Low-res cockpit textures in 0.2.0
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Hello JF, congrats on an excellent reproduction of the Arrow. Just wondering if there’s any plans to bump up some of the cockpit textures around the A pillar and headliner? I’m playing in 4k and the textures are still very poor quality compared to the default MS ones.
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Yeah, the textures in some locations are quite bad and especially this piller/column on the left side is always visible in closeup and has the worst resolution of anything.
There are mods on flightsim.to which have cleaned the complete cockpit, I took just that one texture out of the package and copied it to my Arrow folder. The clean texture is not as bad since the bad resolution is not as obvious. But still the resolution is really bad.
Also check out the red dome lamp and the switch to turn it on - the texture is REALLY bad there.
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@Martyn But is that not a really bad example for the textures? Also check out the left column that is in the view when looking straight. Especially the dirty texture shows a lack of resolution where the texture wraps around and the pixels get extended.
Comparing that to the default Asobo aircraft it is nowhere near the advertised
highest possible texture clarity
since we can see that it's possible to have MUCH better resolution both for cockpit and for external textures.
As much as I love flying the Arrow, I was quite disappointed to see this lack of crispness and clarity of the textures despite ultra graphics settings and - again - comparing with default aircraft that are far beyond the quality.
To me it seems like the model and textures are taken over from older sim versions and thus lacking the advertised clarity. -
@Martyn , Were the textures in the optional clean / original textures folder also updated in v0.2.0? The file modified dates would imply that they were not...
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In the recent update we added decals and made certain texture changes to improve resolution where possible but, without getting too technical, the issue is one of design/aesthetic choices and the constraints posed by those choices.
The default aircraft (and others like Carenado) have a very different aesthetic to ours, favouring clean cockpits with little wear-and-tear or colour/surface variation. That aesthetic can be achieved using flat colour albedo (base) textures with detail maps then superimposed over the top to create the surface detail (vinyl, plastic etc), and those detail maps are small in size but are tiled over the entire surface to produce the appearance of lots of detail whilst maintaining a high resolution. We can't use that method as our wear-and-tear is unique (not tiled) across the entire aircraft to exactly match the real aircraft, i.e. a scratch or discolouration on one part of the instrument panel isn't repeated anywhere else. Instead we have to include that wear-and-tear in the albedo (base) textures and thus have to make decisions about where to prioritise resolution to balance against performance. To have the same resolution on the rarely looked at ceiling, cabin or small exterior details as the instrument panel, we'd have to include a lot more 4K textures on an already large aircraft.
We'll of course continue to improve our aircraft as much as possible and work on techniques for making them look as good as possible, but we don't intend to use the default approach to wear-and-tear (or lack thereof) and think the benefits of our approach outweigh the negatives - we're obviously biased but think the overall look of our PA28 is considerably more realistic and immersive than any other GA. The resolution of the door pillars is something we will look into further though as they sit within the viewing area of widescreen/VR simmers.
It's also worth noting that we've made no attempt to hide or mislead - our product page, videos, screenshots etc all show exactly what you get with the product. If the lower resolution areas are too much of a distraction then I'd recommend getting in touch with our customer service team to see what the exchange/refund options are.
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@RetiredMan93231 said in Low-res cockpit textures in 0.2.0:
@Martyn , Were the textures in the optional clean / original textures folder also updated in v0.2.0? The file modified dates would imply that they were not...
I'll have a look and get them updated for the next build if required.
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@Martyn Wow thank you for the detailed explaination, Martyn!
As someone not technically firm with the texture work I assumed that the methods used by you and other producers were the same and that others just separate the model into more (and thus more detailed) texture files, but I understood the difference now.As for the videos/screenshots it's always hard to judge and what to look for, so despite having seen many previews of the aircraft I didn't notice these individual details.
No need for refund, I'm very happy with the package, the textures are really a downside in comparison, but I'd always prefer better handling and realism to better looks. :)
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Thanks Martyn, that’s an excellent and detailed response. I now understand exactly why they look the way they do. I love the weathered look and hope that it could be combined with high quality detail for simmers with high end machines at some point. In VR I don’t notice it as much because it’s outside the sweet spot of my headset.
I’ve no plans to ask for a refund because I love flying this plane :)
