I'm in a mesh in the UK ...

[Dark Moment 0]

"When you're smiley-ing, when you're smiley-ing, the whole world smilies with you ....."That said, it is apparent that there are at least two of us in this forum who prefer the Queen's English to peculiar, jaundiced little fellows whose ancestor, Mr. Rea 'Al' Smiley, would probably turn in his grave if he knew what poetic licence was being taken with his image today. It is more than likely, furthermore, that he is receiving no royalties from K-Mart who use him liberally in their commercials (or is it Wal-Mart ... oh, never mind; obviously they don't impress me enough that I remember!).But then, we live in a world where Disney claim that they wrote Jungle Book; or, at least, omit to credit the boy Rudyard. Ah well.SMILEY FREE ZONE! SMILEY FREE ZONE!Thanks for all the input on mesh. I always learn something new in this forum. I have fun, too.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

[Guest ismetM]

I have only used Lago's terramesh but I can definitely recommend it. I can easily recognise the shape of hills that I am familiar with in the real world. Not sure how it works with VFR scenery though.

[JimmiG 244]

75 quid for 6.6 GB's of photographic textures, 161,842 files in total certainly is a *VERY* good deal. This is a photographic scenery, so unlike the inaccurate landclass-based sceneries, photo sceneries are *real...every road, every building is real...why, each and every individual tree is included in the scenery :-lolCompare to Switzerland Professional which costs over 100 euros, or Megascenery, which gives you a very small region of the US for $30, and that's not even aerial images but less detailed, satallite images.There's currently no other scenery that gives you this sheer amount of data for the money. It's so much fun just to explore the country. I was flying up the western coast and I discovered race-tracks, small villages, satellite dishes and even something which looked like a rubbish fire...with generic scenery it was just "rural" and "forest" tiles.

[Guest NASA]

visualflight,Sorry, but I don't have time to go browse your site right now, as I'm being ushered out the door to go do some ultra-important shopping...Does your package include the whole of the UK Mainland, and what is the price in UK pounds? Is it available online? I'm very interested, since as much as I enjoy the freeware scenery available, I can't ignore the "causeways from nowhere", on Loch Lomond and off the East coast of the Isle of Lewis, to name a few, and the raised lakes/lochs.Thanks in advance,N.

[Guest anthonye]

Yes agree VFR Terrain is the best mesh, and don't forget to add the Gary Summons UK2000 scenery with the VFR photo scenery. All the best scenery and value.Anthony

[Guest Ozzie]

Three at leastI must be getting old - I even got the one about the Boeing"Andy" is an Aussie that has used the same STRM data as most others probably have and according to friends of mine in UK that know a section of Wales that I use as a referrence point reacon that his is better looking than Mauri'sHe has also done PNG which I know a little about and even without the lake elevation problems appears to be fairly goodIt all comes down to choice and the depth of one's wallet

[alastairmonk 0]

Make that four .....I can't stand the little yellow blighters, and never use them !Cheers,Alastair

[Guest allcott]

I think we're in danger of getting confused here. VFR Photographic Scenery includes a mesh of sorts, but the gains that Jimmi mentions must be offset against massive texture loading times (inevitable with individual rather than repeated tile-based rendering), no night textures, no seasonal textures - and no autogen other than that custom-made by freeware developers and others. Then there is the artificial visibility limits which means downloaded weather may not represent what is being seen in the real world at that time. The computer-generated colours also have raised some questions in some peoples minds as to the realism of the interpretation. Makes that rather expensive in my book.VFR TERRAIN is a new product that includes detailed UK mesh - and enhancements for VFR Photographic Scenery, if I understand correctly. This looks much more like it, but I have yet to receive an answer (and demonstration screenshots) as to whether this product functions with default textures, and whether it includes Landclass changes for default areas where the detailed coastline would otherwise be poorly represented. All the screenshots I have seen show VFR Terrain combined with VFR Photographic Scenery, and I don't want to do that.This, if it does what I hope it does, would appear to be MUCH better value for money as it supersamples the data to provide more detail than FS2004 can actually generate. This would obviously benefit those of us with poorer systems that can't run mesh at 100%. Allcott

[Guest visualflight]

AllcottInteresting to speculate what you think would be a fair price? At just over UKD 15 + VAT for three CDs, that's just over UKD 5 per CD, and each CD is crammed with data. Can you find me another flight sim scenery product that gives you that much high quality, dense coverage scenery either by area or by gigabyte for the same amount of money?There's really no need to buy all four volumes either. Each separate volume contains a huge amount of data, a huge flying area and a totally different flying area. Yes it takes longer to load, but then in real life a flight takes a long time to plan. Besides which, why are you having to reload all the time? There's so much genuine fascination in seeing real-world textures with the photo scenery that you shouldn't find yourself wanting to reload all the time. Load once (2-3 mins or less) then settle down and enjoy the scenery.There is no artificial visibility limit. You can set any visibility you want, but you may prefer to set it lower a) because it helps the performance and :( you may prefer the more natural looking colour balance that result. Low visibility is a very typical met condition in any case, including on hot, hazy summer days. In spite of this, many users do choose to run with high visibility as you can see if you visit the screenshots section of the Visual Flight forums.The colours are not computer generated. The imagery used in VFR Photographic Scenery is full colour aerial photography. However, photographic images from different times of day, different weather situations and even different times of year have to be joined to create a complete, seamless image, and the colour balancing process required to do this does affect the overall appearance, with the result that reds in particular can tend to appear too strong. Fortunately reds are pretty rare in the England & Wales landscape, and as I've already said, the colour balance with the visibility reduced, is extremely good in my opinion.Yes, there is only one set of textures supplied with VFR Photographic Scenery, nominally Summer, but this does not stop you flying at other times of year. It would be nice to have seasonal and night time variations, but given that VFR Photographic Scenery is completely unrivalled in the total size of the area covered as well as being the only scenery of its type to give complete national coverage (England & Wales), comparisons with what's provided elsewhere are missing a little of the point.The freeware autogen you mention is all specifically designed to sit properly on top of the photographic image, and as such the total effect is so much more convincing than the semi-random autogen seen elsewhere.Frankly I don't see that VFR Photographic Scenery could be sold at less than it is currently, and I have to say that by the time your money has wended it's way down the the retail and distribution chain to get to me, there's very little left to pay back the time and effort that went into creating it.Moving on to VFR Terrain, who are you waiting for the answer from? If it's from me on the Visual Flight forums and I've accidentally missed it, then please accept my apologies. It's not always that easy to keep track of everything on a forum.Thanks for pointing out that there were no screenshots showing VFR Terrain with the default textures. I've now added one to the VFR Terrain web page on the Visual Flight web site:http://www.visualflight.co.uk/vfrterrainThe default textures image is at the bottom, just below a screenshot of the same scene with the photo scenery in case anyone is interested in the comparison.I hope those who are putting together the publicity for VFR Terrain don't present it too much as being an add-on for VFR Photographic Scenery because I spent a lot of time making sure it would work with the default textures as well, and it would be a shame for this aspect to be overlooked.For those of you who don't know, VFR Terrain includes a highly detailed coastline in addition to the high resolution terrain mesh, and this means not just exciting and interesting looking lakes and coast based on real life rather than the line cartoon representations in the default scenery, but it also means an end to lakes on plateaux and other such nasties that you usually get when adding terrain mesh to your system. Also the provision of a VTP coastline means that all the usual effects that default texture users expect to see such as breaking waves are still present even with the new accurate coast/shorelines.To answer your specific queries, yes, VFR Terrain includes a custom landclass scenery to ensure that there are no problems due to the inadequacies of the default landclass, and this includes landclass to enable the newly found islands such as the Farne Islands, Flatholm, Steepholm, Hilbre, Coquet Island, etc. which VFR Terrain provides to display properly rather than appearing as lumps in the sea.On a technical note: your 'supersamples' comment is pretty wide of the mark, much though it would be nice to say it was true. However, the incredible 5m resolution of the NextMap Britain source data is put to very good use, and makes a big difference compared to all other terrain mesh sceneries for the UK generated from source data at 90m or above (even those who quote 76m, or give tantalising referenecs to 38m data, which refers to the US only, are using source data at 90m or greater).The terrain mesh in VFR Terrain is undersampled from the 5m source data. All other terrain mesh sceneries for the UK are oversampled from 90m or greater source data. The resulting difference in quality and positional accuracy, even apart from the higher compiled resolution of the terrain mesh, probably explain the unprecedented enthusiasm with which VFR Terrain has been received.It's probably true to say that most of these will be from photo scenery users (the combined effect is quite something when you actually see it - though this doesn't really come out in screenshots), though there's definitely some reaction from default texture users as well.I've referred to the UK as a shorthand a few times in the above. To be clear, both VFR Photographic Scenery and VFR Terrain currently cover just England & Wales. Finally, if you do buy VFR Terrain, you will find an interesting demo on the CD which may just answer some of the issues you have with the photo scenery.Who knows, you might even be converted!JohnVisual Flighthttp://www.visualflight.co.uk

[Guest tezbedz]

Hi,Sorry I did not reply I went on holiday for two weeks just after posting that, and was quite surprised this morning to find my name in the thread whilst reading about UK Mesh.I would like to confirm the mesh I had problems with, (lakes running up the hill) was not the FS Terrain by Visual Flight, it was Pietro Mauri's Mesh.If you don't mind lakes on a "slant" then it is a good freeware mesh, for a comparison of other Meshes look in the latest issue of PC Pilot.To: Visual Flight, no offence taken and sorry I did not make my original post a bit clearer.CheersTerry

[Guest visualflight]

TerryThanks for clarifying. Just one more point, FS Terrain is an SRTM mesh by Just Flight, Visual Flight's product is VFR Terrain. See my post earlier for more details.John

[Guest allcott]

John, Thanks for the quick and copious reply. I'm off to buy VFR Terrain as it deals with the last remaining issue of default mesh and terrain - the coastal `imprint`. THAT'S what I needed, and those screenshots sell it! So you have another convert!Yes, I was very much under the impression that VFR Terrain was only an addon for VFR Photographic Scenery. I'd been following your forums and development with interest, and had gained the impression that VFR Terrain was only of any use with VFRPS. That is something you might want to address on the website as there will be far more default UK scenery users than VFRPS! I've spoken with a fellow simmer who was under the same misapprehension, so it's not just me!As to the value of a CD, a different and difficult question to answer. Personally, and I must reinforce this is a personal opinion, as a real-world pilot I was less impressed with VFRPS than I expected to be.It wasn't a question of `cost`. Rather one of `value`. The value of an item is not based on the material it arrives on, so 1,2,3 or 123 CD's is actually meaningless. It's based on the ability to use the contained data in an explicit way - in my case as reference material for what I see on the ground. Under certain circumstances and on certain occasions, the ground I fly over does look like VFRPS. It's just that most of the time it doesn't. Those greens, blues and purples ARE an `average` too far, and those colour compromises to make the scenery homogenous do more harm than good - if the colour doesn't convince in one location, it doesn't convince in any. And I did try creating a colour signature specifically for VFRPS, without success.That variation in colour and contrast, shadows and light, time of day and time of year, detailed working versions of the major airports and airfields, prominent ground features and buildings useful as VRP is something I expected to be catered for as part of the compromise for the absence of autogen and the initial loading period. I didn't get it, and as a result I removed VFR PS from my computer as the compromise didn't suit my needs, or my expectations were too high. It just appeared too one dimensional and `static`. It also `broke down` at typical VFR altitudes in the UK and only really came into it's own above 5,000 feet. An area where, in the South East of the UK, one only rarely intrudes without an ATPL or begging and pleading with ATC. The other day I got up to 3,400 feet and remember thinking that was probably the highest I've flown for a year or more! In future I don't doubt that the methodology will be refined to include seasonal textures (I'll be looking at the demo on the CD with interest, if it's what I think it is!) but for now the value equation didn't suit me. The transition from useful flying altitude to airfield aproach just didn't `carry` me without autogen or detailed scenery. This is where default scenery scores - as the texture map `breaks down` with decreasing altitude the autogen and scenery takes over to continue to provide a visual reference. I did also try VFRPS with some of the additional features added by other developers and simmers, but the odd chimney stack, lighthouse and building just stood out more than the blank canvas and made things worse. Also the addition of Gary's UK airfields also went back to the `bad old days` in FS98 when there was nothing to be seen other than the airfields - if there's a tree there, in the middle distance, that must be where the airfield is. I find the default scenery (with modded landclass) with default or modified autogen (Finnish Buildings work well in the UK landscape) and Gary's non-VFRPS versions of UK airfields to be a better compromise. And on that basis, the cost:value equation swings heavily in favour of default, not VFRPS.But I will keep an eye on developments as I have no doubt that one day, systems will have advanced to the point where 18-20 gigs worth of seasonal-specific photomapped textures will be a viable option. For now I'll settle for detailed mesh and `proper` coastlines!Many thanks.Allcott

[Guest visualflight]

NI'm tempted to ask if you're back from your shopping now and hence had a chance to browse my site, but I won't. I'm not around the avsim forums the whole time in any case, so you're not guaranteed to get a reply if you post questions for me here. On this occasion you're in luck though:Does your package include the whole of the UK MainlandNo, just England & Wales, the Isles of Scilly, and a little incursion over the Scottish border. You can see the complete coverage here:http://www.visualflight.co.uk/vfrterrainWhat is the price in UK pounds?29.99 UK pounds.Is it available online?Yes, direct from [a href=http://www.horizonsimulation.com]Horizon Simulation[/a] (the publisher), or from [a href=http://www.rcsimulations.com]RCSimulations[/a] (a well respected online retailer). There may be others, but I'm not aware of them.I'm very interested, since as much as I enjoy the freeware scenery available, I can't ignore the "causeways from nowhere", on Loch Lomond and off the East coast of the Isle of Lewis, to name a few, and the raised lakes/lochsI can only apologise and say that I'm looking forward to Intermap acquiring the data for Scotland as much as you obviously are.JohnVisual Flighthttp://www.visualflight.co.uk

[Guest visualflight]

OK, no problem. I hope I haven't given the wrong impression about the demo though. It's effectively just a sample area of the original VFR Photographic Scenery. I didn't realise you already had this.John

[Guest tezbedz]

Oh heck, that'll teach me to follow the thread properly, I read the early part this morning at work, but, wanted to check which mesh I had used before replying.CheersTerry