Scenery enhancement quandry

[lancer24]

Hi, I use FSX and enjoy it immensely. I was recently introduced to Megascenery and was instantly hooked. I now own several states and England. The problem is, while Megascenery is fantastic, owning the entire United States would be quite expensive ($40 a state) not to mention take up an enormous amount of hard drive space. So I was wondering if anyone knows of any scenery products that can be used to enhance the scenery world (the default FSX world) in places that my Megascenery states does not cover? I have been looking at FS Global Ultimate and ORBX FTX Global Base. My goal is the have all the scenery outside of my Megascenery's coverage (the default FSX scenery) as close to accurate to the real world as possible. In other words...which is more accurate in rendering the world: FS Global Ultimate or ORBX FTX Global Base?

[OldAirmail]

I'll give this my best shot, but you'll need to do some reading on your own.


The flight sim world rests on top of "mesh".

There is no ONE mesh. There are meshes for different areas of the world.

To some degree, the quality, or depth, of the mesh defines how well/detailed the mountainous scenery looks.

If you fly the big tubes high and fast, the quality of mountain detail us pretty much unimportant.

If you like low and slow flights in mountainous, or island, areas then the quality & detail of those mountains can make your day.

But if you like flying around Florida, Indiana, Kansas or other "flat" areas then the standard mesh within the sim will more than suit your needs.

There are good reasons for this, but essentially the best mesh's will be in North America and Europe. After that it's anybody's guess. Australia? Asia? Africa? Antarctica and small out of the way places will be dead last.


This is one of the Canary Islands with the standard FSX mesh. It was picked as a "worst" example of FSX mesh.



And these are shots of the same island after FSGenesis.




Now you can see why I started off with mesh.


There are two commercial mesh's.

FS Global Ultimate - more than adequate, but VERY expensive if you want to cover the whole world.

FSGenesis - World Terrain Mesh - the best bargain around, $25. This is what I bought and I have no regrets. It's slightly lower detail in some areas than FS Global Ultimate but if you buy some of the Orbx regions then you'll automatically get higher resolution mesh with the region.


Now there might be a better option, and it's free - FreeMeshX. According to them, their mesh is made from a newer, and higher resolution, NASA survey.

One thing to remember, NONE of these will be perfect.


I'll point you to a simple, but good, explanation of how it all comes together - http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/74347-the-definitive-guide-to-ftx-products-the-go-to-source-of-ftx-information/?p=681770.

Download the FTX Definitive Guide v2.pdf guide and go to page 13.

When you're done with that, check out Blue Sky Scenery for some of the best photoreal scenery around. AND it's free.

[garymbuska]

Ignore this post

[garymbuska]

One thing you have to remember is any time you add mesh to an existing area you may have to change the order in which the scenery is displayed other wise it will not show up correctly. Both FSX and FS9 will always put any new scenery that you add at the top of the list which means it will be displayed first and in this case you would not want that. The way to solve this is to put it on the bottom of the list instead making it the last thing displayed.
If there is no existing scenery than you do not have to move it.
Failure to do this can cause strange effects like a aircraft in the middle of a hanger or a mountain on top of a river instead of the river being around the mountain.
Some mesh will need what is called an exclude statement in order to remove unwanted scenery in favor of the new scenery. In most cases there will be a readme file included in the download that will let you know if you need this. But I have seen cases where some inexperienced person will not put this information with the down load and you will have issues. Just make sure you get your mesh from a reptile site and you should not have any problems.

[lancer24]

Hi, thanks OldAirmail and garymbuska for all your helpful information. I think I will give FS Global Ultimate a try and see how it goes

[Fozzer]

....... Just make sure you get your mesh from a reptile site and you should not have any problems.

"Snakes alive, Batman!"..... ... ...!

Paul.....sometimes reputable....sometimes not.... ... ...!

...sorry Gary!.... ...!

[garymbuska]

....... Just make sure you get your mesh from a reptile site and you should not have any problems.

"Snakes alive, Batman!"..... ... ...!

Paul.....sometimes reputable....sometimes not.... ... ...!

...sorry Gary!.... ...!

I noticed that as well but when I tried to edit it for some strange reason it wanted to create another post instead of editing it. so I had to leave it as I did not want to create a duplicate post
I have contacted Pete about this as I am not sure why it wanted to do that. Did you notice my post that said please ignore this post. I had to put that there as when I tried to edit the original post it created another one, Besides I was in a Snakey mood