I'm contemplating installing some new scenery, but I'm not sure where to start.1. I've read that photorealistic scenery often doesn't include autogen. I don't completely understand autogen, I guess, and there's no Learning Center article on it. Why would photorealistic scenery need anything more to be auto-generated? Is it that photorealistic stuff typically doesn't come in day/night or winter/summer versions? Or is it that you want more ground detail (trees etc) as you get closer?2. What are the pros and cons of photorealistic scenery scenery (like Bluesky) vs packages like ORBX, aside from the obvious price difference? So far FSX runs smoothly on my i7 930 2.8GHz rig, 12G RAM, GTX 580, but I understand things like ORBX may slow it down. I still want to try. Also, FYI, I already have REX2, which is nice.3. I've downloaded some of the Bluesky shareware scenery, and I'm puzzling over how to install it. I've read advice (here and in the Learning Center) that I should create a separate folder on my hard disk for it, with subfolders for textures and scenery, and then use FSX's scenery library to "point to" this new directory to activate it. But I see only .BGL files, which I assume are scenery files. Does Bluesky not include textures? Should I create a dummy folder for the nonexistent textures anyway? I assume it should all go in one giant Bluesky subfolder as opposed to individual folders for each square of the map (e.g., a separate folder for Santa Barbara, etc.).Thanks!

Photorealistic scenery can include autogen. Autogen are 3D objects like trees or buildings. Our's doesn't. It's simply way too much work for large areas.FSX photorealistic sceneries contain only blg's. The textures are in the blg's. You don't need a dummy "texture" folder.

hiThere is a distinction between scenery objects such as airport buildings, antennas, real world monuments and autogen objects such as trees and houses, city buildings. Scenery objects look like the real things whereas autogen objects are fake. With photoscenery, scenery objects show. Personally, I don't miss autogen objects.

Thanks to both of you. Very helpful.

Yeah. Many people using photorealistic scenery don't miss autogen. Unless it's placed 100% accurate, which it mostly isn't, it looks weird because it doesn't match the phototextures.Another bonus of not having autogen is a huge performance boost.

I'm wondering how Megascenery does it. It's not that accurate but it can be forgiven and I loooove seeing the buildings when I'm short final.

Megascenery would create custom autogen for their scenery. If I remember correctly they used to recruit simmers to do this on an area-by-area basis.

I'm wondering how Megascenery does it. It's not that accurate but it can be forgiven and I loooove seeing the buildings when I'm short final.

 

Same for me. I don't mind the lack of autogen, since I mostly fly airliners, and from 36K ft you won't see any autogen at all, but I'd like to have more buildings to have the "real world feeling".

Megascenery would create custom autogen for their scenery. If I remember correctly they used to recruit simmers to do this on an area-by-area basis.

 

I think that's what you see when you turn off FSX default scenery. Well positioned, well proportioned but very, very sparse. Someone recommended a couple of tools that could make it easy IF it works on photoreal scenery. I'd be willing to create some for bluesky if they wanted them. Looks pretty easy unless I'm missing something. Just wondering if it will work and the created scenery can be shared.

 

http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=instscen2

 

http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=insobjstu

Gregg,

 

Those programs would work and they will be seen on top of photoreal scenery. It's default autogen that will not be seen. Now if you looking at sprucing up some airports or defined areas they could work nice. It's if you are planning on large scale areas - something to fill entire areas that Bluesky provides would be quite an undertaking not to mention the hit on FPS if you tried using custom 3D models or object libraries (which those two programs use).

 

That's where autogen usually comes in. Typically the most frame rate friendly thus you see that used over large areas. Now you can create your own custom autogen that WILL sit on top of the photoscenery. You can use a free program called the autogen annotator which is part of the FSX SDK. Like any of these programs it takes some time to get up to speed. At that point it's not hard to create buildings, trees, etc, but beware it is time consuming!

 

All depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

 

hope that helps,

 

Clutch

Thanks Chuck. I saw Annotator...I just worried that the learning curve might be much.