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Guest TonyPiech

Any Comparison FS Dreamscapes vs. MegaSceneryEarth

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Guest TonyPiech

I purchased some Central Florida sectors of MegaSceneryEarth and found them to be quite poor. Subsequently I visited FS Dreamscapes and saw that they had some scenery for Florida ( NEXTMap

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These are two products of a different nature and comparison isn't possible. The Mega product is photo textures. The FSDr product is terrain mesh, which is what textures lay onto. Two completely different aspects of scenery.

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I purchased some Central Florida sectors of MegaSceneryEarth and found them to be quite poor. Subsequently I visited FS Dreamscapes and saw that they had some scenery for Florida ( NEXTMap

Manny

Beta tester for SIMStarter 

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MegasceneryEarth's Floriday is real bad. But their PNW and NY and even their Salt Lake area aren;t bad. It's very good with autogens and night scenery. But then its also relatively expensive compared to Dreamscapes.Dreamscapes do not have autogens nor do they have night textures. But for areas of Utah deserts, you don't need too much autogens and they are very very cheap. What I am looking foward to is FSAltitude for US. IF they do it like they did for Western Europe then I am happy. With FSAltitude that would cover the entire US for high altitiude flying, I would then need just patches of high resolution scenery with autogens for approach to land.
Thanks Manny for some good info:Glad to hear pnw and Ny are good-already knew Utah was good..Dreamscapes is spectacular-and you are right-autogen could be a liability here.The more info the better...Personally I am not into high altitude.Thanks for the low altitude info though.It would be nice to know what is good vs. not so good before we spend the bucks...I understand the present limits and uneven coverage-but before I spend the bucks-I want to know the good areas-and I want to know the bad areas will be upgraded at some point should I miss by chance with my hard earned dollars.The part of the US I live in I already know goes bad about 10nm north of where I live-south though I know is spectacular.Waiting for the spectacular part and hoping to avoid the not spectactular part...

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Guest firehawk44

"Dreamscapes do not have autogens nor do they have night textures. But for areas of Utah deserts, you don't need too much autogens and they are very very cheap."Hi Manny,I recently bought Dreamscape's Calif and Florida and the detail is awesome IMHO. You are right about no night textures but if you own UTX and place the Dreamscape scenery below UTX in the Scenery Library, you'll have plenty of lighting. In fact I believe the Dreamscape developers strongly recommend the installation of UTX. I just didn't want anyone to read your comments and think they will be flying in total darkness if they own Dreamscape products. The Dreamscape products are not texture programs and do not contain textures. The textures come from programs such as GEX, FEX, and XGraphics. There is a fix for night lighting and it's UTX. I personally think using autogen in these high resolution programs is not a good idea so I would not recommend using autogen. Autogen takes up a lot of CPU memory and, in many cases, is not very realistic. I have had mine off since owning UTX and have no regrets. There is one small problem with using Dreamscape products and that's the fact all airports sit on a higher plateau than the surrounding area as you have to move your mesh resolution slider up to 5m (mine was originally set at 38m). You can get rid of this plateau by lowering your mesh resolution slider but, like some have correctly stated, why buy the highly detailed mesh if you're going to keep that slider low? But even if you lower the slider you will still get better resolution than the default FSX mesh. FS Genesis, which has a similar product but with less resolution than Dreamscapes, had this problem too but Justin has been able to fix it. I don't think Dreamscape is planning on fixing this issue. Personally it's not a problem for me. I know you know this as you are very knowledgeable of the various landclass, mesh, and texture programs and I appreciate your contributions to Oahu and other scenery programs. Best regards,Jim Young

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Perhaps I'm missing something here, and please correct me if I am, but what is the point of Dreamscape's Florida mesh? OK, it's very accurate and all that, but isn't Florida just a little bit ... er ... flat?I remember renting a car in Miami, and being British, I couldn't find the parking brake in the usual spot - i.e. within reach of the hand, between the seats, not under my left foot. But when I asked the rental man where it was, he said "You don't need it, this is Florida, but if you go out of state, it's here!"So why pay all that money for mesh for a flat state, when for a much lower unit cost I can have it as part of, say, FSGenesis's coverage of the entire USA?


Petraeus

 

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Perhaps I'm missing something here, and please correct me if I am, but what is the point of Dreamscape's Florida mesh? OK, it's very accurate and all that, but isn't Florida just a little bit ... er ... flat?I remember renting a car in Miami, and being British, I couldn't find the parking brake in the usual spot - i.e. within reach of the hand, between the seats, not under my left foot. But when I asked the rental man where it was, he said "You don't need it, this is Florida, but if you go out of state, it's here!"So why pay all that money for mesh for a flat state, when for a much lower unit cost I can have it as part of, say, FSGenesis's coverage of the entire USA?
The most visual bang for your buck is in Utah. The desert elevations and colors are outstanding with Dreamscapes. Also purchase the Utah 5 meters between elevation points mesh. Even the small canyons and bluffs standout when you have an accurate elevation every 5M which is the best currently available anywhere. The state is just short of complete photo coverage and will be complete soon. Mesh is 100% coverage. Visit the site and admire the photos. While you are there look at Oahu, Hawaii. The photo scenery is based uopn even better, more detailed, aerial photos. It takes FSX close to the max detail it can display.

regards,

Dick near Pittsburgh, USA

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The most visual bang for your buck is in Utah. [...] While you are there look at Oahu, Hawaii. The photo scenery is based uopn even better, more detailed, aerial photos. It takes FSX close to the max detail it can display.
Right, but those are planned photoscenery products (plus mesh?), and not yet on the market. But the Florida product that you can actually buy is, as I understand it, just mesh and no photoscenery, and my question is, what's the point of high-resolution mesh for a flat place like Florida? Especially at $34.95, or even reduced to $24.95? It seems about as useful as a Netherlands mesh, or a Mississippi Delta mesh, (or a Bangladesh mesh, which at least rhymes :( ).

Petraeus

 

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Guest ArtieLange
While you are there look at Oahu, Hawaii. The photo scenery is based uopn even better, more detailed, aerial photos. It takes FSX close to the max detail it can display.
Looks awesome, but the website says it will be out Q3 2008, it's now Q1 2009, does anybody know if and when it will get finished ?

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Right, but those are planned photoscenery products (plus mesh?), and not yet on the market. But the Florida product that you can actually buy is, as I understand it, just mesh and no photoscenery, and my question is, what's the point of high-resolution mesh for a flat place like Florida? Especially at $34.95, or even reduced to $24.95? It seems about as useful as a Netherlands mesh, or a Mississippi Delta mesh, (or a Bangladesh mesh, which at least rhymes :( ).
Utah Mesh is available. 85% of the State of Utah is covered in 1m/pixel photoscenery. Ohau has been available some some time. There is no requirement to buy the mesh that you find "amusing". While mesh for "flat states" may raise some concern amongst the populace there is a purpose. If there is a good source of 30cm/pixel photoscenery available for an area around an airport you do NOT need a Microsoft runway/taxiway system, if you so desire. The runway is sufficiently detailed to permit it to be used without an artificial creation. Thus with good mesh you will actually experience slopes and bumps that the artificial runway does not have. I have "photo runways" in Alaska whose slope forces takeoffs in only one direction. I do not have good mesh for Alaska so I did cheat and use a "tilted flatten" for the surface. Poor mesh makes the surface unuseable.http://www.fsdreamscapes.com/store/

regards,

Dick near Pittsburgh, USA

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Utah Mesh is available. 85% of the State of Utah is covered in 1m/pixel photoscenery. Ohau has been available some some time. http://www.fsdreamscapes.com/store/
That is certainly not clear from the Dreamscape website. Both 'VFR+ Utah' and 'ProVFR Oahu' are shown as being 'Pre-order', meaning you can pay your money now, but you won't get the product until it's released.
While mesh for "flat states" may raise some concern amongst the populace there is a purpose. If there is a good source of 30cm/pixel photoscenery available for an area around an airport you do NOT need a Microsoft runway/taxiway system, if you so desire. The runway is sufficiently detailed to permit it to be used without an artificial creation. Thus with good mesh you will actually experience slopes and bumps that the artificial runway does not have. I have "photo runways" in Alaska whose slope forces takeoffs in only one direction. I do not have good mesh for Alaska so I did cheat and use a "tilted flatten" for the surface. Poor mesh makes the surface unuseable.
Let's stick to Florida, because that's still where I have a problem in understanding what I get for $34.95 or $24.95. As I understand it:- IF I buy the Dreamscape Florida mesh product, and...- IF I have a 30 cm/pixel photoscenery for Florida (is this part of Dreamscape's Florida product? Doesn't look like it, so I'm going to have to go somewhere and spend extra in buying it). And...- IF I somehow exclude or get rid of the regular Microsoft and addon airfields I might have, and...- IF I'm happy with my airfields being represented by the photoscenery, at a resolution of approximately 3 'blobs' to the meter or yard (which might be just about OK for some rough dirt strip, but obviously can't represent any detailed runway markings or surface effects), and...- IF I have an airfield in Florida that's not as flat as the rest of the state (although at the biggest one, Orlando, the maximum gradient between runway ends is 4 feet over 2 miles - that's a gradient of 1 in 2500!), then...- my Florida mesh will allow me to see and land on such 1:2500 gradients. I don't think that'll force me to takeoff in only one direction, though. :( Do you see my problem in understanding why one would want to shell out that amount of money? And that's before we've even considered the competing mesh products, which are considerably cheaper per area covered.nudata, are you an official representative of Dreamscape? If not, it may be best to leave it to them to explain all this.

Petraeus

 

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You have made a series of arguments that say the product is not suitable for you. So don't buy it. I fail to understand the embittered rhetoric. I have the product because I did a beta test. I see no use for it but I am not expounding the obvious to such lengths.


regards,

Dick near Pittsburgh, USA

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You have made a series of arguments that say the product is not suitable for you.
No I haven't; I'm just asking the question, is it suitable for anyone? What do they get for $24.99, apart from a load of numbers representing a very flat surface?
I see no use for it
Thanks; that answers my question.

Petraeus

 

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Guest ArtieLange
Ohau has been available some some time.
That is not what the wesite says:Project StatusPre-release Beta Build #2 - Available Now! Color Refinement - Currently Refining Watermapping/Coastline Mapping - Awaiting Data Final Release Version 1.0 - Q3, 2008

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