

At that density you could model features using a 3-d model sitting on top of the mesh.

You can put _orthophoto images_ down around the local airport at 1 meter/pixel on top of the _existing_ Mesh – use the draped orthophoto tool in WED…

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Sun, 05 May 2013 00:45:05 +0000

In reply to russell. That's why they have such huge fans. ;-)

By: Nick

Nick — Sat, 04 May 2013 04:25:21 +0000

Hi there, I’m new to the Xplane game and this may not be the best place to ask but I’ve trawled lots of forums and haven’t had an answer. Is it possible with this tool or others to use a small set of data (airport surrounds) to create a mesh for XP at a res of 1 meter/pixel?

Thanks

By: russell

russell — Fri, 03 May 2013 23:39:10 +0000

In reply to Ben Supnik.

mmmm… yummy
high frequency noise displacment.
thats what I want.

A good technique to fake close detail.
Also a good technique to melt your video card.

keep up the good fight.

By: Dscho

Dscho — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:39:43 +0000

In reply to Ben Supnik. Thanks Ben!

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:16:11 +0000

In reply to Dscho.

Hi,

We’re short on docs for some of these new features; I’ll try to get more written when I can.

Re: tessellation, I think that’s not quite true…tessellation needs a _data source_ to create displacement but a displacement map is only one option. Tessellation shaders can also generate curves from normal vectors (e.g. PN-triangles), or use a procedural source of displacement.

But in our case, our idea was that with the full DEM available, we could use it as a displacement map for tessellation, yes. We could also add high-frequency shaped noise to it to create sub-DEM detail.

By: Dscho

Dscho — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:11:49 +0000

….
* There are also a million other v10 0nly features that the global scenery requires that v9 does not support. Besides not supporting Mesh + DEM, v9 doesn’t support the new terrain shaders, the new draped road system, or the new autogen!
…
i am very interested in these new features, especially in the new autogen. Can you please suggest any reading where one can learn more about that?
Another question for better understanding of the tesselation process: tesselation needs a displacement map to become effective; does the 2 dimensional array of elevations (the raster data) represent this displacement map?
thanks in advance,
Dscho

By: Ben Supnik

Ben Supnik — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:49:22 +0000

In reply to juanox.

Right. _If_ all of these are true:
1. Authors can use tessellation to seriously lower the polygon count of their models and
2. Tessellation is available everywhere so that authors are willing to do (1) without looking bad on old machines and
3. Vertex count is the limiting factor in performance

then we could get a win.

But I think that there are problems with all three of those assumptions; the most obvious one is (2) – until tessellation is guaranteed everywhere, the motivation for authors is to use a lot of tris – it’ll look good for all users. And (2) is tricky too – you can replace some detail with displacement maps but complex arbitrary shapes still need to be complex and arbitrary.