By ground surface textures I mean, things like the cracked mud effect to simulate dry fields of mud and the asphalt/concrete.
The textures are far too inorganic and unrandomized and give off an unnatural feel and overall look aesthetically displeasing.
Here are some examples:
----Asphalt/Runway markings----
In MSFS:
(Really lacks contrast between white and grey)
From distance:
In real life:
(Notice how the stones are much smaller and finer)
From distance:
----Grass----
In MSFS:
(I turned off 3d grass so you can see the texture better)
What good grass looks like in my opinion (smooth and not patchy):
In real life:
----Dirt----
In MSFS:
In real life:
----Lighting/Colour----
In MSFS & real life:
MSFS:
(Seems far too dark, but I could let that go down to satellite imagery source, but the sky appears far too bright and something just feels very off about the lighting and colouring, the graphics just appear dull, miserable and unsaturated.
Real life:
All in all, the graphics seem unnecessarily inorganic and inaccurate and I don’t think people are giving the graphics enough scrutiny, these graphical features are an eye-sore more than anything.
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You put more effort into that post than Asobo is going to put at improving the textures. But I wish you good luck.
13 Likes
I support anything that can be done to constantly improve ground textures, along with everything else.
5 Likes
Thanks. I agree. They really haven’t done any research when making the graphics of this sim.
A simple reference from real grass and real trees and real colours of real scenery would have made such a difference, I doubt they even did that, they probably just did it all by theory rather than sight. There’s a lot to be said for using your eyes rather than going by the textbook and doing what sounds right in the programming.
I’ve always thought the graphics are hugely overrated and while things can look really really nice at times, at other times they look appalling and ugly.
I see a lot of potentials for this game to look far far more consistently amazing and realitstic/authentic with just fairly insignificant tweaks here and there.
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It looks like the ground textures in MSFS lack the correct normal and diffuse maps. Especially the ground markings. The ground markings look like they have just been projected into the ground texture and have no separate properties. I hope this gets drastically improved, because it really does look awful currently.
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Absolutely dead on. Sorry for late reply, but yes, you’re right.
Great post. I have always found the green terrain textures in particular to be a long way off in colour, they look almost cartoony and are the biggest giveaway for me that I am looking at MSFS and not a real video. It would be great if ground colours and textures could be improved as the lighting and texture engine is extremely capable
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Definitely. And yes I agree, it makes it easy to spot a fake video.
It’s not really up to par with what you’d expect in 2020s technology with Microsoft. It’s totally below expectations and below standards. If it’s not fixed before 2024/25 I will be very disappointed, I don’t think I’ll buy another sim from Microsoft.
Well, they seems to finally do it in fs2024 
Not sure if it will come on 2020 however.
Thats some really nice concrete ground and markings are really having their own reflections and looks really painted.
2 Likes
It does look improved. I hope they live up to it.
I’ve generally been disappointed massively by fs2020 graphics.
Especially because it’s not like it’s a lack of effort that’s caused it, it’s just a lack of skill. There’s things that just don’t look right, not because they’re low res, or low complexity, they just aren’t accurate.
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I don’t know if this is the right place for this or not.
It seems to me that the “procedural 3D” elements like grass or rocks/stones are making the underlying aerial imagery look really bad.
In the PG areas there is a mask that gets applied over the roads but its often not perfectly aligned and that lets us see just how much damage is being done by the procedural texture elements. The best example I’ve found is this pic where the letter P in STOP is covered by procedural stuff:
Look at the brown house and the sidewalk at the bottom center of this pic and note that both have the same pattern:
When you get closer you see its a pebbly/rocky pattern on either dirt or sand:
Heres a parking lot made worse by a grass overlay:
In this image there is a white car and sidewalk that are very crisp and clean but other sidewalks in the pic are damaged by the texture system:
I get the impression that the new sim will have even more 3d procedural stuff so I think its really important that it not degrade the imagery in any way.
To see for yourself, these shots are taken on the southwest of the smaller of the two major airports in the Allentown PG. I think any PG would do the same though – just look at the edges of the roads.
heres another example where you can see a really good shadow of a tree/bush and also a decorative fence around a flower bed:
Bottom line: Surely it takes compute cycles to make the imagery worse.
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