MSFS Auckland Scenery Pack

[deaneb]

I found this on the MSFS official Forums. looks good.

Watch on youtube.com

[Naki]

Cool. Will be my first add-on. Where to get it?

[Splitpin]

Wow ...every addon/ update amazes me .....is this (MSFS) the "Hillary step'' on the Everest of flight sim? , with all the upcomeing addons etc its hard to imagine how much more real it could become, short of actually flying.
Arent you glad to be alive at this stage of development in the hobby (right word?) we all love ..... I sure am, even as a spectator at this stage.
I often think about Ian, the Wing Commander, Warren ...and wonder what his take on all this would be ....Im sure it would increase his post count considerably .....

Anyway, great stuff ...keep it coming MSFSers

[Kelvinr]

Would be great to have this, is not released yet?

[toprob]

Yes, a must-have. The video is stunning, the rotating shot centred on the tower seemed to go on too long, but then Rangitoto came into view! Auckland is an amazing landscape, that's for sure.

[Kelvinr]

Indeed it is.

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

[sandman]

Hello, I found the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWGtWTPvSOE Hope to see soon more landmarks from NZL (Wellington!!).
Regards from Germany in the autumn.

[Aharon]

on the MSFS official Forums.

Which MSFS forums please and since you are one of bosses of NZFF forums, just want to say nice to meet you considering the fact I never see you here before!!! Did not even know you are one of the bosses!! I thought there are 2 bosses, not 3 here.

Regards,

Aharon

[Kelvinr]

[quote="sandman"]Hello, I found the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWGtWTPvSOE Hope to see soon more landmarks from NZL (Wellington!!).
Regards from Germany in the autumn.[/quote]

Thanks for the link!

[deaneb]

on the MSFS official Forums.

Which MSFS forums please and since you are one of bosses of NZFF forums, just want to say nice to meet you considering the fact I never see you here before!!! Did not even know you are one of the bosses!! I thought there are 2 bosses, not 3 here.

Regards,

Aharon

The official MSFS forum is here: https://www.flightsimulator.com/
Although my title is Admin, I'm really just the spare wheel and sounding board to support the guys that really do the work running this site. I work away from home during the week, so have not had as much time to do anything FS related.

Deane

[Aharon]

Deanab,

Thanks for cool answers.

Regards,

Aharon

[waka172rg]

It has been released

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/mi ... sed/251924

[deaneb]

I have just looked at this and it appears to be a direct rip from Google Maps. Maybe ok for personal use, but it's a big breach of Googles terms to share this data.

[waka172rg]

Im at work so i have looked into this at the moment, Why would they release somthing like that on a website with the calibre of people who look on those froms. Bugger

[toprob]

There's been plenty of info and tutorials on ripping stuff from Google, it seems to be quite acceptable, but it does remind me of the old wild west days when anything goes. And I've seen plenty of releases which are obviously grabbed that way. I guess that a lot of new simmers would just not be aware that there are licensing issues.
There's another bloke who's put some pics of the development process for the tower on Facebook -- seems like he's doing it the hard way, and it does look nice.

[toprob]

Finally found the link to the Facebook page showing the Tower model in progress.

https://www.facebook.com/StudioUplift2211/

[zk_ncf]

Just piggybacking on what Robin has alluded to. Ripping 3d models from Google has been around for a while and it doesn't seem that complicated so anybody can do it. The problem is that the ripped model is not "game ready" as is. Ideally it should be optimised by cleaning up the mesh, combined, and baked into one single material. I doubt anyone who has released those quick and dirty Google models have done this (or knows to how to do this). I've downloaded the Auckland scenery and had a look and it's pretty brutal. Performance wise it seemed ok but whether that will still be the case when this group expands on the coverage area remains to be seen. But I guess it's better than nothing for the time being.

Having said that I actually love photogrammetry scenery in MSFS A LOT. They just look awesome from an altitude. No Manhattan scenery in FSX/P3D looks anything close to the default MSFS Manhattan. It is simply not humanly possible to populate a city like that. The only problem is that the geometry/texture tends to be skewed if you go up to them too closely. This is not an issue with the secondary buildings but it can be quite pronounced with skyscrapers.

I've looked at Google Maps and Auckland is actually quite well covered in terms of photogrammetry. Data is obviously not up to date (about 7 years old???). What I wouldn't mind seeing is someone import and do the entire CBD in photogrammetry as a "freeware base" and we replace/supplement the "landmarks" with custom built models. Manukau is not covered by photogrammetry in Google so this will have to be built by hand. The same concept can apply to Wellington/CHCH.

BTW I'm the "bloke" mentioned. I decided to make a HD Sky Tower when I saw the default Auckland in the MSFS release. At this stage I'm doing this more or less as a study project for myself as I attempt to learn about new modelling techniques in MSFS. If my understanding from the SDK is correct the new sim favours geometry over texture which means we do not need to worry about poly count too much like the old days. This is because modern GPUs can chew through millions of triangles without breaking a sweat. The model you see (on my FB) is very accurate. Each structure is modelled in 3D (current poly count about 20k - the final model may be double that if I model all the antennas ). This is a total overkill for sim use but I think it will pay dividend for me down the track. What I haven't gotten my head around is PBR (I've read on it and understand the principles) and how do I design my texture sheets around it. In some way it should be more "straight forward" than before as we no longer need to "pre-bake" shadows or do "night textures" as lighting is based on real dynamic physics. I think the Sky Tower is perfect for learning how PBR works as it has 3 main materials: concrete/glass/metal. If I can master this I will be able to do any modern buildings/airport terminals.

The long and short is that this is very early stage for me and given my real life commitments (work + wife + baby) I can't say when this model will be finished. But I promise that it will be DOPE. Feel free to follow my FB re progress.

My hope is to finish the Sky Tower then turn my attention to Manukau CBD to complement the upcoming Flightbeam NZAA.

All in all very exciting times ahead for Kiwi simmers

BTW sorry about the long winded random rant

[toprob]

Ah, shoulda realised that was you, the clue was there in your email address on the FB page. Good work, as usual. I suspect you might have big plans for Auckland.

[deaneb]

That was a good read and you are correct about the balance between photgrammetry and custom modelled buildings.
Your Skytower looks great. A few more poly's than the first one I made about 20 years ago!

What program are you using to do the modelling?

[zk_ncf]

Hi Dean (?)

Thanks for your comments. I use Sketchup for modelling as it's very intuitive to use (I used to sketch when I was young so it feels very natural to use). I find it really good for architectural stuff, which is essentially what are are doing, making buildings. It wouldn't be much good for aircraft design or complex organic forms.

Sketchup comes with its good and bad. The mesh tends to be "not clean" and UV mapping is a nightmare. So I use Blender to do the "post production" (i.e cleaning the model up and UV unwrapping and exporting). It's been working for me so far and not that much of a hassle.

I know I should really start doing everythnig in Blender or 3DS Max entirely. Blender is free and very powerful but I haven't got the patience to sit down and learn it properly. 3DS Max is now accessible thanks to the Indie licence but I can't justify the cost coz I can only do this part time... well not even that really.

I guess the good thing is MSFS will be around for at least a decade (fingers crossed!) so when my circumstances permit I will look into 3DS Max.