Anyone know what has happened to the FSDreamscapes web site? I keep getting transferred to a site which says"The website you are trying to view is currently experiencing difficulties, please try again later."Been like this for a few days now.

Anyone know what has happened to the FSDreamscapes web site? I keep getting transferred to a site which says"The website you are trying to view is currently experiencing difficulties, please try again later."Been like this for a few days now.

They're probably just reconfiguring or doing maintenance or something like that. There also might be a website problem but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.Dean's kept up with his blogs and he's got a ton of stuff being released this year. He's also in a transitional period I think with his rendering methods, he's gearing up for faster production I believe.I know how you feel though, I check that site EVERY DAY for something new & exciting. Now I'm jonesing for FSDreamscapes updates! :( -jk

Anyone know what has happened to the FSDreamscapes web site? I keep getting transferred to a site which says"The website you are trying to view is currently experiencing difficulties, please try again later."Been like this for a few days now.

Yeah,And I'm @ the tail end of Downloading Utah vfr which is over 80gigs,it's taking me over 2 weeks!! lol!!

They're probably just reconfiguring or doing maintenance or something like that. There also might be a website problem but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.Dean's kept up with his blogs and he's got a ton of stuff being released this year. He's also in a transitional period I think with his rendering methods, he's gearing up for faster production I believe.I know how you feel though, I check that site EVERY DAY for something new & exciting. Now I'm jonesing for FSDreamscapes updates! :( -jk

I wish he would just finish the stuff he started and not spend time on new projects, seems like Hawaii will never have water masking.

I bought the 5m German ProMesh from them only to find that it is essentially unuseable. Raised rivers, airports sunk in or elevated on plateaus, big ridges of water across lakes etc. I could perhaps put up with it if the elevation mismatches were isolated but the problems are literally everywhere (especially in the hilly southern Bavaria region). I am aware that these are all potential issues with a very detailed mesh product but for the life of me I cannot figure out what the point of this product actually is? Other than to showcase how poorly FSX conforms to reality when it comes to elevation that is.The implication is that users can (and will) correct the elevation problems (at least at the airports) as they find them but I have yet to see a single correction done by anybody. It ain't gonna happen is the simple truth of it.Oh, and upping the mesh complexity slider from 5 to 10 to 15 to 30m etc etc does nothing to solve these issues either. Now I hear that France and Italy will also be getting a 5m mesh... hmmmm

I bought the 5m German ProMesh from them only to find that it is essentially unuseable. Raised rivers, airports sunk in or elevated on plateaus, big ridges of water across lakes etc. I could perhaps put up with it if the elevation mismatches were isolated but the problems are literally everywhere (especially in the hilly southern Bavaria region). I am aware that these are all potential issues with a very detailed mesh product but for the life of me I cannot figure out what the point of this product actually is? Other than to showcase how poorly FSX conforms to reality when it comes to elevation that is.The implication is that users can (and will) correct the elevation problems (at least at the airports) as they find them but I have yet to see a single correction done by anybody. It ain't gonna happen is the simple truth of it.Oh, and upping the mesh complexity slider from 5 to 10 to 15 to 30m etc etc does nothing to solve these issues either. Now I hear that France and Italy will also be getting a 5m mesh... hmmmm

I can agree completely with the issues you have had with the ProMesh product. I had FS Dreamscapes Florida Mesh and it should have been titled Mess. This product produced all sorts of lumps and bumps and hills in places that I never saw when I lived in the various cities I wanted to sim-fly to and from. I was very disappointed.

As much as I am fond of FSD I have to agree with the posts about these issues, although not as annoying for me as for others. But as mentioned, these issues are because FSX is inaccurate. But this mesh is the most detailed and accurate data there is. And it really should be used with Ultimate Terrain X (UTX). That will handle some of the issues and also make the sim look far better than without.I for one would rather have the most accurate terrain rendering possible, even if it exposes FSX's flaws. My hope is that this will eventually be corrected by FSD. I have to honestly say I would like to see faster releases and patches go out, especially for the airport plateaus. I believe everyone should push for this and let Dean know but do so in a respectful and friendly way because I also believe FSD produces very high quality stuff albeit slowly. And the customer service is as good as anything with timely responses to emails and postings (just try to get any customer service whatsoever out of megascenery...that's a crap company for ya).I can put up with the issues. California mesh is pretty good and Utah VFR + mesh is awesome even though incomplete...best rendering of Monument Valley anywhere.So that's it. I want FSD to finish up too, it's been a long time coming...especially for Hawaii VFR. But Dean's a good guy and he'll come through in time.-jk

give FSGenesis mesh a try. it is 10M, i know i bit lower then the 5 M you were looking for, but it works and the problems with plateau's is all but gone because Justin did a lot of work with them in the 2.0 versions. FSG is a great product, very inexpensive, and FSG could use the $$ help right now. I bought it last year, and even though most of my flying is on the east coast of the US, it made a huge difference visually for me. i live about 4 miles from the coast but do fly in areas that are hilly and even these areas look so much better. if anyone is thinking about getting mesh, you can get the whole planet, plus landclass for the US for a very good price.Kyle

I for one would rather have the most accurate terrain rendering possible, even if it exposes FSX's flaws. My hope is that this will eventually be corrected by FSD.

The key question is HOW MANY flaws does it expose? A couple here and there, fine. But the Germany 5m ProMesh exposes them ALL I think. So much time, money and effort is put into making the default sim "as real as it gets" and going backwards in this respect is not an option, at least for me.Having said that I do actually think that this issue will be corrected in the future, however, I do not think that Dean (or any user) will have anything of note to do with it. And nor should he/they really. Count just the airports and airfields in Germany alone and you can begin to see how little sense it would make to intentionally break something which is actually very accurate. No, it is the next simulator (whatever and from whomever) which will, I sincerely hope, allow the seamless use of 5m (and lower) mesh.

Hi FolksFS-Dreamscapes is back online.See blog for explanation.Sharrow -You've totally misunderstood this. :( "As real as it gets" == for peanuts you'd paid.* The issue is nothing whatsoever to do with mesh.* You're making assumptions about which is accurate.* There is nothing to correct.* Using FSX default is going backwards.* FSX already supports 1 metre mesh, (lower number == higher resolution).FSX only includes basic level of detail data.FSX terrain is based on 90m mesh, (SRTM).Terrain is MESH data.Water bodies are VECTOR data, (polygon or linear).* Pro-Mesh is 256 times more detailed than the FSX default terrain mesh.* UTX improves on the FSX default vector data, to a standard similar to Pro-Mesh.* German airports series from Aerosoft improves on the FSX default airports.* VFR Germany photographic scenery, shows what's actually on the ground, versus fictitious FSX default.Maybe take a peek at the following 5m mesh & 1m photoscenery screenies -Horizon - Up NorthHorizon - The Lake District~ Part IIHorizon - I Wandered Lonely ....Horizon - A Few Random ShotsHorizon - A Few From Cumbria :(HTHATBPaul

Sharrow -You've totally misunderstood this. :( "As real as it gets" == for peanuts you'd paid.* The issue is nothing whatsoever to do with mesh.* You're making assumptions about which is accurate.* There is nothing to correct.* Using FSX default is going backwards.* FSX already supports 1 metre mesh, (lower number == higher resolution).

Hi PaulNo misunderstanding and no assumptions either on my part. To clarify: The money, time and effort spent to make the default sim "as real as it gets" was in reference to all the addons one has to add to make it so. I have 60 easy. Maybe more. I very well know that the 5m German Promesh is the one which is as real as it gets which is why I said that there is really no point in Dean breaking it to make it seamless with (a very inaccurate) FSX. The mesh still remains unuseable in FSX regardless, at least for me, for the reasons already mentioned. Which is why I hope the next simulator (which surely will not use 5m mesh by default) will be able to seamlessly use Dean's meshes.

FS-Dreamscapes is back online.See blog for explanation.

What an adventure - and a dangerous one. But he chose to live in this country,so blaming every website failure on the underdeveloped infrastructure there willonly work as an excuse a few times ;)He should really have a backup person or a friend in the office when he is on travel,just to make sure things don't get out of hand.Christian

Hi FolksKonrad -My apologies. :( I'd read your post in the context of -- FSX default == "as real as it gets" - Your questioning the point of ProMesh Germany.However -ProMesh is only a mesh,and should be used in conjunction with UTX, (or a similar hi-spec landclass/vector enhancement package).As such it already works perfectly in FSX. :( HTHATBPaul

As we've mentioned before we recommend all users of ProMesh for Europe use it in conjunction with Ultimate Terrain which provides accurate water bodies and solves a lot of the problems...We have also posted on our forums about how to fix the water flatten issues if users want the most accurate representation of the terrain...The water flattens in the ProMesh are already burned into the mesh data and aren't a problem with our data and are a problem with the inaccurate water that MSFT used for Europe and there is a fix for that, but why would we spend $$$$$$$$ licensing data from Teleatlas/NavTeq when it's already been licensed by Allen/Scenery Solutions??? That is both a waste of time and money...Also with the airport plateaus, we have made clear right from the start that there are thousands of airports and most airports do not have unusable plateaus and can be fixed by the community, which we are supporting, through the use of polygon blends done in ADE... We are providing a framework for others to build upon... The other factor is that to properly fix airport plateaus means having high resolution aerial imagery of each airport so we can correctly position each and every airport, runway and taxiway to their real world location. In Europe at this point in history it's just not feasible... In future we may offer a 'mesh for dummies' version with holes punched in the data and allow users to choose which version they prefer 100% accurate or hacked for FSX...With over 20,000+ airports in Europe and the USA it is impossible to start punching holes in data that is extremely accurate and is unwise to do when many airports in FSX are off from their real world location. That's just crazy to do, to properly fix those issues will involve thousands upon thousands of man hours and tens of thousands of dollars in contracting labor in countries like India and other 3rd world nations to provide fixes for something that will be superceded by a better sim that can render sloping runways etc way before we'd ever finish providing solutions to something that has nothing to do with the ProMesh data, but is a limitation of FSX...In short, they are problems with FSX limitations, our datasets are correct, FSX datasets are not... UTX fixes over 90% of river flatten issues, all else can be fixed with turning off water flattens in the terrain.cfg file as we have outlined many times before...The problem with water flattens is that they are tied in to water poplygons and the two *cannot* be separated, you can't exclude the water flatten without excluding the water body... We have given the solutions through our forums and email support and users wouldn't have those issues if they followed our advice...To solve the water flattens completely requires access to source imagery data for all of europe to generate photoscenery, which is not free or public domain... Try millions of dollars in cost to purchase/license that data... Next the airport plateaus are pointless to punch holes in correct datasets when the airports in FSX are often times off by several miles due to bad airport data provided by usa/european airport data providers who rely on their own data providers to provide them correct information. We also don't have millions of dollars available to contract scores of workers in 3rd world countries to trace our every boundary for every airport in the entire world...Justin's solution is the same one MSFS did, and that is to punch big round holes in the data around airports to make the problems disappear, but that does not lead to accurate simming... We have chosen the same path as Horizon when it comes to the high resolution elevation data and that is to provide accurate mesh and work with other devs with complementary products to ensure compatibility... Also when it comes to Europe, even with the default terrain mesh there are still many many many river plateaus and some are visible even within the FSX missions...As for the USA we are working on fixing every airport in the photoscenery/mesh products and we have plans we haven't publicly announced for our future development, but airport plateaus for the USA will cease to be an issue as development continues in the future...We're still porting our code to VB.net for the photoscenery and that takes 100 times more coding and processing than elevation data, the mesh products require all of one step to produce, and we have a contract to honor in producing those datasets, while we are continuing to build the software to complete the photoscenery (which is well over a 100 step process), we are using free compute cycles to develop these other products, which we have stated before, that in turn help FUND the development of the tools to generate the photoscenery...In terms of Oahu we have been working behind the scenes and we are finishing up those products, they're just not publicly visible yet *sheesh*, that's why we have our blog, our live video feed, status updates et al to keep everyone in the loop... If anyone thinks it's easy to develop this stuff I can tell you it's not. It requires huge amounts of data processing, a lot of programming and our programmer still has a full time job and has a life to lead as well... He is close to finishing the code for us but with having to port to .net it is a process to streamline the code so the computers can render as fast as possible... The problem with the FS community is that there can be highly unrealistic expectations... It's like the next version of FS, everyone wants it now, but if MSFT gives it now then everyone complains of bugs and complains no end about the bugs... There's an old saying that goes "you can't have your cake and eat it too"...Hope this clarifies the situation yet again...

What an adventure - and a dangerous one. But he chose to live in this country,so blaming every website failure on the underdeveloped infrastructure there willonly work as an excuse a few times ;)He should really have a backup person or a friend in the office when he is on travel,just to make sure things don't get out of hand.Christian

Christian, I had to head out of the office on an emergency and wasn't able to pay the bill before I traveled, I also didn't have internet access while away so I couldn't log into the office to pay the bill, we got hit by a typhoon on the way back, had no internet access in the province, I was in a place where water was pumped by hand and many houses had no electricty. On the way back the typhoon led to two landslides which had us trapped in the middle of nowhere with very little food or water to survive and our lives were at risk...I don't have the ability to buy an iPhone in this country because you need an ACR # in order to buy service, which costs nearly $1000, on top of the cost of the iPhone itself... There are other factors as well that are contributing factors which will come to light soon...As soon as I got home to civilization, even in the midst of losing electricity, I got the website back up within 5 mins of being home. Did you not notice the massive typhoon in the news that hit the region? Even with the best backup plans in the world you cannot avoid or plan for every single contingency, sheesh, while we were away Twitter was down for 2 days <G>...There have been changes in our operation since coming back that have been implemented to make sure we don't have the site offline like that again, but we're also not going to go wasting money needlessly on long term contracts when we have more immediate short term plans...As Geofa stated in another thread, its these type of unrealistic 'i'm never satisfied, pontificating statements' from people that are driving MSFS 3rd party developers to abandon MSFS users in favor of much more profitable and lucrative contracts... I know for me, I'm close to saying we're just going to finish up our current commitments and focus on projects that are less hassle and are much more lucrative...Most users in the FS community understand that these add-ons are a privilege and not a right, and also understand how much is involved in getting these type of datasets into users hands... Ultimately it's up to the FS community to show a level of maturity and understanding of what's involved, have realistic expectations (rather than ones that go far beyond even what the military industrial complex has), and realize that even what they have could be taken away from them... It already has been with the axing of ACES... Has the FS community not learned yet from that lesson???