About Photo Real Scenery

[Mistro]

I'm considering downloading some scenery but afraid that I will be looking at a flat google earth picture as I'm flying. I like 3d buildings and trees. Does photo real scenery flatten out the terrain with no 3d objects like trees and buildings in the default terrain?

[ShaneG_old]

Some do and some don't. Every now and then you find that jewel that has some nice custom autogen that the authors have included and hand placed, but for the most part photo scenery is without autogen.
Mountain areas are really nice uses of photo scenery without autogen, as there is not much up on mountains anyways.
And all photoscenery conforms to the terrain it is sitting on, so if the ground is flat, the scenery will appear flat, but if has rolling hills or mountains then the effect will be spectacular, See Waspiflabs recent post in the freeware section for a great example of beautiful photo scenery.

[ShaneG_old]

Here is a link to the thread I refered to above.

http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 1228172230

This one here is another superb example:
http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 1228243286

[Mistro]

Thanks ShaneG! I'm having a hard time finding a place that specializes in scenery. I found a site with FTX but I cannot afford the packages right now. And it looks to focus on Australia. Seems everything is scattered. It's kinda hard to find and compare scenery as I am new to FSX. I downloaded one that brought my system to a crawl, and was not even far from the default except for some over-powering houses that stayed white even in the evening. I had to uninstall it.Does anyone know the best sites to find terrain scenery?

[ShaneG_old]

The Swiss Alps,Ital VFR, and Rockie mountain/Serria Nevada photo sceneries found here at Simviation are rather nice and not too hard on the system, These are also best used with the terrain meshs also found here at SimV. Is there a particular spot in the world you are looking for?
For city style photo scenery, the Louisville,Kentucky found here at the V is a good choice and comes with some nice custom autogen for the downtown area.

Anyone else got a good suggestion?

[Mistro]

I'm considering this......http://www.fspilotshop.com/product_info ... ts_id=1084

It's only $20.00 but the screenshots are not working for me to see closely. Does anyone know about this? How much of a difference will this make from the default fsx scenery and how will this affect performance?

Are there any other good affordable payware packages?

[rikm12345]

Dont buy that package, its not very good.

Can i recommend http://www.megascenery.com/ for very good photographic scenery. I gradually bought them all.

Be aware that the installer will add the FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.33 line to your fsx.cfg, which i remove. I also prefer not to let the installer adjust my setting.

If you like the uk then http://www.horizonsimulation.co.uk/stor ... ducts_id=1

Regards

Rik

[Mistro]

Thanks rikm! I read some bad reviews on it and did not download. Megascenery looks good. But I still question some of the shots I looked at looking like flat cities. I will buy one and check it out. I actually flew to South America and found that some areas in the default scenery is actually nice (Mato Grosso, Brazil). I would rather use my imagination than to look at an entire city that's just a photograph on the terrain.

I just want to know if I'm correct......the mesh is for more accurate terrain, and the ground textures (scenery) is the skin over the mesh....am I right? Like the mesh would give better and more accurate coastlines and mountain and hills while the scenery compliments the mesh and add things like realistic looking airports, trees, buildings and autogen? Just trying to understand the system.

[ShaneG_old]

I just want to know if I'm correct......the mesh is for more accurate terrain, and the ground textures (scenery) is the skin over the mesh....am I right? Like the mesh would give better and more accurate coastlines and mountain and hills while the scenery compliments the mesh and add things like realistic looking airports, trees, buildings and autogen? Just trying to understand the system.

You are correct.  

[rikm12345]

Spot on.

Megascenery Las vegas and Hawaii are my 2 favourites.

[Rokt]

I have  Megascenery Reno, Vegas, Hawaii and Southern California. Southern California is awesome.

As much as I like the UTX-GEX combo, I still prefer photoscenery where I can see what it's really like to fly in those areas.

I wish they would do the whole US, better yet, the world.

[Mistro]

I want to get the NY full version but I read in their forums someone had performance trouble with it. Is it just him or is the NY package a performance stopper?

I also saw a 3 for 1 deal yesterday with Hawaii, Las Vegas and Reno (I think) but cannot see it at the site today. I forgot where I was. It seems I was on another site with megascenery stuff. That package was only $20. Does anyone here have it? Rokt...is this what you're talking about?

[rikm12345]

They dont do New York for FSX yet, they do for FS2004 though, but the resolutions are poor.

I take it you are running FSX?

Sorry, i've not saw any deals out there for megascenery.


Rik

[Mistro]

Thanks rikm! Yes I have FSX Gold Edition.

I'm Getting REX!! It looks awesome and seems to be a must have. The price is good too. I think that will be my first add-on purchase. I was over at their forums and the support seems great too.

Here's a link.... http://www.realenvironmentxtreme.com/

[rikm12345]

Hi,

I've just purchased it. Cant wait to try it out!

I recommend GEX & UTX too.

I already own FEX for clouds etc, so hoping to see something different in the REX package. I still really like FEX, but bought it to see what all the hype was about. lol.

Good luck

Rik