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SDK Hires Ground textures in MSFS

ArtAir

ArtAir

Messages
99
Hello everybody,

Guys, need your explonation. As I can see on screenshots the ground textures (apron, taxiways) in the MSFS are always blurry. Probably it happens due to default "detail" texture, covering over custom one..
I am not expirienced in MSFS SDK, so my question, is it possible to make apron in MSFS like this:
apron.jpg
 
Hello Kelvin,

But why nobody do ground textures like on my picture above?
Example of actual situation (no details at all, very blurry):
20210601_192655.jpg
 
…this topic has definitely been discussed here before, however I am not sure if the current SDK has matured enough to tackle some of the issues associated.

ArtAir@,

Having looked at this quite a while back, you are quite correct, unfortunately the ground texturing for some surface types, does not really cut it. Concrete Paved Aprons as your image above demonstrates, is one such surface.

The two main ways of getting Airport hard surfaces into MSFS, is to use either the in Sim ( MSFS2020 ) Developer tools to do it, or use Custom Created Ground Polygons. These would be created by a third party design tool, Blender for example.

If the in Sim Developer tools are to be used to create the Airport Aprons, Taxiways etc, then as you quite rightly point out, once these surfaces are processed and viewed in the Sim, by default a ‘ Detail ‘ texture layer is added. As far as I can remember, this can’t be toggled off. ( I am not sure if SDK 13.0 has changed this ).

Some Scenery Designers have chosen to use the MSFS Projected Mesh technique to draw the Aprons, Taxiways and Runways etc.
This a similar technique to using Ground Polygons in FSX & P3D. Whilst the Projected Mesh technique is great because the textured polygons follow the terrain, there is a loss of Texture resolution when viewed in the Sim.
In addition to this, it appears that the default ‘ Detail ‘ layer is also added above the Projected Mesh layer, so you get a ‘ double whammy ‘ of the dilution of your original ground textured material.

I have seen on this forum, other designers have mentioned using a third party design tool to create a Textured Plane. This Textured Plane could use a Hi Res
Texture, such as yours shown in the first image, tiled to make it look like an Airport Apron surface.
This Textured Plane ( Model ) would be compiled and placed like any other model is placed using the proprietary tools of the SDK. The Priority drawing order parameter may need to be selected with an appropriate value to reduce the chance of any Z- Fighting ( flickering ) as the Textured Plane will need to be positioned pretty much merged with the ground, just above it actually.

Whilst this approach might be possible and allow a highly detailed Ground Texture to be used and furthermore, when viewed in the Sim remain highly detailed without any Texture resolution loss or the inclusion of the additional ‘ Detail ‘ layer, I think it would only really be possible to implement for very small Airfields or Airports.
Implementation of this technique at larger Airports would require too much Terraforming to get areas flat enough to prevent the terrain breaking through the surface of the Textured Plane.

Hope all of this makes some sense, of course what we really need is for MS/ Asobo to address both the Projected Mesh issue and the Detail layer issue.
Once sorted, this would be a formidable step in the right direction as far as Airport Scenery is concerned.


Kind Regards,

Pete Beeby.
 
Pete, thank you so much for your great explanation. I think we need ask Asobo to fix problem. Maybe just need to add the option "invisible detail layer" to save original resolution of custom textures.
 
Last edited:
I tried to get to the bottom of the phenomenon of the blurred ground textures. I came to the conclusion that the smaller an object is and the more colors the object has, the greater the likelihood that the object will appear blurry. I solved it by scaling my objects in question a bit:

msfs_projected_mesh.jpg


The objects on the ground, in this example a warning sign, are still not very sharp, but they are tolerable, I mean. In any case, the resolution of the texture is not decisive for a sharp representation of floor markings (Projected Mesh).
The reason could be that a Projected Mesh is a 3-D object that is processed into a 2-D image file in the compilation process.

As far as my observations, hopefully it will help one or the other :)
 
ArtAir said:
Hello Kelvin,

But why nobody do ground textures like on my picture above?
Example of actual situation (no details at all, very blurry):
View attachment 73801
Click to expand...
High res means high demand on performance so this would be the first reason o can think of, it's a balanced approach when it comes to scenery design as there is limited performance based on everyone's hardware.



Sent from my SM-G998B using Tapatalk
 
So, guys, just correct me if I wrong. If we want to get hires ground textures (like in other sims...) we just need to use 3DMax flat ground poligons. To avoid ground flickering in the MSFS we should make apron flat by flatten layer.
 
My findings so far, also helped by post of good people on this site:

What used to be called ground polygons in FSX/P3D is now called "Projected mesh". It is a model object that is projected on a surface. It has to be "covered" by a default MSFS detail texture like asphalt, concrete, paint etc. The latter is a prerequisite if the nice MSFS effects of rain and snow are to be applied to the apron, but they cause blurriness of the underlying texture.

Full resolution can be achieved if actual 3D models are used to represent the apron surfaces and placed slightly above the ground. In that case the model would be completely flat and not be able to follow the earth's curvature, which means that if it is large in area then even a flatten polygon will not help. The flatten takes out the ground "bumps" but still follows the earth's curvature. Also the rain and snow effects will not apply to the surface.

Finally, to avoid jaggies on ground textures like lines and signs ground texture resolution should be set above 100 in the settings, preferably at 200.

Hope this helps.
 
Now, it's absolutely clear that only Asobo can help us, changing SDK to make possible using textures with "invisible" detail layer and without compression of original custom texture.
I will post request on their SDK forum. Probably it's not online yet...
 
Guys,

I've published the request in the topic of upcoming SDK Q&A stream. If you are interesting to fix this texture problem, pls vote:

forums.flightsimulator.com

SDK Q&A: Scenery Editor Questions

My question about development of MSFS ground. At the current stage of SDK all ground textures have to be “covered” by a default MSFS detail texture like asphalt, concrete, paint etc., but they cause blurriness of the underlying texture. The question: “Please modify scenery editor to keep...
forums.flightsimulator.com forums.flightsimulator.com
 
Dimus said:
Finally, to avoid jaggies on ground textures like lines and signs ground texture resolution should be set above 100 in the settings, preferably at 200.
Click to expand...

@Dimus, what do you mean by "...texture resolution settings should be set above 100 in the settings..."? Where are these settings?
 
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