Its not just the buildings themselves but also the pseudo textures that show up in many places that are surprisingly bad. If ‘computer code’ (AI) can create fairly accurate pictures of humans (except the odd additional hand, leg or finger), then I would think it could create very good representations of any familiar Earth surface texture that you might see in an aerial photo. If AI could create totally realistic ground textures based on instructions that might include elevation data and rainfall and other climate data then having the whole Earth accurately photographed becomes a thing of the past. Knowing what is actually at a location is much more important than a photo of it and that becomes much more true if AI can create artificial ‘photos’ of the described object/scene that can change based on the myriad of changes that occur in nature. One photo captures one scene in a moment of time including all those shadows but AI should conceivably be able to create scenes for an area based on its current date/time and weather. Our local machines may not be able to do that but someday theirs might and then they stream those images to us.
But as this thread points out, even simple buildings seem too much and the pseudo textures are terrible. How will they handle changing conditions like crops growing in a field in 2024? Will the images remain the same while pseudo crops change on top of them? If the image is of a field of cotton in full bloom, how do they show the newly ploughed field? or do they?
I dont see any reason why it cant eventually come to that. But right now, in MFS, the scenery is not AI generated ‘per se’, all the AI does in our case is interpret the satellite images and tell the game what to place where. Here a house… here a tree… here a warehouse… and the same with the shape and height of the buildings, make an L shaped building, make a 14 story tall building, etc… I wouldnt call this scenery AI generated… more like AI assisted scenery.
That’s not correct as DinoPete11 pointed out.
The height and type of buildings is definitely taken off OSM data, the AI has nothing to do with that. Actually probably the shape is too but here I’m not sure. Same for trees, probably they’re at least partially AI placed.
AI is used to set autogen models with well matching roof colors etc.
Most of what AI did for MSFS is rather color correcting satellite images, removing clouds and other artifacts,…
Also it was used to recognize and draw airport layouts (taxiways, runways etc.) and we all know how well that went (some airports are missing entire runways, only showing bad quality satellite textures instead…).
I’m sure that Jorg(or Seb or Martial) said that a combination of OSM and Ai and PG are being used and I’ll find the reference if need be - it would be in Dev Q and A notes. Here is one of the partnership series (available at MS Flight Simulator youtube channel) - take with a grain of salt as things have changed over time:
Good videos, its interesting how much better the game looks in this videos than what we (at least me) are getting now. The airplane interiors in particular.
For me its mostly the clouds that looked better. I think default planes like the C152, C172, and the Pipistrel all look great - at least on X Box X. I was surprised when I changed from PC to XBox that some features I thought had been turned off must have simply been turned off by me on my PC because they still clearly exist on XBox – things like city light illuminating clouds and fog for example.
I know it existed on PC at release but Im not sure about now. Its on XBox. Here are the best pics Ive got to illustrate. When you fly the default C172G1000, do its lights light up the haze (see third pic)?
You think 2110 indicates the time here? I mean for that photo, it can’t be 9.10pm?
Either way I think it’s impossible to accurately know height from shadows. Depends on so many other factors. Which way is north, latitude on the planet and how high the sun was at that date at that time, terrain undulation around the object etc. That is a lot of calculation PER OBJECT for the billions of houses and buildings made by autogen. All very clever stuff but I think AI is given way too much credit
yeah i get what you mean, but whats the alternative, osm having height data for every single building in the entire world? i dont see that happening… and if it did, where did it come from?
i think its much more plausible to deduce height from what we know for certain is available data for the entire world, in this case, aerial imagery.
i dont know… could be, if its not local… just pointing out that there is always metadata
yes, true… but then again… these are all known variables, with the exception (maybe) of terrain ondulation… and as for the calculations i dont think they are that complex its simple trigonometry, although there will be a lot of them, yes… but we are talking about the resources of a top 3 cloud services provider, so im betting they can swing it
I think Ai can be pretty impressive. Asobo never said how long it took to train the Ai to detect all the trees on the planet but I got the impression it took months at least. Now this video includes a demonstration that shows Ai learning in a matter of minutes. Start at 15:30 if it doesn’t automatically.
Remember, the AI that was used to generate the world of MSFS isn’t modern AI of today. In the last 5 years, AI has advanced at a staggering pace. What’s in MSFS is what was available back when they started the project almost 10 years ago. Even when MSFS launched 4 years ago, that was still pretty state of the art.
Since then, no part of the world in MSFS outside of World / City updates has been updated. And with said updates, it’s custom POIs, elevation maps / DEM, and photogrammetry / TIN data that’s been updated (for better or worse). The Blackshark AI autogen stuff is the same that they had in the sim 7+ years ago when they were developing it and still running on the old Bing data from that day, not what’s live on Bing atm.
So comparing the AI in MSFS to what can be done today in 2024 is perhaps a bit unfair.
Now let’s see what they have in store for us with MSFS 2024. In that case, I’ll be upset if I see exactly the same 15+ year old Bing data and old autogen being used.
my fourth attempt at posting this:
What I don’t get is why so many of the autogen Ai homes have weird squares and triangles near the peaks of the roofs. Its not skylights or solar panels. Why did the Ai put them there: near KONO:
I think you might be misinterpreting what is going on here. The AI isn’t building homes dynamically, like procedural generation. Unless it is but I doubt it.
What’s more likely is that human artists build a number of primitive buildings, of different kinds, with different numbers of floors.
An algorithm them looks at the ground scenery tile, identifies what it believes is a structure, looks at OSM data or other sources to identify the type of building, and then places a 3D model that matches that building. So you might get a two floor town house in a residential area of a city, or you might get a warehouse if it’s at an industrial estate, or farm.
If the buildings have weird shapes, you would need to complain to the artists that made them, not the algorithm that placed them.
