An idea for FS11 AI traffic

[Lionheart]

Hey guys,


I was just thinking, while doing a flight in FSX... What if AI assigned planes had a form of built in LOD? Something that helped them to be low resolution, so that 'high resolution' planes could be turned off at high distances, (go to gray textures, textures turned off).

This could be assigned in a scaler, so that you could perhaps tune the distance in either the 'aircraft.cfg' file, or in the Options/Settings/Display center under AI traffic, (AI Planes Textures Visibility Limit=4 miles to 50 miles, etc...


Just an idea.


Then we could have Capn Sim C-140's flying all over the place and the frame rates would be reasonable. Also, for the guy that has a Alien computer with liquid nitrogen cooled quad-GC cards, he could turn the distance up to 100 miles away (though he couldnt see it) and still have his high rez textures...



Just a humble idea. Would help out with frame rates and traffic issues. This way you could still have fantastic textures and not have to worry about far proximity AI traffic messing with frame rates.



Bill

[Drake]

Don't see why not. Racing sims already do this sort of thing.

[Railrunner130]

I like that idea. I hope M$ does a better job of paying attention to performance this time. Well, paying attention in general.... New ATC engine that we asked for... etc.

[stiz]

the defult aircraft allready have LODs, its up to the 3rd party developers to add their own LODs to their aircraft :wave:

[MCDesigns]

the defult aircraft allready have LODs, its up to the 3rd party developers to add their own LODs to their aircraft :wave:

I was about to say the same! When the AI Aardvark site was up, it listed all it's AI aircraft and how many LODs they had, same for the AI from Henry T, which you can clearly see in FSX when you approach one (different color)


In FS9 I had a ton of heli traffic using Owen Hewitts bell 206 since he incorporates several LODs into it for multiplay. It looked better than the default 206, yet I never saw a framerate hit with it.

now we just need all FSX native AI

[Bjoern]

An "auto-LOD" maker would be...well, complicated to make but incredibly cool.

[Lionheart]

My idea is that you could make 'all' planes that are assigned to AI to have their graphics close down (gray out).

This means, not just stock planes, but all planes, such as planes that have 32bit textures, such as some high value payware planes, which some people want in their sims as AI to fly along side, but the sim seems to struggle with due to textures (mainly).


The idea is simple. All AI traffic would have a setting for draw distance + graphics switch 'on-off'. Thus, when the FS system has a plane in the air or on the ground, one of the 'gates' on it would say, within such and such distance, activate graphics, else graphics = off.

Then one could specify a 'distance slider' or setting.

The slider could run 'all' AI planes.. If put into the 'aircraft cfg' files, then one could have this adjust to each plane. For instance, if you have one single plane (a particular texture and registry) in an AI flight pattern, you could go into that planes 'aircraft.cfg' and into its exact Registry, and add a line/string that would say something like 'AI_draw_distance=1000 //distance is in feet' So you could set distances of visibility of graphics being on at say 5,000 or 10,000 feet, etc. This would only have to be applied to particular frame rippers.



:d


Easy...




Bill

[SkippyBing]

I think it's a good idea. Even if you do compile multiple LODs in a third party add on, you're still probably using most/all of the texture maps whereas with Bill's idea past a certain distance they'd just be grey or the material colour although that would rely on them being appropriate! Most object start to grey out after a few miles anyway depending on size.

[spotlope]

An "auto-LOD" maker would be...well, complicated to make but incredibly cool.

Asked and answered, courtesy of Arno Gerretsen...

http://msmvps.com/blogs/arnogerretsen/archive/2009/01/02/level-of-detail-creator.aspx

[Bjoern]

Asked and answered, courtesy of Arno Gerretsen...

http://msmvps.com/blogs/arnogerretsen/archive/2009/01/02/level-of-detail-creator.aspx

My goodness, Arno is a genius!


I'll definately use this for my EVRA scenery!
Well, once its finished of course...

[spotlope]

My goodness, Arno is a genius!


I'll definately use this for my EVRA scenery!
Well, once its finished of course...

I think Arno passed genius a while back... what's the next higher level? :ernae:

[MCDesigns]

I think Arno passed genius a while back... what's the next higher level? :ernae:

Agreed! I hadn't seen the video yet, pretty cool and useful tool!! :ernae:

[Lionheart]

Dang.......!

That is pretty darn cool! An LOD creator/generator... Who would have thought it was possible.

Arno is amazing.. A true pioneer.



Bill