Until last week, I never really liked the idea of photoscenery - I like modelled airports, I like buildings and landmarks, I like trees, I like 3D and I love my ORBX!That said, I never like to dismiss something out of hand until I have tried it and with that in mind, I downloaded the free samples from SimSavvy's US series and tried them out...I was less upset with the blurred splodges at ground-level than I though I would be and when I hit about 1500ft over Denver, I was really quite impressed...and once I hit 2500 I was almost tempted to make a purchase!...then I touched back down and once again was pretty bummed by the lack of a real airport and put my wallet back in my pocket.This did get me thinking though: Being a Brit, I would love some good UK scenery beyond the European UTX/GEX combo I currently have, I have heard and seen good things about the Horizon VFR V3 Photoreal scenery and have seen some great bundle deals which include the VFR2000 Airports for and there are Tree Autogen packages too.My questions therefore are:How does the basic Horizon VFR Generation X V3 scenery compare in terms of quality and fidelity to the SimSavvy stuff?What are the VFR Airports for this like?Do the Treescapes work well at making the scenery "pop" or do they look weird?Is there anything else I should know before considering a purchase?Cheers!

Take a look at Blue Sky, its free

Take a look at Blue Sky, its free

I did take a little look at some of this - I thought it was brilliant for freeware, but found the quality noticeably lower than the SimSavvy and it doesn't cover the UK, nor does it address my concerns with airports etc (as far as I can see)Cheers anyway!

The base Horizon Photo Scenery is good, especially if you collect all the various libraries of Objects that can be placed on it...too numerous to mention in detail. But searches of all the various forums will dig them up. Earth Simulations Trees for the UK, payware overlay...brilliant. Uk2000/VFR Airports very worthy purchases. Power Project, freeware. UK ANO, freeware. UK Refineries, freeware. The list goes on and on.....When you have the full monty installed it will be hard to see just how the forthcoming ORBX uk project can compete. I think its only saving grace will be to have the ability to "fly around" at ground level. Something which photo scenery is unable to offer. 1000 ft minimum really in most areas.Then of course there is Switzerland Pro....expensive but good. France VFR, likewise and don't forget the 4 volumes of VFR Germany...colours seem a bit off to my eyes but otherwise good.All these latter photo sceneries contain objects placed all over them. Giving a good 3D feel. I think I am right in saying that they all contain their own Mesh also. So no need to buy a proprietary area/world mesh. Not unless you want to fly default terrain, that is.Landclass is good, very good in some cases and takes up far less space on the HDD...see the latest photo release for Scotland South, 54 GB... But it has its drawbacks in areas that you are familiar with in great detail. Like where you live. One of the reasons I enjoy ORBX sceneries so much is that they cover areas that I do not know ie. NA, NZ and Oz.Oh and don't forget the freeware NL2000 project...the entire Netherlands photoscenery. Including airports and 3D objects. About 32 Gb download in total. A worthy inclusion for any european collection of scenery.

Treescapes works okay with any of the VFR photorealistic sceneries, but is designed for the Horizon one, although I use it with Just Flight's VFR photo-scenery, and it's okay with that. Sometimes the seasons can make the trees seem a bit odd, but on the whole it is better than the default FSX stuff. UK 2000 airports complete the picture, any one of their many sceneries is worth having and they fit well with photorealistic stuff.Al

Do the Treescapes work well at making the scenery "pop" or do they look weird

I have the horizon photoscenery (ver3) with uk2000 vfr airports along with 'treescapes'have attached photo's to show how it looks.note my low end rig so my sliders are marked down and I have tree cells set at 800 in the fsx.cfg file.I fly the BN_Islander and also run OpenCloud weather.bob

Photo scenery doesn't look good at all!

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I have the horizon photoscenery (ver3) with uk2000 vfr airports along with 'treescapes'have attached photo's to show how it looks.note my low end rig so my sliders are marked down and I have tree cells set at 800 in the fsx.cfg file.I fly the BN_Islander and also run OpenCloud weather.bob

Cheers Bob - that looks pretty good to me!1) Any idea what sort of altitude you were in the first shot?2) Where does the bridge on the horizon in the last shot come from? Is that an additional add-on or part of the Horizon package?3) What are your thoughts on the airports themselves? How do they compare to others in the market, i.e Orbx or Aerosoft?As an aside, I do love the BN2 Islander - I have been flying it around the South Island of NZ of late...CheersStrict Standards: Declaration of group_forum_breadcrumb::sendOutput() should be compatible with that of output::sendOutput() in /opt/webdocs/newsite/forum/hooks/group_forum_breadcrumb_d29bf565a59f776807044fd19e49258a.php on line 107

I have the horizon photoscenery (ver3) with uk2000 vfr airports along with 'treescapes'have attached photo's to show how it looks.note my low end rig so my sliders are marked down and I have tree cells set at 800 in the fsx.cfg file.I fly the BN_Islander and also run OpenCloud weather.bob

Cheers Bob - that looks pretty good to me!1) Any idea what sort of altitude you were at in the first shot?2) Where does the bridge on the horizon in the last shot come from? Is that an additional add-on or part of the Horizon package?3) What are your thoughts on the airports themselves? How do they compare to others in the market, i.e Orbx or Aerosoft?As an aside, I do love the BN2 Islander - I have been flying it around the South Island of NZ of late...Cheers

I have the horizon photoscenery (ver3) with uk2000 vfr airports along with 'treescapes'have attached photo's to show how it looks.note my low end rig so my sliders are marked down and I have tree cells set at 800 in the fsx.cfg file.I fly the BN_Islander and also run OpenCloud weather.bob

Cheers Bob - that looks pretty good to me!1) Any idea what sort of altitude you were at in the first shot?2) Where does the bridge on the horizon in the last shot come from? Is that an additional add-on or part of the Horizon package?3) What are your thoughts on the airports themselves? How do they compare to others in the market, i.e Orbx or Aerosoft?As an aside, I do love the BN2 Islander - I have been flying it around the South Island of NZ of late...CheersStrict Standards: Declaration of group_forum_breadcrumb::sendOutput() should be compatible with that of output::sendOutput() in /opt/webdocs/newsite/forum/hooks/group_forum_breadcrumb_d29bf565a59f776807044fd19e49258a.php on line 107

The base Horizon Photo Scenery is good, especially if you collect all the various libraries of Objects that can be placed on it...too numerous to mention in detail. But searches of all the various forums will dig them up. Earth Simulations Trees for the UK, payware overlay...brilliant. Uk2000/VFR Airports very worthy purchases. Power Project, freeware. UK ANO, freeware. UK Refineries, freeware. The list goes on and on.....When you have the full monty installed it will be hard to see just how the forthcoming ORBX uk project can compete. I think its only saving grace will be to have the ability to "fly around" at ground level. Something which photo scenery is unable to offer. 1000 ft minimum really in most areas.....

Cheers - all useful info!

The base Horizon Photo Scenery is good, especially if you collect all the various libraries of Objects that can be placed on it...too numerous to mention in detail. But searches of all the various forums will dig them up. Earth Simulations Trees for the UK, payware overlay...brilliant. Uk2000/VFR Airports very worthy purchases. Power Project, freeware. UK ANO, freeware. UK Refineries, freeware. The list goes on and on.....When you have the full monty installed it will be hard to see just how the forthcoming ORBX uk project can compete. I think its only saving grace will be to have the ability to "fly around" at ground level. Something which photo scenery is unable to offer. 1000 ft minimum really in most areas.....

Cheers - all useful info!yikes!`The site has seemingly lost its marbles in the upgrade.

hiI am loving it

hiI am loving it

Looks great! Is that SImSavvy?What do you do for airports though?

hello,Yes it is simsavvy.For airports, I am happy with the default airports which show in simsavvy as well every scenery objects. They are accurate and I can find my way to the runway with the help of real world airport diagrams.I prefer being airborne to sitting on the ramp. My goal is to discover nice looking sceneries, that's all and photoscenery is perfect for me.Take care

I'm Lovin' it too...

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I'm Lovin' it too...

Looking good!Bluesky I presume?:)Strict Standards: Declaration of group_forum_breadcrumb::sendOutput() should be compatible with that of output::sendOutput() in /opt/webdocs/newsite/forum/hooks/group_forum_breadcrumb_d29bf565a59f776807044fd19e49258a.php on line 107

I'm Lovin' it too...

Looking good!Bluesky I presume? Mesh add-on?:)

Looking good!Bluesky I presume? Mesh add-on?

Thanks! Yes, BlueSky indeed :) North of SBA.All our new sceneries as well as all reuploads come with a 10m elevation mesh.