This problem is intended as a boost to posts about the photogrammetry problem, with a suggested/requested possible solution for the devs, and to register the key point about how this now-habituated issue affects sellability of this sim. Habituation = reputation, and reputation is extremely hard to roll back.
I’ve (we’ve) had this problem since the beginning, have it right now after updating to 1.16.2.0 yesterday (and cleaning out cache), and long before adding anything to my Community folder. Right now I have no global scenery/terrain related mods, just aircraft, liveries, specific airports, and bush flights, but still have this with no mods anyway. The area in the attached pic is nowhere near any add-on airports.
I have this problem whether Dev mode is turned on or off. I’m on the MS Store version on Win10 PC that’s strong enough to run on high settings with no FPS issues.
The problem:
Separate from those very obvious and embarrassing spikes and mountains reaching into the sky that others post about, I want to register what everyone has habituated to, which is that local terrain is problematic, and this is the fundamental reason why so many of us can’t recommend the game to others “yet”. The requested/suggested fix is offered naively “as if the devs never thought of it” (I know…), “just in case”, and because it behooves me/us to try.
Outside of this pic’s view this entire neighborhood is densely packed with these bulges. This is about 2 nm north of KBOW.
How to Reproduce: These are everywhere in populated areas outside of bespoke sceneries.
Key points:
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In this pic I was attempting to visit a friend and send a screenshot of the visit. It could just as easily be visiting any local spot in the world besides famous cathedrals, et al., including wilderness areas. This problem occurs everywhere, and THIS IS WHY MSFS REMAINS A GAME ONLY/PRIMARILY FOR ALTITUDE FLYERS. It is not good enough to say “photogrammetry problem” and wait for bespoke sceneries. There is no waiting for or generating bespoke sceneries for 99.999% of the planet.
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Notice how one of the bulges clearly has a(n unrealistically tall) tree coming out the top and the other tree is either not detected as a tree or is covered by the terrain bulge.
a) I would rather have no tree where a tree should be than these entirely bogus terrain bulges. Same goes for bulges on the sides of buildings (which are everywhere, including at probably all non-bespoke airports). These bulges are fundamentally immersion breaking.
b) Naively suggested/requested solution:
Assumption 1: The algorithm/AI defaults to assuming that mountainous/broken terrain is possible everywhere and operates to add additional terrain where the larger scale smooth elevation data has no such detail.
Comment 1: It must be far easier to manually define “mountainous” and other kinds of “broken terrain” than to allow the algorithm/AI to default to assuming such terrain is possible everywhere and expect to some day improve its discernment globally.
Assumption 2: The algorithm sees (or looks for and assumes!) a shadow in the satellite picture beside a high contrast visual artifact in the satpic. It concludes there’s terrain there and calculates a height from the size of the artifact and shadow, and adds a bulge.
Comment 2: That’s really only appropriate for known mountainous/broken terrain. Populated areas just don’t have these things.
Assumption 3: Assumption 2 behavior will happen for visual artifacts not defined by placeable objects (many kinds of smaller boxes, poles, mailboxes, etc. which cast shadows, i.e. objects and visual artifcacts which are found all over populated areas).
Comment 3: The Assumptions 1 and 2 behaviors could be disabled locally without requiring recognition of those smaller objects that cast shadows. As shown in the pic and easily seen everywhere in the sim, these bulges are very often where the sim already decides that trees and buildings should be placed, so some part of the system already knows “human objects are nearby”. That effect would cascade across populated areas where the system is already detecting many human-made objects.
Naive summary recommendation/suggestion:
– IF the processing pass which adds terrain detail on top of the smoother elevation data occurs prior to client rendering, during pre-generation of the elevation data, these changes could be implemented during that pre-generation process by disabling the part of the algorithm/AI that creates bulges EXCEPT at predefined mountainous/broken terrain regions (it must be far easier to manually define mountainous/broken terrain areas globally, and perhaps it’s doable via a separate trainable AI reading the map data, given what this system can already do). If there are some notable, known bulges in populated areas, it’s far easier and better to re-add those in the sim or with add-on bespoke sceneries than to expect the community to remove them manually everywhere.
OR
– IF this processing pass which adds terrain detail occurs only at client side rendering time because some part of it needs to know client graphics settings, then any time the other (part of the) algorithm decides a building or tree is appropriate to place, turn off this algorithm within some distance of said object. These are clearly already independent processing steps, so the tree/building placement algorithm occurs first, defining “no bulge-algorithm zones” which can inform the other algorithm AND CUT DOWN ON ITS PROCESSING TIME (the client would no longer spend time calculating bulge locations/sizes for huge swaths of the region being processed, which must also improve performance).
Again, I’ve stated that this is a naive “just in case” solution request, so please don’t dogpile. We’re all doing what we can. I realize now that I must also file this a direct bug report, so I’m doing that now.