I think the team at MegaSceneryEarth deserves a lot of credit for producing the first photoscenery product with broad coverage.  The coverage area is the only reason I'm a customer of this product at all.  There have been many photoscenery products come and go over the years but they've all been based on a very limited area.  I just can't get interested in great scenery but for just a small area.

 

I've been pretty happy with the few states I've purchased so far.  My biggest complaint is mediocre, or in some cases even poor color balancing at the borders of the states.  My hope is that they'll continue to revise their color balancing and tonal balancing techniques and release updated versions that match better.  I think in the long run photoscenery is going to put procedural scenery out of business...but it may take years.  Photoscenery over such a large area is just now becoming practical and it will take some time for it to mature.  The only question is who is going to own this market.  I think MSE is off to a very good start.

 

By the way, any word on the night lighting?  It was stated that this would come some time after the entire US was available but I haven't heard a word on this lately.

 

Neal

 

 

 

The only question is who is going to own this market.  I think MSE is off to a very good start.

 

Agree, MSE will own it, price and coverage area (even if not perfect).

 

If you look at products like Switzerland Pro for $160 which has autogen and two seasons and night (vs. $20 discounted from MSE Switzerland).  Add two more seasons and (fall, spring) to Swizterland Pro and we're probably looking at $250 for just Switzerland (which is a very small area of Globe).  

 

Imagine if MSE did this (4 seasons plus night and autogen) for US (assuming they had 50-100 people working on it 24/7 to get it done in a timely manner) ... some states like California would be $500 ... but lets say the average state is around $300 X 50 = $15,000 just for the US.  I can't see Flight Simmers paying for that, I mean heck, many flight simmers don't want to pay $10 for updates to new versions of existing products, so selling a state for $500 is going to be pretty limited.

I think some of the MSE 2 stuff is good, and some should have been held off until post correction.

 

This stuff is time consuming, no doubt. But it doesn't take 50 people, I doubt any of these FSX add-on companies even staff 50 people, Orbx or Aerosoft probably has the most staff, probably not even 20. P3D from Boeing is about the only one that might.

 

I'm finally deep into my first scenery project, so I know what it takes, it is a monster at first because the download map sources were designed by bureaucrats instead of smart people. Also the software isn't always intuitive, sometimes it's a pain in the you know what. I'm getting over the learning curve, it's not too bad for someone that has been coding for 20+ years, but intuitive isn't in the vocabulary of the SDK.

I am "attempting" a PhotoReal of SLC (please MSE 2 do SLC last , and I'll try to not make cities you are doing It's ok if you do SLC, cannot tell you what to do, but I'm just a small fry trying to make one scenery here

 

If anyone thinks I should do a different city, let me know, but I've already got the 60GB SLC in 25cm format downloaded to my drive, and so far so good. I have no idea how good this will come out, but we shall see. Who knows how long this will take me, maybe 2-3 months, maybe 6, but I'm more so taking the approach of gotta do it, because it's just really darn fun. If this weren't my first project, I doubt one city or state would take longer than a month.

MSE Austria, have an issue round Lake Geneve, is seem a lot of area is not covered.

 

I have UT Terrain & Ground Environments.

 

I can only describe it as patchy, a piece here and a piece that not showing.

 

Some scenery is missing or suppressing parts of the scenery.

 

Could there be an issue with these other add-ons.

 

With other MSE product, Portugal, Belgium, The Netherlands all the country is covered.

 

Wrote several times to MSE but no reply.

 

The only info I receive are frequent e-mails advertising their products.

 

I am thinking of not buying MSE any more.

 

Have Orbx Aust/New Zeeland which is perfect.

Same here Christian. I have MSE2 Switzerland and Germany. Both have issues with water masking and some horrible color discrepancies. I will refrain from buying Austria, when it will be released. Their US sceneries I like a lot (although also there water masking is an issue). I am not sure, who their European supplier is, but from reading comments posted here on Avsim, I won't buy any other European country from them anymore, disregarding the discount they will throw at me. 

 

I just hope, they would do these two countries a bit better. 

Too bad there's no good quality free data for most areas outside the US... That's really the key problem I think, only good data for large parts of the world is commercial and that's too expensive for large areas.