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Photoscenery - Thoughts/Opinions?

A

Ark

Charter Member
Since I fly mostly at 10,000 ft and above (with rare occurances below that) in airline type aircraft, I have been considering picking up some photoscenery.

Any thoughts/opinions on this in FSX? Any recommendations with regards to what is the "best" out there?

Thanks!
 
Photoscenery does not do well with high speed aircraft, it will most likely look blurry as the sim struggles to keep the textures loaded as fast as you fly. The best photo sceneries on the market are also small, isolated areas as it is incredibly expensive to purchase digital rights to satellite/aerial imagery. In short, photoscenery is really only good for flying low and slow.
 
I think photoscenery is actually better for high altitudes. Down low the repeating textures do'nt get to you as bad, but over sparsely populated areas things begin to look pretty fake. That's where huge swatches of photo scenery look incredible.

I wish I could upload some pics as examples, but it's still not working.
 
FS Altitude

I'm using the European set, and I really like it.
Of course due to its design, when you look straight down, you see the default scenery, but in the cockpit its much better.

I'm still waiting that SimWare sells the Western US set, bought the European set from them.

If you ask me, FS Altitude is what you're searching for.
 
CHBTheDoctor said:
If you ask me, FS Altitude is what you're searching for.
Click to expand...

It's a great product, but I'd add one small caveat from the FSAltitude people themselves:

"This Ground Breaking Product Is Everything That Every Flight Simulator X Pilot Who Likes To Fly Above Flight Level 180 Has Always Wanted - PhotoScenery That Stretches To The Horizon In All Directions."
 
so when you descend does it dissapear or something? I get it, but I don't get it.
 
harleyman said:
Look into tile proxy too..Not sure if it works for FSX though...
Click to expand...

Tile Proxy works even better in FSX than FS9; provided you have a computer and internet connection fast enough to support it. FS9 only supports up to 4.75 m/pixel resolution (which allows you to see roads and buildings, but barely see cars); while FSX can support as high as 30 cm/pixel (which allows you make out details on cars.)

However, if you are flying tubeliners at high altitudes; it would be better to limit yourself to 4.75 m/pixel or even lower, since you can't see small details anyway. The actual number of tiles that Tileproxy generates grows exponentially with the resolution; so stepping down the resolution cuts way way down on the number of tiles, which may allow your computer to keep up.

There is a great Tileproxy tutorial at:

http://edtruthan.com/tileproxy/tutorial/

Tileproxy itself has a good user's guide; you can read it from the above link as well. There was also a good Tileproxy forum; unfortunately, it was hosted on AVSIM; yet another loss when AVSIM went down.

I have MegaScenery Dallas-Ft. Worth for FS9 installed in my FS9 installation. MegaScenery does have night masks, and allows for some autogen scenery; Tileproxy does not. But, to my surprise, I found that Titleproxy generated better textures than MegaScenery does. In the FS9 shot below, Tileproxy is to the left and below the Fairchild in the picture; MegaScenery is above and to the right:



Neither offers seasonal textures in this area; Megascenery does for Chicago. Scenery objects (not autogen) such as the buildings in downtown Dallas do appear with Tileproxy; if they don't, you may need to experiment with the priority of your scenery.

But finally, and most importantly, Tileproxy is not an either/or proposition. If you don't want to see Tileproxy's photoscenery; just don't run it. (It runs as a standalone program in a DOS window.) You will then see whatever scenery you have in place.

-James
 
tigisfat said:
so when you descend does it dissapear or something? I get it, but I don't get it.
Click to expand...

Yes. Default FSX textures are 4.75m res, but get lower res as you gain altitude. Thus, when you reach a certain level the addon linked overrides the default resolution level. The addon says something about 15m+- resolution (I'm too lazy to go back and check). When you start to head back to terra firma the default textures will gain in resolution and then override the addon's effect. Same thing going up, default would show up to level where the 15m stuff would take over.

Hope I didn't make that sound confusing? :isadizzy:
 
i wanted to try some photosceneries but most do not have auto gen so it is just flat, i like realism at all levels.... so i am going to try UT USA and Europe + GEX + FEX and Active Sky X, whatever i can find that will make detailed areas....but i also have the megasceneries...but they just look flat to me....
 
hobofat said:
In short, photoscenery is really only good for flying low and slow.
Click to expand...

What!? :icon_lol: Never heard that one before!

In my view photoscenery is not good for low and slow. FTX/GEX is the only way to go for that. Also if you have a decent quad core system you won't have any issues with blurries, especially not with photoscenery.
 
CrisGer said:
i wanted to try some photosceneries but most do not have auto gen so it is just flat, i like realism at all levels.... so i am going to try UT USA and Europe + GEX + FEX and Active Sky X, whatever i can find that will make detailed areas....but i also have the megasceneries...but they just look flat to me....
Click to expand...

My personal opinion: auto gen only partly helps the immersion experience. Yes, they are 3-D; but you also see buildings and trees appearing right on top of roads and other places where they don't belong. I find this distracting, so it does little to make things look more realistic; except maybe at a distance or at night. (Megascenery Dallas-Fort Worth does do autogen on top of its photo scenery, but with the issues above.)

Also, most objects in aerial photographs cast shadows; at 4,000 ft and higher, it implies all the height you need for most objects. Anything larger like tall buildings and towers wouldn't be correctly represented by autogen anyway; and needs a scenery object instead (which do show up.)

IMHO

A few more notes I forgot to add about Tileproxy -- you might need to disable your firewall and antivirus when you are installing it; although I find Tileproxy works fine with them on once it is installed. And while other photo sceneries only represent a small patch over one location, Tileproxy creates photo scenery as you fly along; it may be nice to have for cross country trips. (Some folks find it looks better in the mountains than in the city; less flat looking.)

Where it doesn't do as well is in the equitorial regions, where high humidity and clouds make for poor aerial photographs. I tried taking off from St. Maartin with it turned on; all of the scenery tiles were washed out, and a cloud appear in the middle of the shoreline.

On the flip side, you can set the water mask to extend a ways offshore; then you can see reefs and other underwater landmarks just offshore. I have heard this can be spectacular to see in some areas.

-James
 
SolarEagle said:
What!? :icon_lol: Never heard that one before!

In my view photoscenery is not good for low and slow. FTX/GEX is the only way to go for that. Also if you have a decent quad core system you won't have any issues with blurries, especially not with photoscenery.
Click to expand...

You've not seen a good photoscenery before :p Check out EarthSimulation's Alderney! That's a real photoscenery. What's the point in having a scenery that is simply a photo of the ground as it really exists at that point in time if you aren't looking at, well, what's really on the ground? Otherwise you might as well just fly with something like GEX + landclass like FTX. With that being said, I don't use any photoscenery that has resolution lower than 1m/pixel. Otherwise it looks like crap. 15m/pixel is just ridiculous. Even flying at FL180+ it still looks like a bunch of super low res textures.

With having said all that, I guess it all comes down to preferences and flying styles. I like photoscenery for VFR flying, because it looks it would if you were really flying (considering that it is a photo of the area). So perhaps our starting baselines are different altogether. In any case, take it all with a grain of salt!
 
Well, for me photoscenery has been a blessing & a curse...
I have the Megascenery SoCal. It is the area I fly over in real life. When it is working the effect is unreal. Unfortunately, most of the time it blurs and that is after waiting 10 minutes for it to load. Sadly I hardly ever use it as for whatever reason my rig does not like it.
 
My system seems to like photoscenery. It does not look very good on the ground, but as soon as you are airborne it gets much better than default.

Photoreal_001jpg.jpg


Photoreal_004.jpg


Photoreal_005.jpg


Photoreal_006.jpg


Photoreal_010.jpg
 
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