Project Hong Kong

[Pakistan-1]

Good news tomorrow I am going to Kai tak

[Catalanoic]

Good news tomorrow I am going to Kai tak

make photos, maybe we'll need it for the textures. I have a question, I'm editing OSM in this city, but I don't know how to find the number of levels that have many buildings and skyscrapers. How can I do that without losing my eyes viewing satellite images or photos? Thanks!

[radi]

I can do something: is it right if I start from these textures?: https://gitlab.com/fg-radi/osm2city-dat ... commercial
Are there some textures used more frequently than others?
Are there some instructions of how the lightmap is mapped to colors apart a couple of existing files marked with LM suffix?

Thanks penta, that would be awesome! Yes, those are the correct textures.

Osm2city assigns textures somewhat randomly provided they fit the building's size -- which ones turn out to be used most frequently therefore depends on the actual scenery. LOWI, for example, has lots of small buildings, VHXX lots of tall ones. I suggest you simply take the UFO and look for yourself.

For the color mappings:

tldr: use black background. Mark windows in red (#ff0000). Mark logos/ads in blue (#0000ff).

long story:

So far I've used the green channel to paint ambient light from street lamps to the facade. I have a script which does that automatically. This gets mapped to a somewhat orangeish color. The red channel is used for window lights, and is mapped to bright yellow. Blue channel is mapped to white. Alpha channel is currently unused.

However, I haven't fully settled yet on what's the best way of night lighting (and I'm open for suggestions!). I think I'll abandon the idea of mapping channels to single colors; the result seems to look too uniform. Also, in the future I might try custom mipmaps, where I would enlarge lit pixels at the higher mipmap levels such that lights appear bigger at distance.

As I said, I'm open to suggestions, and I'm happy to abandon the current scheme completely if someone has a better idea. I lean towards illuminating windows automatically, though. My current workflow goes like this:

Facade texture:


Mark windows in red (using some gimp trickery, this doesnt require too much manual work). Mark ads/logos in blue.



A script (osm2city-data/LM.org/add_streetlight.py -- very experimental and probably not ready for public use) then identifies red areas, and darkens them randomly such that not all windows are lit the same:



So, currently, it would be helpful if you could create some red/blue/black source lightmaps with windows/logos.

[tigert]

Just a quick comment about the above texture, wouldnt it be good (and easy in this case) to remove the bottom tree out of the texture by replacing it with the window rows?

//Tuomas

[Pakistan-1]

Sadly I was at the other side near the old Cargo Terminals and wasn't able to take any good photos

[radi]

@Tuomas: Totally, and anyone is welcome to improve the textures. Thing is, you barely notice these details from cockpit, and since nobody pays me for a perfect product, I literally force myself not to put too much effort into tiny things. I think my time is better spend improving the actual python side (or, eventually start doing this in C++ inside FG).

[Pakistan-1]

radi mind if I push your dropbox download to the project hongkong git repo ?

[penta]

So, currently, it would be helpful if you could create some red/blue/black source lightmaps with windows/logos.

Ok, thanks for all the info. I'll try to get something done.

[Catalanoic]

I'm currently adding data relative to buildings in OSM as a personal contribution to the project specifically in Kwoolon where there are fewer taged buildings as can be noted in the screenshots and radi has said. With data from the following website: https://bmis.buildingmgt.gov.hk/eng/index.php (link provided in previous posts) and photos from the Web I can set the levels of these buildings with. If someone wants to help me here to label on that area, it can be great! I use the JOSM editor and I upload the data periodically.
@radi: when I finish with the area, I'll notice you for the next OSM-data collecting pass.

[radi]

Thanks a lot! Next scenery build will also have all OSM forest areas; some of them are missing because of OSM to shapefile conversion issues which I've solved now.

[Pakistan-1]

Please note that the area around Kai Tak had 7-8 stories buildings when it was operational

[E-Savageair]

Very well done!

It was a lot more fun and challenging on the final approach! look forward to your updates!

[radi]

Please note that the area around Kai Tak had 7-8 stories buildings when it was operational

Within osm2city, we can easily override OSM information and chop off taller buildings.

What we still can't do easily is make the US/EU style facades look like 70'/80' HK. Therefore:

Locals, please go out on an overcast day and take pictures! Lots of them. You don't have to go to the Kai Tak area, any facade will look better than what we have currently.

[Pakistan-1]

Well Hong Kong Buildings look very western they only look chinese in the rural villages

[radi]

https://goo.gl/maps/gmmpY

That's a random Street View in Kowloon. Does this look anything like the textures I have so far in osm2city? I invite you to have a look at osm2city-data/tex and check for yourself. Some posts up, you mentioned the area had 7-8 storey (max) buildings when VHXX was operational. The textures osm2city would apply to those buildings came from pictures of late 19th/early 20th century buildings I took in Dresden, Germany. A very different era.

Even the hi-rise building textures we currently have look nothing like this


If I could, I would go out today and take pictures. Trouble is, architecture here in Melbourne looks very different again, so I have to rely on you local people. So if you want to contribute something useful to this project, here's your chance.