One thing I’ve only really just noticed in FS2024 is how much of an improvement the auto-gen buildings are over FS2020’s Blackshark system. When I first loaded up FS2024 I was disappointed that there didn’t seem to be much an improvement but it turns out I was over looking things.
I’ve been having a lot of fun over Xmas in the little Joby. Today I randomly landed somewhere in France I noticed the shops all have window displays and the shop front glass reflects light hitting off it. This is way ahead of Blackshark in FS2020. It did get me thinking about how much better this system can be made. There’s a lot of debate on this forum about the pros and cons of photogrammetry but photogrammetry definitely has a relatively short shelf life I think. The future is with the AI powered auto-gen building system, and how accurate they can make it.
The weakest link now for their Earth 2.0 is the blurry ground textures where their low resolution aerial imagery is stretched over the ground mesh. They need to work some AI powered magic into that somehow. Getting rid of the photo imprint of parked and moving cars would be a start.
Really? I don’t think I ever saw decent looking auto-gen buildings in FS2020. They mostly seemed to be the same nondescript design and colour. I don’t think I ever saw detailing like guttering but maybe I just over looked it.
That does look pretty cool, but does the AI properly identify which buildings are shops and which aren’t? Presumably not, maybe it decides based on whether it’s a city center or similar? Or does it just randomly make some houses shops?
There was no update with autogen building in 2024. It’s even stated in their dev stream. Although they are done with black shark and working on own autogen that will appear some day. You see more variety perhaps because they have newer maps, so new buildings came into play.
Looking closely at the triple smokestacks, there appears to be cell-tower hardware encircling them. Perhaps these are mis-configured cell towers placed by @PuffinFlight ?
As far as I know, autogen buildings are the same in MSFS2024 as in MSFS2020. I think Seb said in one of the dev streams that they might get improved and updated in a future sim update.
I have noticed this as well, while exploring my old towns I saw the buildings match the same shape and size as their real life counterparts, but because there’s no photogrammetry they get a random texture on them, my school got turned into a shoe store.
Can you give me coordinates? I’d like to fix them, bu have no idea where it is. Sometimes OSM users mark chimneys with multiple pipes as separate objects and you get something like this.
I’ll have more info on it if I know the location.
I just remember all the Blackshark buildings from 2020 being that same old colour and as far as I remember being really quite featureless. Maybe the new graphics system in FS2024 just makes them look a bit better and more colourful. I do remember Seb saying in one of dev streams that all auto-gen buildings were going to get an improvement powered by their own in house system.
The auto-gen system has always been patchy. Round where I live in Scotland its still putting tower blocks where farm buildings should be, something FS2020 did from day one onwards. I’ve been flying around rural France a lot recently and it seems much better at putting hanger like buildings where farms clearly are, so at least it looks vaguely accurate.
My house and village looks the same as in MSFS2020…awful! The UK still has its rural countryside peppered with large modern office blocks. France is much better!
They are on the island of Tobaga near the airport and visible from it iirc. I can get you bettercoordinates soon but i broke my arm so everything is slow and backlogged right now
Got it. My code took into account the fact that these chimneys are located at Power Plant and the power plant area size. I guess I also should add a cap for Caribbean countries so they don’t have that tall smoke stacks.
Also the system should take into consideration that it is a gas power plant and place smaller metal chimneys rather than concrete. I’ll correct it for the next package release.
Are you the person I have to thank for all the wonderful radio towers that are now everywhere? If so - thanks! - and also: Are they supposed to have lights? I have yet to see lights (red pulsating beacons or bright white strobes). But great job nonetheless!
