Alderney island/ Earth Simulations Ltd

[darem 84]

I had the same problems with the download, but I managed to get the file before I ran out of my 5 attempts. In addition, the serial I was given wasn't working until I deleted the trailing "=" from the serial. So I was able to install the scenery.It is small. It is extremely small, and if you consider size as a prime factor for your experience, the scenery isn't worth what you pay for it. BUT: It's a showcase, a jewel and a very pleasing experience. The detail is stunning, and you feel it's a work of love. Grab your ultralight and enjoy the scenery from 100 feet above the ground - it's pretty close to being there. The cliffs are amazing, and so is the little detail you find everywhere.If you are into VERY detailed sceneries, this one is a no-brainer for you.

[Andydigital 93]

Purchasing has been a somewhat frustrating experience for me; after being presented with a download link, the downloads kept failing. Using a download manager seemed to cure it, getting to 93% quickly, but then failing too. I tried to re-engage the download manager, only to find out I'd used all of the available downloads, even though I'd never successfully downloaded it. So here I am half a day later, salivating over what promises to be a beautiful scenery addon, but unable to install it.I've emailed the developer both through the website and via a direct email, but haven't received a response, nor has my account been granted any more download attempts. Has anyone succeeded in downloading the package? Anyone gotten email responses from the developer? Any suggestions for me?

Also please bare in mind that it was 3:09 in the morning here in the UK when you posted this message on AVsim.

[rojantrojan 17]

I think this looks superb and at 30cm resolution, blimey! Couple this with soon to be released Alphasim's new BN2 Islander in a Blue Islands livery and you've a great flight on your hands. Impressive the guys at ORBX going to 7cm, I didn't think that was going to be possible for a number of years yet...well done fellas!Rhydian

[Guest srathe]

Also please bare in mind that it was 3:09 in the morning here in the UK when you posted this message on AVsim.

Lol, good point. And good friday, at that. I should be able to stand a little suffering without complaint, now that I think about it. Anyway, Darren reset my downloads, and my 2nd attempt worked finally. Just installed, flying for the first time. Truly spectacular. The sort of thing one imagines and figures ought to be possible with FSX, but that I haven't experienced until this scenery. Well done. Well worth the cost, despite it's small size.

[Manny 1,293]

I applaud what Earth Simulations have done with Alderney, it's a remarkble piece of work and it's precisely the approach Orbx takes with all its addon airports, which usually cover at least 50 square kilometres with hand coloured seasons and hand placed objects and autogen, including animated birds, sealife and other objects. Alderney is the way forward, because despite being small, it's a VFR and explorer's playground. Again, we have produced sceneries like it since mid last year when we released YMML Melbourne airport, and we now have seven airports using between 15cm - 60cm hand crafted photoreal terrain. We are moving to 7cm/pixel with our Tamworth project.I can't quite agree that doing a large-scale photoreal project covering entire countries or regions can be batch recoloured using scripts. All our seasonal variations are done by hand, in painstaking detail, for good reason. A batch process would not provide the clear deliniation between hues required to preserve bitumen, concrete, and many features in the terrain which don't actually change colour. If you think about it enough, the only things which change colour during seasons are predominately grass, crops, and maybe, some water in dams which may dry up over summer. The rest is static. I'd love to see an automated process which will be intelligent enough to recolour with the precision of a human eye.In response to FTX AU regions (covering an area the size of the USA) having no ambience or life, we have in fact added quite a lot of animated birds and other animals to those areas. You just need to get low and slow to see them.I was a huge fan of the Georender series as well, but the good news is that with FTX Pacific Northwest, Holger Sandmann, Jon Patch, Bill Womack and many other fine developers will be releasing products through FSAddon and Orbx which blend with our base FTX 1m terrain and you'll see many little airfields oozing with atmosphere in the region. We'll do Alaska as well, so we hope to bring back the glory days of bushflying.Now .. I am off to purchase Alderney - those guys need support and we need more developers like them to succeed!

Have you guys thought of outsourcing this to either India or China? I would think this sort of thing is ideal for outsourcing. I don't mean recruiting computer programmers there...but recruiting artists there and then training them in computers. I was reading a story where an Indian started a company by recruiting temple sculpture artists and their kids who have been taught their parents skills (this is a dying breed in India as I understand) and retraining them for using computers and now, they do animation for Dreamworks and Disney.I was actually thinking of starting company in India and do this for other add on developers! Not sure if this is large enough a market for such a thing. But still.:)

[Guest mao]

I desperately want to get this island. Why is there no credit card purchase option? I applied a paypal account for this one, but alway get warning message: transaction limit exceeded. I'm frustraded.

[Andydigital 93]

You can purchase with a credit card look carefully and you will see the option.

[EarthSimulations 8]

I desperately want to get this island. Why is there no credit card purchase option? I applied a paypal account for this one, but alway get warning message: transaction limit exceeded. I'm frustraded.

Hi MaoAs soon as you are forwarded to the paypal payment pages, and on the very first of those paypal pages, you will see you are actually given two options. On the right side of the page and most immediately obvious is the option to either login to paypal or create a paypal account. BUT ... far less obvious on the LEFT side of the page is an option to purchase using your debit/credit card without the need for a paypal account. Kind Regards Darren

[Guest]

What's up with the autogen/3D objects? When I go to the Alderney page (http://earthsimulations.com/information.html) I see a flash movie (or something like that: it's called Development snapshots)) loaded with 3D objects, but when I click on the screenshots, I only see flat photorealistic textures... Also the HD movie only shows flad textures. So... is EVERYTHING covered in 3D or are only small area's filled with it?Pity the island is that small... Even with the ultralight you can see it all in a few seconds, it seems... How long will something like this stay interesting?EDIT:Just visited the forum: seems almost everything is modelled in 3D... Wonder why they don't show that in the screenshots... Probably to make it look even more realistic... (On screenshots photorealistic textures of course look the best, provided they were taken from the right direction).

[EarthSimulations 8]

What's up with the autogen/3D objects? When I go to the Alderney page (http://earthsimulations.com/information.html) I see a flash movie (or something like that: it's called Development snapshots)) loaded with 3D objects, but when I click on the screenshots, I only see flat photorealistic textures... Also the HD movie only shows flad textures. So... is EVERYTHING covered in 3D or are only small area's filled with it?Pity the island is that small... Even with the ultralight you can see it all in a few seconds, it seems... How long will something like this stay interesting?EDIT:Just visited the forum: seems almost everything is modelled in 3D... Wonder why they don't show that in the screenshots... Probably to make it look even more realistic... (On screenshots photorealistic textures of course look the best, provided they were taken from the right direction).

Hi Everything on the Island is represented in 3d. Alderney uses our advanced autogen system and has a huge variety of objects including tons that are animated. It is extremely dense and is very good on performance as is born out by comments from our customers. I'm sorry this isn't made clear enough on our website. You are correct that some of the screenshots on the EarthSimulations.com website do not show the 3D. The reason though is nothing to do with trying to make it look more realistic, but rather because the screenshots I guess you are refering to are focussed on showing the seasonal changes to the underlying Photo terrain (or nightlighting). Five seasons and nightlights in 30cm resolution is a FIRST...so deserve to be shown in their own right. We are also aware that customers do not always require the 3D so want to show how the product compares to other photo scenery. ( Also as the title suggests many of these screenshots were aquired during the development phases of the project) There is a screenshot section dedicated to showing the 3D and many screenshots on the forum that will also show it in detail.We believe that Alderney represents the highest specification scenery ever created for flightsim. Whether that be photographic terrain or 3D. We believe that both are the very best examples currently available, and Alderney should be viewed as a showcase product of both our own capabilities, and that of FSX. :( Kind RegardsDarren

[Guest mao]

Hi DarrenThanks for the help, but I still can't see the credit card button on the left side of the paypal login/registration page.Maybe it's because I am automatically forwarded to the paypal page of local langage (Chinese) which might have a different layout to conceal your option.Anyway why not set up a credit card purchase button of your own outside of paypal? It would make things a lot easier.Best,mao

Hi MaoAs soon as you are forwarded to the paypal payment pages, and on the very first of those paypal pages, you will see you are actually given two options. On the right side of the page and most immediately obvious is the option to either login to paypal or create a paypal account. BUT ... far less obvious on the LEFT side of the page is an option to purchase using your debit/credit card without the need for a paypal account. Kind Regards Darren

[Andydigital 93]

Because its very expensive for a small developer to setup credit card payments, you have to but a very large deposit down as security and I don't blame the guys for not wanting to do this. I could be totally wrong but that is how I have always understood it from other small originations anyway.

[mgh 89]

Because its very expensive for a small developer to setup credit card payments, you have to but a very large deposit down as security and I don't blame the guys for not wanting to do this. I could be totally wrong but that is how I have always understood it from other small originations anyway.

There can also be a charge of up to 6% of the value of each transaction for small companies as well.

[EarthSimulations 8]

Hi MaoYes. unfortunately it was not possible for us to get the "merchant" account required for us to directly take credit card payments on the EarthSimulations website. Our bank won't issue one for a start up company like us and say they have a policy, I don't know if that's just a result of the current financial climate. It is shockingly expensive too. If you would like to contact me via the website Mao, we will see if there's anything we can do so that you are able to get hold of Alderney.