NEW Version 1.2.1

Renames modellib.bgl to avoid conflicts and potential CTD

Version 1.2.0

This makes the package COMPATIBLE with World Update II - USA from MS/Asobo.

It took a little work and a little patience - you can't directly remove the geometry they added for their version of El Capitan and Half Dome in the world update.  I was, however, able to use a terraforming rectangle beneath their new objects to sink them low enough as to not interfere with my geometry.  The biggest bummer is that they had also added some terraforming of their own in the update and these could not be removed either.  The main artifact I was left with was the blend between the terrain and my objects.  It is not quite as seamless as before and I lost some of the procedural trees at that blend as well.  In my next update, I'm planning to test adding some bespoke 3D trees of my own to help restore something closer to what I had before.

In the meantime, I would also like to present a fully updated HALF DOME that uses the same technique of my previous El CAPITAN change.  It uses efficient lower res geometry with very highly detailed texture and normal maps generated from the highest level capture from Google Maps that I could get (I describe the process in detail in my previous post).  The process allows you to get very close to the model without losing detail and is very FPS friendly.  Speaking of detail, I have also improved the use "detail maps" in the material definition.  Detail Maps can be used to give you a 'pebble-size scale' bump map and color treatment which really helps the surface when you get right up next to it.

In this version, I also ran a "delighting" pass on the color texture map of both objects (El Capitan and Half Dome).  This removes the 'baked in shadow' problem that you get from photogrammetry.  You'll notice this whenever you are looking at the object at a time of day that differs greatly from the time when the photography was taken.

Finally, I also happy to announce that this version includes a first pass at working COLLISIONS! Yay!  Let me say that it is NOT 100% perfect.  The only way I could get it to work at this stage was to use a low res proxy of the top surface of each landscape feature.  I tried my best to match this as close as possible to the full res object but there are areas where the 'collision' surface is off by as much as 1-2 meters.  If you try to land, you may find that you touch down either slightly above or sligtly below the visible surface.  I've also occasionally run into situations where you suddenly pop through to the ground way below.  I have no idea why this occurs.  Without further documentation updates in the SDK this is the best I can do for now.

You can check out my successul.. and not so successful .. landing attempts in the screenshots.

I hope you enjoy the update.  The next area I will hit is Yosemite Falls.  MS/Asobo have teased the FX particle system release, so I'm hoping to include moving water in the next release!

PLEASE NOTE that the only NEW objects are El Capitan and Half Dome.  You will still see older versions of the rest of the park - just in case you think its a mistake when you see it.

___________________________________________________________________________

Previsous Versions 0.1.0 and 1.1.0

I am happy to present my initial release or Yosemite Valley. Its one of my favorite places on earth so I was really excited to see it well represented in the sim. As soon as I saw the first post describing how to work in google map data, I knew I wanted to do this. I've incorporated as much of the detailed geo available in google maps and worked hard to blend them into the existing landscape and color correct them to match as much as possible. All of the major features of the valley are well represented in their data - El Capitan, Half Dome, Glacier Point, Bridalveil Falls, Yosemite Falls, Vernal & Nevada Falls. Especially with the waterfalls I zoomed in for maximum detail and blended those into the surrounding geo.

I consider this just an "initial release". There are several things I hope to tackle in the future, some that just require time, and others that need more from the SDK.

Future work includes:

- Creating normal maps to add finer detail when viewing objects from a closer distance

- Subdividing some areas of the geo and smoothing out some of the weird jagged shapes photogrammetry sometimes creates

- Get the FX system working from Asobo to add working waterfalls

- Get the animal SDK details to add some wandering around the park... (that said, there IS some stationary wildlife if you look very carefully)

- Do more paintwork to reduce the "baked in shadows" on some of the cliff faces from the photomapping

My other pet peeve is the hard shelled photogrammetry trees. I tried to preserve the MSFS trees from the landscape as much as possible. One thing Asobo needs to add is a "decal mode" that allows you to define a polygon projected onto an object that can also accept their vegetation shader. Right now you can only do that with polygons that lay flat on the base terrain mesh. So forgive the hard shell trees I had to leave where my surface didn't match the ground. Hopefully we'll get the ability to fix that in the future.

The other BIG CAVEAT...

I built this with my system in mind and wanted to get as much detail as I could. I do have a pretty beefy system (I9-9820X, 2080Ti 12G, 128G RAM, several 2TB SSDs). That said, I can get a pretty steady 40-45fps flying around in the worst areas. I have no idea how this will work on other systems. Please ... be kind .. and let me know. I could be convinced to work on a lower res version with smaller textures and a step or two of geo simplifying in Blender.

Hope you Enjoy!