Use mega scenery in stereo 3d with carendo planes and 3d clouds it's awesome as it gives depth at altitude. Flatness of photoreal does not bother me once above 1500ft agl starts to look better and at cruise speed generic textures put me to zzzz.. The tall buildings fsx show up in fsx even with photoreal turned on just not autogen. Mega Earth is not for everyone as is mega airport add ons never bother with. Wish 3d party take these mega scenery photoscenery add on make rural airports like Orbx has.

 

 

Daytime only - not true for megascenery earth - one of the attractions is the nightlighting.

 

Which MS Earth?  The newer v2, which is getting close to covering the entire contiguous 48 US states, is indeed day textures only, though I recall some talk about possibly going back through and developing night textures after they finish the US.  Looks like most of the older v1 packs with night and some autogen are no longer available.  Part of CA, WA and part of OR appear to be all that's left there.

 

That said, I'll echo what I've already said and what JTH1969 says above - why is it always either or?  Many of us use both, recognizing and working to maximize the strengths of each and to minimize the weaknesses.

 

As an example - and because I've already highlighted Orbx places like Southern Alaska - just did a great VFR flight last night (time shifted to yesterday morning, real world wx) in MSE v2 Colorado.  Grab a sectional and follow along.

 

Departed Steamboat Springs (KSBS) and followed the Yampa river upstream, turned at around State Bridge and crossed the Gore range along the Colorado at Gore Canyon, then back north up the Blue River to Breckenridge.  From there over Boreas Pass (the drainage just to the east of Hoosier Pass)into South Park at Como, then west along the edge of the range, crossing near Weston Pass to reach the upper Arkansas River valley near Twin Lakes.  Then down the Arkansas past my old home town of Buena Vista, on to Salida and down past the Royal Gorge and into Pueblo, KPUB back out on the high plains.

 

This is country I know intimately and the entire route was flown using pilotage, local familiarity and VFR charts.  It was simply spectacular and I can't imagine any scenery method working better than good quality photo for what I did.  To minimize some of the known issues, I flew morning, as most of the imagery used for CO seems to have been captured early in the mornings.  Fly late in the day, and the shadow mismatch might bother you.  I also have an excellent freeware airport at KPUB to fly in to, helping with those near the ground issues. 

 

Out of Steamboat airport was, well...  compromise, as was obviously the time of day flown and ignoring flaws like the occasional cloud plastered flat on a mountaintop.  Compromise - which is really what this is all about.  None of this stuff is perfect, and we often spend too much time taking a side, dwelling on the bad and ignoring the fact that there are upsides or conversely cheer-leading for what we like and glossing over obvious flaws.  For example, I point out the issue with the early morning imagery, but honestly that's more a plus than minus.  The best, most 3D-like photo imagery seems to be low sun angle stuff, so I'll either fly near the time of day indicated by shadows or adjust my thinking to not get too worked up about it.

 

Anyway... :-)

 

Scott

Aaron, don't know if you are aware, but Megascenery do an excellent version of Hawaii. The whole island is covered in pretty hi-res photoscenery with autogen laid over the top.

 

I have that and it only covers the island of Oahu, not the entire region.

 

http://www.megascenery.com/MegaSceneryXHawaii.htm

 

 

I have that and it only covers the island of Oahu, not the entire region.

 

That's true but I have heard of someone named Ironhand making some good photoreal...and there's some autogen you can get too.  Also, fsdt Hawaii airports.  I'll probably get it all when I get a good island hopping aircraft.  I have to say, Instant Scenery and Instant Object studio are excellent products for adding stuff yourself if you're so inclined.

Interesting. I'll have to look into that. I've been waiting for an OrbX level of detail for the entire Hawaii area for quite some time now. That paired with FSDT's Hawaiian airport package will make GA flying this region memorable.

I've directly compared Megascenery V2 with Orbx for the U.S. Pacific Northwest area.  My conclusion is that Orbx is generally superior, although it costs more, slows framerates, and lacks the perfect accuracy of a photoreal product.  Another important issue is that Orbx is only available for a few specific locations. 

 

I have gotten a lot of enjoyment using the Megascenery scenery.  I don't notice the "flatness" once at an altitude of 1,000 - 2,000 feet.  My opinion is that at the mid and higher altitudes you can't tell if the trees are flat or are 100' tall. 

 

There's now a new review of Megascenery Georgia at Mutleyshangar.com.

I'm biting my tongue reading some of the comments here but I agree with many that both Orbx and MSE V2 are great products both for flying VFR and IFR.  With MSE V2, I have opened up many more flight departures/destinations as I always hated the mundane FSX default textures I was flying over. I like Autogen over the Orbx scenery but never liked the Autogen over the default FSX scenery.  I now own 90% of Orbx products in and around the PNW and 90% of the MSE V2 products and enjoy all of it.  When I take off from an airport over MSE V2 scenery in the PMDG 737, as soon as the AP is engaged (between 500- 800 feet), I do a Ctrl-S and go immediately to the wing view. It looks as real as if I am in the real thing.  But I do encourage everyone to buy both products as both are great for flight simming and it should never be an either/or.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Flew it with Carendo SR22 bought the other day with 3d vision feels almost real knobs pop out as do gauges with photoscenery illusion height is awesome on landings and take offs. Photoreal see as compromise between having no autogen or buying Orbx which would cost me same the same with small airports. Do not fly outside photoreal areas anymore.

 

 

But I do encourage everyone to buy both products as both are great for flight simming and it should never be an either/or.

 

....until someone finds a way to combine the agn from Orbx with MSEv2...

In XPX there's a way to combine the 2. I've seen it myself and the results are spectacular. I would love to see this being done one day for FSX/P3D. Hope it's somehow possible.

....until someone finds a way to combine the agn from Orbx with MSEv2...

 

 

It would not line up and look really off since the placement points would not match.

.

....until someone finds a way to combine the agn from Orbx with MSEv2...

 

 

Anyone interested in adding autogen to their photoscenery should read this

using_the_autogen_annotator_264833.zip in the library, and you will be able to at least add 3D around your airports.

For more info on autogen + photoscenery, see these links:

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/381547-adding-autogen-to-photoreal-scenery

 

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?s=ed1a13339d123be3ee7f7ba353ef5da7&t=98082

 

http://flightsimaviation.blogspot.com/2012/05/adding-autogen-automatically-to-fsx.html

 

John

 

 

For all the places in North America that are covered by ORBX, I buy ORBX.  For all the places in North America that are not covered by ORBX, I buy MSEv2.  ORBX is great for VFR, but when looking out the window at altitude, nothing comes close to MSEv2.  It looks exactly like the real thing, because it IS the real thing.

I love the Orbx for Australia but when I see screenshots (such as mountains and bush land) in NZ (apart from the photorealistic parts) and the US I don't like it.

 

I use US Cities X in California. And Blueskyscenery. I would love to see Orbx for CA but it would have to be much better than their PNW and would have to be as close to photorealistic as possible and it would have to be photorealistic in deserts and mountains. I'm just fussy, but with good reason. The FTX AU series was brilliant! Although famous landmarks such as Kakadu and the Bungle bungles haven't been rendered in any detail.

 

 

The FTX AU series was brilliant!

 

Why was that series brilliant...? Because it's the exact same setup as the American sceneries... PNW is called Orbx's best one to date by many simmers (although I heard Scotland comes close too).