A lot will change in two to three years. There also was an article about a year ago from Microsoft (I don't have the link anymore but I posted it in a link here-good luck finding it though) about how they will be able to enable seasonal changes on this type of scenery.

Its not just seasonal changes. How about lighting? dusk? golden sunsets? building shadows? For example the buildings in the pictures above are casting shawdows corresponding to the time of the day the pics were taken. How do you reposition them? How do you adjust for cloudy days?

Its not just seasonal changes. How about lighting? dusk? golden sunsets? building shadows? For example the buildings in the pictures above are casting shawdows corresponding to the time of the day the pics were taken. How do you reposition them? How do you adjust for cloudy days?

The article I posted about a year states they expect to do all that. Do you really find the present building shadows realistic?Dusk and night already is done on present photo scenery-I wouldn't expect that to be a problem.

I agree with Geofa. Although I was skeptical until not a long ago, I think that streamed satellite scenery is where MS (or Google) will be moving when they'll make the next flight simulator.Bandwidth, processing power, scenery consistency (season, lighting, etc.) are still inadequate now, but it will probably change in 3-5 years.The main application, without the huge burden of scenery data, could be downloadable (avoiding the added costs of DVD shipping/distribution).Then we must consider a very important thing: even the most assiduous and curios user, explores overall a tiny portion, at most, of the global earth scenery (say, 1%?). Airliners lovers fly most of the time at high altitude, requiring only low-res streaming and no buildings. A lot of users are habitues, and only fly in a little number of different places.So a lot of this scenery data would only be streamed once, and then cached on the HD.So at the end of the day the bandwidth/reliability/costs are much less of an issue than what it seems.WRT all the remaining issues: seasons and night lighting are just a matter of collecting more data (photos).Different light conditions of the day can be automatically managed by the lighting engine of the flight simulator.The main issue is the consistency of ground shadows. Only a software could correct them, as Geofa said maybe they're already working on it!Finally, we have to remember that the vast majority of flight simulator users are not hard-core simmers, probably they just use it for entertainment. Photoreal scenery will increase its grip on this kind of users, who will buy it just to fly over their house, and this kind of users usually don't care much whether there are seasons or if ground shadows are inconsistent.So MS (or Google) could also decide to publish it even with some secondary flaws on the scenery (after all, even the synthetic scenery used today has its flaws!)Marco

I'm likely in a small minority...but just for some contrast

The article I posted about a year states they expect to do all that. Do you really find the present building shadows realistic?Dusk and night already is done on present photo scenery-I wouldn't expect that to be a problem.

How do they change the textures on the buildings that are photographed at noon to look like its dusk? I am not challenging you, I just don't know how it is done. (My underestanding of photo scenery packages are that the buildings are all custom created)

How do they change the textures on the buildings that are photographed at noon to look like its dusk? I am not challenging you, I just don't know how it is done. (My underestanding of photo scenery packages are that the buildings are all custom created)

Obviously 2 different textures are needed for daylight and night lighting scenery. That's a matter of collecting more datas and doing more photos I suppose.If you mean instead the tinted sunlighting for the different times of the day/season/weather, that's only dependant on the lighting engine and does not require specific textures.Marco

Suggest doing a google search on "Microsoft Virtual earth". The stuff that will happening is quite frankly amazing. Seasons and lighting seem rather simple compared to some of the stuff they mention-like being able to walk inside any "real" building,global weather etc-and some of these predictions are from 2006....The big issue seems to be privacy-as they can zoom down to the street level they have to block out the real people in the image..

Bandwidth, processing power, scenery consistency (season, lighting, etc.) are still inadequate now, but it will probably change in 3-5 years.The main application, without the huge burden of scenery data, could be downloadable (avoiding the added costs of DVD shipping/distribution).

Alternatively the DVD could contain world scenery up to a certain LOD, giving FSX-like visuals, while higher detail (and scenery updates) could be downloaded in real time for the places you're flying over.That would mean that people with slow network connections (which there will certainly be for many years yet) can get a reasonable experience, while people with faster connections can still feel smugly superior. :( Colin