Swiss Alps shockingly bad

[Majickthyse]

Overall this game is pretty much a masterpiece (when it is working well).

But the Swiss Alps have been let down badly by a low resolution mesh. The Matterhorn looks more like the Splatterhorn. The Eiger, Monch, Jungfrau, Wetterhorn and Breithorn are almost unrecognisable.

To be fair, with previous sims it has usually been necessary to buy a payware DLC to get a decent mesh for the Alps. But now in 2020 I would expect a flagship product, released with such fanfare as this , to make some effort to make an iconic part of the world look decent instead of going cheap on it.

Clearly it is possible, because the Yosemite and Cascades meshes look pretty decent. Switzerland is not the only low quality area. North Wales also has a poor quality mesh.

So, please Asobo/Microsoft, sort out the poor quality meshes, or failing that, someone else please give us payware products to improve them.

[I'm Ant]

I wish they would of used Google maps it's not like Microsoft can't afford it.

[luftfisch]

I am new to MSFS. They say, there is a huge community. Is it all commercial or are there also modders who like to contribute free content? Many other simulation games have great communities, where thousands of people create content for free.
If I had a tool to correct some meshes at places I know, I would do it for free. Or take some pictures of a landmark and upload them for use as textures for 3d models. If every player would invest only half an hour to update his neighbourhood, we had a perfect game model.

[Majickthyse]

引用自 I'm Ant：

I wish they would of used Google maps it's not like Microsoft can't afford it.

When I get down close on drone view, the 'breakup' of the objects (where the straight edges start to distort etc) is a lot better than it is when I get close to objects on Google Earth.

I've no real understanding of photogrammetry but I wonder if the Google data would be as capable of doing it as well as the Bing data.

[J4MESOX4D]

引用自 Rhym3z：

The same goes for the grand canyon. It looks awful

I was looking forward to visiting there and was expecting a really immersive experience but in the end it was so low texture quality and it even had greenery. Other key mountainous areas have rivers running sideways too. Hopefully it will all improve in time capture-wise.

[Harmonica]

引用自 luftfisch：

I am new to MSFS. They say, there is a huge community. Is it all commercial or are there also modders who like to contribute free content?

The flight sim community is one of the best when it comes to community produced content and tools. They are already in the works. A third party will see things like the Alps and Grand Canyon as a challenge and they'll go and do it. Right now, I feel like the official tools are a bit cumbersome since they run in-game and the menus are obtuse and its not well documented. But people are working on external solutions for airports and probably scenery patches too.

[KatySnowflake]

It's not the resolution. It's quite obvious what happened. The shadows are long and point towards west. Many satelite pictures were made early in the morning during winter, when the ground was frozen. The real mountains are covered below an icy layer.

[Majickthyse]

Hi Katy,

I'm not sure who you are responding to, but if it is my original post, this is nothing to do with photographs. The elevation data is based on LIDAR/RADAR information from satelites and determines what shape the mountains are. The data is available for the whole planet and developers just need to decide what resolution of data to buy and inject into the sim.

Of course, if the elevation data does not match the photographs that can introduce new problems. But right now the problem is the low resolution elevation data the devs have chosen to use. Surprising, as the software house is French one would expect them to have more pride in the Alps!