The first article in this series showed you the importance of the topographic shapes that define our landscape. This time we'll take a close look at the textures that are painted over those shapes to complete the illusion of a real and complete world surface. Ideally, the textures used at any given location should reflect not only the use of the land but also the time of day and season. MSFS2002 does a pretty good job right out of the box but as with most aspects of the program, there's room for improvement.
MSFS assigns basic textures according to a database that defines land use for any given area. There's a wide array of stock textures that can be applied but the system is only as good as the accuracy of the original land use database and the quality of the textures used. Over broad areas it does a pretty good job but when you look at smaller areas, particularly the boarders of small and medium sized urban areas it can sometimes be a bit off. That is where a custom land use (land class) file can really make a difference. I've illustrated this with a comparative view centered on east Bremerton, Washington. Puget Sound is on the right, the Hood Canal is to the upper left.
For the most part, generic textures are fine and have a lot of advantages. Memory and storage requirements are low and if available in enough variety they can do a very good job of reproducing the look of any area in a general way. The next step up is to replace the generic textures with an actual aerial or satellite photo of the area. Because everything is reproduced down to the resolution of the photo the results can be startling in it's realism.
When you first see scenery like this the natural reaction is to say "Yes, I want everything to look like that." Unfortunately you very quickly run into problems with that approach. The biggest drawback to this type of texture enhancement is the cost in storage space and loading times. Unlike normal textures, nothing is reused, each area and texture is unique. The Dolomiti scenery shown above requires 800 MB of textures to cover approximately 1900 square miles. That sounds like a lot until you consider that's only the equivalent of a square land area measuring 44 miles on a side. Other problems include no seasonal variation and fuzziness at low altitudes. Clearly this isn't a workable solution for large areas but if you don't mind being restricted to a small area, having something like this on your system can be a real treat. It's especially effective for ultralight or sailplane operations.
Probably the most exciting area of development is in the area texture replacement. In this approach some, or all of the stock MSFS textures are replaced with improved versions. The nice thing about this approach is that you preserve all of the advantages of a generic texture set (small file size and fast loading times) while providing a large improvement in the overall realism and general complexity of the landscape.
It's clear from these examples that considerable improvements can be had through the use of custom texturing and improved land use data. Photo-real textures are limited in scope but can be worthwhile of you can find one that covers an area that you want to spend a lot of time in. The best choice for most of us is a good generic texture replacement package that can give you the detailed look of Photo-real upgrades without the high storage requirements and load times.
Links.....