Hi

 

In the past, photoreal scenery is something I'd never really considered, having been content with adding mesh and UT/GE etc.

 

Now the more I look at people's screenshots where photoreal scenery is being used, the more jealous I get!

 

I mainly fly airliners on short European hops of 3hr or less. Obviously VFR flyers will get more out of it but presumably it still greatly enhances the visuals for IFR fliers too?

 

How does such scenery interact with UT/GE etc? Does it just replace any enhancements that these products make in the affected region? Also how about where an add on airport has photo scenery included? Does it blend in well with this or do you get patches of misalignment around the airport?

 

Also presumably it's better to start off small as I guess there's no products that cover the whole of Western Europe?! That being the case can anyone recommend a UK offering?

 

Thanks!

One of the best addons I've ever bought, I pretty much only fly the tubeliners:

http://www.flightsto...t-for-fsx-p2780

 

I don't use UT etc, but have had no troubles with any other addons. Gary's UK2000 airports are designed to merge perfectly with the Horizon VFR photoscenery, just make sure they're above the photoscenery in the library. Better visuals, better frames. Win Win!

 

There's some freeware Spain photoscenery knocking around too. For freeware, its top quality stuff!

http://library.avsim...php?DLID=170524

http://www.freewares.../fsx/spain.html

 

The one thing to watch is your disk space; the Horizon VFR stuff is space hungry, especially the higher res stuff. I have England Vol 1,2,3 and Scotland South. Total of 147GB!!

@ Bristol. Lol... I have the same, mate. But I simply can't decide what to get. Also, getting a larger area, like all of France (FranceVFR) or all of the UK (UK2000) is just a lot of money.

 

That UK package Chris has linked to seems like a good deal.

 

There's also freeware photo scenery with autogen from The Netherlands. It's approx 20 GB download in total. It looks really good, but The Netherlands is so small you can fit it in your shoe. :wink:

 

http://www.nl-2000.com/

Hi

 

In the past, photoreal scenery is something I'd never really considered, having been content with adding mesh and UT/GE etc.

 

Now the more I look at people's screenshots where photoreal scenery is being used, the more jealous I get!

 

I mainly fly airliners on short European hops of 3hr or less. Obviously VFR flyers will get more out of it but presumably it still greatly enhances the visuals for IFR fliers too?

 

How does such scenery interact with UT/GE etc? Does it just replace any enhancements that these products make in the affected region? Also how about where an add on airport has photo scenery included? Does it blend in well with this or do you get patches of misalignment around the airport?

 

Also presumably it's better to start off small as I guess there's no products that cover the whole of Western Europe?! That being the case can anyone recommend a UK offering?

 

Thanks!

To a fellow Bristolian simmer, may I offer some advice...WAIT! The whole photo Vs autogen based sceneries is of course a very personal thing. I have flown in both Horizon and JF photoscenery and always return to GEX and UTX, except when flying gliders in Wales, when IMO the photoscenery from JF is unsurpassed. However, elsewhere in the UK it is pretty abysmal. As for Horizon's / GenX offering, I'm afraid that was the biggest waste of money I ever spent. The photoscenery has been manipulated in some way and the outcome is excessively contrasty terrain and some extremely unpleasant and unnatural colours. I don't fly GA with GEX/UTX, simply because low down it doesn't 'do it' for me, but I find it OK for the 'biggies,' and I do find it a compromise. But anyway I digress. The reason why I suggest you hang on for a short time, I mean maybe a couple of weeks, and forgive me if this is common knowledge to you, is because Orbx is about to release the first of their European sceneries. It is the UK, starting with England and Goodwood airport. If you have never flown in Orbx scenery then I respectfully suggest you download one of their demos, or wait for a couple of weeks for their UK scenery, I promise you will not be disappointed, it is stunning! :wink: BTW, the European sceneries are being developed with newly acquired design methods which help enormously with higher framerates...

 

I'll pretty much echo what Chris says - I have Horizon GenX 1, 2 & 3 and it really is impressive stuff. Works seamlessly with UK2000 airports as well. I'll add that in my opinion, Treescapes are a must with GenX - it gives a depth to the rural areas that would normally look flat because it is photoscenery.

 

As for your general point - well I'm mulling over almost exactly the same point at the moment. Like you I fly tubeliners short haul in Europe and love the look of photoscenery. I've thought a lot about using Tileproxy but my issue with photoscenery is that I want the best of both worlds I want it to look real from FL200+, with all the different shades and shapes you don't get with standard and enhanced (by that I mean GEX/UTX) scenery but when I'm approaching an airport at low level I want to see buildings, trees etc etc. With pure photoscenery you don't get that and I feel it spoils the immersion totally. There are newer photoscenery packages that include autogen and the like and they're the ones to go for but then they normally cover such small areas that it hardly seems worth it in a tubeliner. So it's a trade off - I wouldn't purchase photoscenery without some sort of autogen and I think having enhanced scenery does a better job of doing a decent impression of real life at high altitude than non-autogen photoscenery does at low level.

 

If you're not worried about autogen then I'd give Tileproxy a go - it's free and from the screenshots it looks really good.

@ Howard,

 

Thanks for that insight, Howard. Although I don't have any Orbx stuff myself, screenshots provided by others look very impressive indeed. If I had a fortune to spend I'd buy all their stuff in a blink of an eye.

 

Looking forward to see how their UK scenery will turn out.

 

Thank you for the heads-up.

To a fellow Bristolian simmer, may I offer some advice...WAIT! The whole photo Vs autogen based sceneries is of course a very personal thing. I have flown in both Horizon and JF photoscenery and always return to GEX and UTX, except when flying gliders in Wales, when IMO the photoscenery from JF is unsurpassed. However, elsewhere in the UK it is pretty abysmal. As for Horizon's / GenX offering, I'm afraid that was the biggest waste of money I ever spent. The photoscenery has been manipulated in some way and the outcome is excessively contrasty terrain and some extremely unpleasant and unnatural colours. I don't fly GA with GEX/UTX, simply because low down it doesn't 'do it' for me, but I find it OK for the 'biggies,' and I do find it a compromise. But anyway I digress. The reason why I suggest you hang on for a short time, I mean maybe a couple of weeks, and forgive me if this is common knowledge to you, is because Orbx is about to release the first of their European sceneries. It is the UK, starting with England and Goodwood airport. If you have never flown in Orbx scenery then I respectfully suggest you download one of their demos, or wait for a couple of weeks for their UK scenery, I promise you will not be disappointed, it is stunning! :wink: BTW, the European sceneries are being developed with newly acquired design methods which help enormously with higher framerates...

 

Will their new scenery be just England? No Wales/Scotland? Do you know if they have plans to do other mainland European countries as well?

That box set of all three volumes of PlayHorizon GenX Version 3 England and Wales for 40 quid is a bargain. I have these installed, plus VFR4 Western Isles, VFR5 Orkneys & Shetland Isles, VFR6 Scotland North and VFR8 Scotland South, ES Treescapes autogen for all of these areas, all three volumes of UK2000 VFR Airfields (these all blend seamlessly with the photo scenery), UK2000 Xtreme airports, and Scotflight scenery (upgraded airports plus landmarks) for the four photoscenery areas of Scotland mentioned above. This combination is superb, and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

 

On a side note, I consider the PlayHorizon scenery to be superior to the Just Flight version. The terrain mesh is twice the resolution (5m compared to 10m), there is more contrast (JF is a bit too "green" for my liking), and the water masks are excellent (revealing sand bars and other features below areas of shallow water). It is also worth noting that the UK2000 airfields do not all blend perfectly with the JF scenery. When I purchased the JF version (by mistake), I noticed that Bristol Airport had a HUGE cliff on the western side, whereas the terrain is smooth, rolling hillside when using the PlayHorizon scenery.

 

Version 3 of the PlayHorizon scenery also includes excellent models of the major bridges, plus a handful of other landmarks.

mainly fly airliners on short European hops of 3hr or less. Obviously VFR flyers will get more out of it but presumably it still greatly enhances the visuals for IFR fliers too?

 

FSAltitude Western Europe would be helpfull. One installation for Europe, very good to framerates, with a cone that can be adjusted. The cone creates - when coming closer to the ground - under the plane an aera, where the underlying scenery shines through. That can be default scenery, high res photoscenery or what is often delivered with better addon airports a local photo scenery. I used it for the US, was great and very close to what I saw from the plane when flying in real world there.

Thanks all for the advice and helpful comments. Plenty to think about and digest!

 

Chris I don't suppose you could show me a screenie of how the scenery looks when approaching an airport? I am a bit concerned about the look and feel with no autogen.

 

I suppose I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself as I don't even know if im going to be able to run fsx comfortably on my rig, but it all looks so purdy!

 

I'm all about the eye candy hence wanting to switch from fs9 so I think I would take the trade off of the lack of autogen as I don't do much vfr flight, I just want the scenery to have that wow factor. It also helps that I already have most of the uk2000 xtereme airports!

Will their new scenery be just England? No Wales/Scotland? Do you know if they have plans to do other mainland European countries as well?

 

Hiya, yup, they are releasing England followed by the rest of the UK and then, as far as I understand, into Europe!

Hello

A couple of shots from GenX with Treescapes

 

 

 

 

A couple from NL2000 approaching Rotterdam with a bit of haze yesterday

 

 

 

FSAltitude Western Europe would be helpfull. One installation for Europe, very good to framerates, with a cone that can be adjusted. The cone creates - when coming closer to the ground - under the plane an aera, where the underlying scenery shines through. That can be default scenery, high res photoscenery or what is often delivered with better addon airports a local photo scenery. I used it for the US, was great and very close to what I saw from the plane when flying in real world there.

 

Well that throws another spanner into the works! Having had a quick look I'm liking what I see...

Here are some from Horizon GenX v3. The ones from showing Bristol are lower quality as only the cities are 60cm res, everywhere else is 1.2m.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hiya, yup, they are releasing England followed by the rest of the UK and then, as far as I understand, into Europe!

 

I believe Wales and Scotland will be 2 different areas. i.e.

Orbx: England

Orbx: Wales

Orbx: Scotland

 

That box set of all three volumes of PlayHorizon GenX Version 3 England and Wales for 40 quid is a bargain.

 

Weird, when I posted this link, it cost £60. Now all Horizon VFR is 50% off! Anyway, I'm off to buy Scotland North!

Well that throws another spanner into the works! Having had a quick look I'm liking what I see...

 

Ack, not for me. The transitioning, especially in winter, would ruin the immersion. As you were...