MegaSceneryEarth 2.0 Ultra-Res Cities

[klamal 282]

I posted up this quickie video I made of MSE Ultra City - Boston (posted in Video forum also).

 

For $10.17 purchase, I think you MSE folks pulled it off for Boston ... it does look amazing. BTW, the city buildings remain intact, so there are some 3D objects still there.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8bvSih0ztE - be sure to watch this in Original HD (2560 x 1600) if you can, full screen. It'll stress your bandwidth at 2GB files size (compressed down from 15GB original recording) for only 2:50 mins (so about 100Mbps/sec). Frame rates were unaffected by the HiRes (60-70 fps).

 

Rob.

The 3d "hand-placed" or custom buildings will remain visible in all cities and all photoreal sceneries. Whether that be MSEv2 high res cities, MSEv2, SimSavvy or you own home made photoreal scenery. You will see these custom 3d objects. The only 3d you lose with photoreal is autogen(unfortunately for people that want 3d, this is most of what is there with the land class based sceneries).

[fppilot 4,365]

Well said Jim, I also like the real stuff.  I only wish they would use some night textures like UTX.

 

X3 on both comments!

 

I would also like to see fixes of more bordering state issues in MSE2 states than release of additional new sceneries.  For instance with the recent fixes for Calif and Oregon they fixed issues along the Oregon/ Washington border at the coast, and the Calif/Nevada issue at Lake Tahoe, but failed to address the issue at the Pacific coast on the Calif/Oregon border.  There are also stark color differences between other states, such as between Indiana and Ohio, and the appearance of the Ohio river between Ohio and West Virginia.

[Guest]

 

 

and the Calif/Nevada issue at Lake Tahoe

 

Interesting, I have the updates and they didn't fix the Lake Tahoe issue for me?  Odd.

The 3d "hand-placed" or custom buildings will remain visible in all cities and all photoreal sceneries.

 

Yes, but someone suggested that there is NOTHING at all in terms of 3D objects (AutoGen are a subset of 3D objects) ... so I was just clarifying.  In a perfect world we wouldn't even know or understand what AutoGen is and we certainly would NOT want AutoGen ... we'd want 3D buildings/structures that actually represent what is there and blends seamlessly with terrain.  We can have this to a small degree, such as NewYork Mega City  or San Francisco Mega City (but even those don't cover All the buildings, always a compromise) -- but on a world scale, this never gonna happen in my life time.  And for the most part those "partial" cities will bring any current PC to it's knees (DX10, DX11, XP10, P3D, doesn't matter) ... their is no magic hardware relief when it comes to unique polygons and textures (even with 4 Titan 6GB cards).

 

AutoGen is a clever solution, repeating objects just enough that you hope it doesn't become a distraction, sometimes it works, sometimes not ... but the blending of these objects is rarely "as real as it gets".  So either way you look at it, there is a compromise.

 

HOWEVER, the good news is that we can have both, just enable/disable scenery libraries except perhaps Orbx ... Orbx seem intent on forcing folks down a single path -- I was very disappointed to see I can't buy some airports because they "rely" on Orbx regions, so I'm not free to pick and choose what I want to use.  Sure, I can write some code to dynamically undo their stuff and allow other products like MSE to work with Orbx, but I'm not sure that's something I want to invest time into and hence my avoidance of Orbx products.  Which is a shame, they have some really nice products that I would buy.

 

Rob.

[fppilot 4,365]

 

 

Interesting, I have the updates and they didn't fix the Lake Tahoe issue for me?  Odd.

 

Hummm!  I DL and update and based on the description believed it corrected this.  I installed the update but have not flown there to validate. 

[DAL1850 51]

I've noticed there are exclusion areas around most major water bodies where the underlying MSE 2.0 scenery is allowed to show through. Lakes and rivers all seem to have them. They look almost like someone took a circular paintbrush and created a transparency mask over all the water bodies. I wonder why they did that?

[Manny 1,293]

All right I bought Boston.. but I didn't get my Tuesday 10% off.. Hmm... where is my $1.20 savings? 

 

I bought it at 11:05 Central time..that would be 12:05 EST. So I guess I missed my saving by 5 min?  -_-

 

:lol:

 

I didn't want to get it at first but let me chalk this off as "education" so I would know what to expect for the cities that I really want.

 

 But if anyone has the F1 Instant scenery one could easily place some buildings and trees in strategic areas near Boston to give the illusion of autogen.. I did this for the old O'ahu. I knew the older version of the Instant scenery where I could plant trees and buildings and houses pretty fast... but I found the recent version tedious so I have not used the Instant scenery at all.  Maybe I should uninstall and go back to the older version and relearn what I used to do. Hmm..the thing is I am home only during the weekend..limited time to do that sort of thing these days.

 

It'll be nice to have a list of cities planned and the order they are targeted for release.

[PCAviator 37]

I posted up this quickie video I made of MSE Ultra City - Boston (posted in Video forum also).

 

For $10.17 purchase, I think you MSE folks pulled it off for Boston ... it does look amazing.  BTW, the city buildings remain intact, so there are some 3D objects still there.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8bvSih0ztE  - be sure to watch this in Original HD (2560 x 1600) if you can, full screen.  It'll stress your bandwidth at 2GB files size (compressed down from 15GB original recording) for only 2:50 mins (so about 100Mbps/sec).  Frame rates were unaffected by the HiRes (60-70 fps).

 

Rob.

 

Really well done Rob. Looks like you have your graphics settings nicely tuned. What LOD_RADIUS setting did you have for that session? Looks to be 4.0 - 5.0?

Appreciate you taking the time to capture your experience on video and sharing it.

[Guest]

 

 

What LOD_RADIUS setting did you have for that session? Looks to be 4.0 - 5.0?

 

It was actually 9.5 ... easy to do with a default FSX Heli.

 

I did my best with the video, but like I said, had to compress it down from 15GB to 2GB and on top of that YouTube does additional compression.  The version I uploaded (even at a compressed 2GB) looks a lot better than YouTube's "processed" version (in any quality setting) ... no compression artifacts in my version.  The 15GB fraps recorded version looks even better, but ultimately being "live" in FSX was of course the best version

 

I have NOT tried recording RGB lossless yet, probably looking at 2X file size to 30GB for just 2 mins and 50 seconds worth.  I did try to keep the altitude low 2300 ft.  I did notice a few areas with less clear details ... so I paused FSX to see if it was a texture load issue, but they didn't clear up so I'm guessing it's just a less clear texture (specifically the Charles River Basin - Esplanade).

 

I was impressed and I'll certainly be looking to get more cities as they come out.

 

Rob

[PCAviator 37]

9.5 wow ok... Must definitely be the video compression then, and of course the additional YouTube compression on top of that. Thanks for the info.

All right I bought Boston.. but I didn't get my Tuesday 10% off.. Hmm... where is my $1.20 savings? 

 

I bought it at 11:05 Central time..that would be 12:05 EST. So I guess I missed my saving by 5 min?  -_-

 

:lol:

 

I didn't want to get it at first but let me chalk this off as "education" so I would know what to expect for the cities that I really want.

 

 But if anyone has the F1 Instant scenery one could easily place some buildings and trees in strategic areas near Boston to give the illusion of autogen.. I did this for the old O'ahu. I knew the older version of the Instant scenery where I could plant trees and buildings and houses pretty fast... but I found the recent version tedious so I have not used the Instant scenery at all.  Maybe I should uninstall and go back to the older version and relearn what I used to do. Hmm..the thing is I am home only during the weekend..limited time to do that sort of thing these days.

 

It'll be nice to have a list of cities planned and the order they are targeted for release.

 

Yeah the MSE HQ is on the East Coast so they are in EST. You will need to be 5 mins earlier next time! :rolleyes:

Thanks for your order too. Instant Scenery is a good app to quickly add objects to photoreal yes.

 

Re a list of future releases, I will see what can be done. We like to keep it a secret until very close to release... Of course, we could announce them well into the future, but then we don't want to disappoint anyone if for whatever reason, there needs to be a change to a product or a schedule etc (which does happen a lot with software development).

 

Besides, isn't it more fun to keep guessing?

[PCAviator 37]

 

 

It'll be nice to have a list of cities planned and the order they are targeted for release.

 

FYI - Philadelphia is next on the MSE Ultra-Res City list.

[Guest]

9.5 wow ok... Must definitely be the video compression then

 

You caused me to go back and check, and there is indeed an issue with my setup for loading textures (aka the blurries are back ... it's as if my request LOD RADIUS of 9.5 is being ignore and I've got a LOD RADIUS of 3).  I need to investigate ... I disabled every other scenery except mass and boston and still have the issue.  Oh boy, FSX.CFG testing time again.  My Fiber Frame is as high as it can go 0.99 so lots of time is being given to the loading.

 

I'll drop back to 4.5 and see what happens, it's definitely a LOD RADIUS problem ... I'm guessing the HiRes textures put me over the top, have to see what/if I can do anything about this.

 

On the plus side, I can actually fly at 400 ft and it looks great (as in really good), so I think the low and slow flyers will really enjoy these cities.

[Manny 1,293]

FYI - Philadelphia is next on the MSE Ultra-Res City list.

 

 

Whelp! If you are taking requests

 

1) O'ahu (using the same source as your most recent Hawaii release (the one you put out 2 weeks back for 5$). I love the deep color of O'ahu so much better then old pale version. Now Imagine this in high resolution without compression artifacts! WOW! It would be so good!

 

The deep colors of O'ahu

 

 

2) Phoenix (We can leverage the old autogens)

 

Phoenix with autogen.

 

 

3) Dallas

 

4) San Diego and LA

 

5) San Francisco

 

6) Chicago

 

7) New York

 

:smile:

 

And don't forget the night version for these whenever you plan to do night texture upgrade. 

[DAL1850 51]

7) New York

 

Yes. Please salvage NYC and Long Island.

[PCAviator 37]

You caused me to go back and check, and there is indeed an issue with my setup for loading textures (aka the blurries are back ... it's as if my request LOD RADIUS of 9.5 is being ignore and I've got a LOD RADIUS of 3).  I need to investigate ... I disabled every other scenery except mass and boston and still have the issue.  Oh boy, FSX.CFG testing time again.  My Fiber Frame is as high as it can go 0.99 so lots of time is being given to the loading.

 

I'll drop back to 4.5 and see what happens, it's definitely a LOD RADIUS problem ... I'm guessing the HiRes textures put me over the top, have to see what/if I can do anything about this.

 

On the plus side, I can actually fly at 400 ft and it looks great (as in really good), so I think the low and slow flyers will really enjoy these cities.

 

I know my fsx.cfg file resets the LOD_RADIUS setting everytime you go into the FSX Scenery settings screens, so you have to constantly change it back to 8.0 or whatever you like it set at. You probably are very aware of this no doubt, but for the benefit of others who fly MSE. It's a bit of a FSX bug!

 

Yes the Ultra-Res does look good very low, but I'm guessing most of the very low and slow flyers are the autogen-liking types so it will be more difficult to convince them

Whelp! If you are taking requests

 

1) O'ahu (using the same source as your most recent Hawaii release (the one you put out 2 weeks back for 5$). I love the deep color of O'ahu so much better then old pale version. Now Imagine this in high resolution without compression artifacts! WOW! It would be so good!

 

The deep colors of O'ahu

 

 

2) Phoenix (We can leverage the old autogens)

 

Phoenix with autogen.

 

 

3) Dallas

 

4) San Diego and LA

 

5) San Francisco

 

6) Chicago

 

7) New York

 

:smile:

 

And don't forget the night version for these whenever you plan to do night texture upgrade. 

 

Noted! You will likely get hits on some of those city suggestions

 

Love the Oahu panorama too. Very nice!

Yes. Please salvage NYC and Long Island.

 

I personally agree 100% there don't worry! I'll check with the developer and see if the Ultra-Res imagery is available in good quality to do NYC. If it is available then we will certainly be doing NYC yes. If the imagery is not available, then we have to wait until it becomes available (and we can't give a timeframe for that, as it is out of our hands).

[Jim Young 2,356]

I posted up this quickie video I made of MSE Ultra City - Boston (posted in Video forum also).

 

For $10.17 purchase, I think you MSE folks pulled it off for Boston ... it does look amazing.  BTW, the city buildings remain intact, so there are some 3D objects still there.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8bvSih0ztE  - be sure to watch this in Original HD (2560 x 1600) if you can, full screen.  It'll stress your bandwidth at 2GB files size (compressed down from 15GB original recording) for only 2:50 mins (so about 100Mbps/sec).  Frame rates were unaffected by the HiRes (60-70 fps).

 

Rob.

That was absolutely stunning Rob!  It fit perfectly on my 30 inch monitor and the DX10 really looks great too!  I cannot believe how real that looked.  I even had some feeling of depth.

 

Best regards,

You caused me to go back and check, and there is indeed an issue with my setup for loading textures (aka the blurries are back ... it's as if my request LOD RADIUS of 9.5 is being ignore and I've got a LOD RADIUS of 3).  I need to investigate ... I disabled every other scenery except mass and boston and still have the issue.  Oh boy, FSX.CFG testing time again.  My Fiber Frame is as high as it can go 0.99 so lots of time is being given to the loading.

 

I'll drop back to 4.5 and see what happens, it's definitely a LOD RADIUS problem ... I'm guessing the HiRes textures put me over the top, have to see what/if I can do anything about this.

 

On the plus side, I can actually fly at 400 ft and it looks great (as in really good), so I think the low and slow flyers will really enjoy these cities.

You might want to delete the Shaders10 folder once in a while too as that might have gotten corrupted in some way.

 

Best regards,