I might be the only one having this small problem, yet I hope to find some help here on this forum. I have installed both the MSE2 Mass. and Boston scenery and seem to have an issue with the secenry along the coast line. 

 

The following pictures show you what I mean: 

 

Default scenery around Natucket island, GEX, UTX uninstalled:

 

MSE2 Mass. installed, as one can see, the default coast line remains visible:

 

MSE2 Mass. and Boston installed, Boston at a higher priority, default coast line still visible. Also a grayish line shows up along the coast just behind the plane's tail. It runs all around the coast:

 

Only Boston installed, the grayish band has disappeared, default coast still visible:

 

 

I have an ATI card, run DX10 with bloom (with Steve's fantastic DX10 fixer) and have MSE allowed to automatically adjust my FSX settings. Both sceneries have been installed with the MSE2 installer. 

 

Another issue (again) at least in my case seems to be the water along the coast. This is more visible in the Wash. and Oregon sceneries, but not in Florida and part of Hawaii. I mean the different shades of water color that run along the coast line. It also affects inland water btw. 

 

Any help is greatly appreciated,

 

Bernd

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's a lot of those anomalies and many of them are being fixed.  I see the same problem on the beaches outside of KLAX and on the Potomac River near KDCA.  The bottom image shows the different shades of water but that's because the land appears under it.  Since the product is called MegaSceneryEarth I doubt you'll see much work on the water.  But, if they watermask the area as shown in your images, the shoreline will no longer be underwater.  I don't know if we need to be bringing these anomalies to the developers attention or not.  They said in another post they were fixing them.  It's probably good you brought it to their attention.  I think the area between Maryland and Virginia on the Potomac River is a complete abomination.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Hi Bernd.

 

I have the same setup as you but without GEX and I have this problem too, infact it exists everywhere that has watermasking. I personally do not care about landing a plane on lakes and rivers and would prefare the watermasking was done out at sea but I would probably be outnumbered by the seaplane lovers. I'm no scenery designer but would some kind of exclude or flatten thingymajig work in this situation. Do you also have the problem of MSE Mass and Boston fighting over square patches of land? it looks ugly on my sim.

Edited October 30, 201312 yr by firehawk44
Images removed as they exceeded 400KB.

Thanks Jim for your input. I think we should bring the watermasking issue again to the developers attention, because it seems to affect any state that borders on water, actually it also affect inland water sceneries. I have both Washington and Oregon and whenever I fly along the coast or cross a lake, I am greeted by the lack of proper water masking. Please don't get me wrong, I love what MSE has given us and I am willing to pay for it, no questions asked. But then, as this is no freeware, but a payware product, they should have taken care of this problem BEFORE they had launched it.

 

This was a different issue, when the sceneries were still sold by Simsavy, because you could get the entire USA for $500, and the nice chap gave you a 1TB harddrive on top of it. He clearly said on his website at that time that he cannot do watermasking, so his sceneries come without it. Another company that offers photoreal scenery is able to deal with proper coastlines and inland water (blueskyscenery), and they offers them for free!

 

Hi Mikieristo, no I don't have the issue over land, but everywhere along the coastline of Boston and Rhode island

As far as I know, and I am not a developer, but the watermasking is a difficult issue when you overlay photoreal scenery onto default FSX scenery. The major issues come about because the default FSX scenery is not as "detailed" in terms of location of rivers, shapes of coastlines etc as that which the photoscenery textures provide. So you have some overlap when you go to "cut out" or "blend" with transparency over water areas, for example. When you do that based on the photoreal land locations, often you will see the default FSX scenery underneath where you see land or other objects that shouldn't be in that spot if the FSX data was as accurate as the photoreal imagery. (Hope this makes sense).

 

Now, the problems then become....

 

1. To watermask using the photoreal coastlines or rivers or lake edges etc, you do that as best as you can, but then suffer when default FSX land pops up underneath that mask... That is the problem. It can be fixed yes, but this takes a LOT of time and effort. You basically need to check every square mile of a photoreal package carefully to eliminate all the issues. It's very time consuming and would add considerably to the cost of the product. The view we have taken is to try and offer these products at the lowest possible price, given prices incurred to obtain data and then costs incurred to deliver data on such large scale. It all adds up. If this is to be done, you could expect just one state/country product to take even up to a year (or likely more) to "properly" produce. This means less photoreal products can be provided, meaning less simmers have the chance of getting their local area with high resolution photoscenery. It's always a compromise. So the decision made was to provide watermasking on a limited basis. Sure, it is limited to accuracy in parts. This we know. We know the difference between FSX and Photoreal placement causes bleed through of default textures in areas. You could do excludes I guess, but then it's back to the largely increased workload to do this for such massive coverage areas. This adds cost which then needs to be passed onto the customer. We are not prepared to charge hundreds of dollars for each state or country. This is what the likely cost would be to produce a photoscenery with all the bells and whistles for any particular area on this scale. We know price is important to customers, and to us from a busienss point of view. Make a product too expensive, regardless of how good it may be, and you will sell less, and put the product out of reach of many people. So the decision was made to provide the product at a reasonable level of detail, particularly in regard to masking and blending, so the price of the product can be kept reasonable and within reach of the majority of simmers. Anyone who has tried to autogen a massive area of photoreal before, or tried to watermask and blend such large areas will know this is not a simple or easy task. It takes a lot of time. If you don't agree, please try it yourself (on a similar large scale) 

 

2. The other option which could solve the problem is to just not watermask anything at all (perhaps aside from the actual coastlines). I.e. no inland lakes, rivers etc be watermasked at all. This solves the bleed through problem due to the FSX/photoreal imagery location differences, but it means you cannot land on inland lakes or larger rivers in FSX. It would be interesting to find out how many photoscenery users actually want to land on lakes or rivers? I have this feeling that those who like water-ops are probably more aligned to the autogen-type of scenery anyway. Those who are photoscenery users exclusively here, please tell me, is the watermasking of inland lakes and rivers important to you?

 

Please be awrae that there is a very important difference between MSE and other photoreal scenery product providers. Primarily, this difference is coverage area, and price. Sure, blueskyscenery offers some decent photoreal scenery, but compared to MSE, their coverage areas are very limited. They have chosen much smaller coverage area and focussed on better correcting those smaller areas. Other payware products like Switzerland Pro, Austria Pro etc have all the bells and whistles (albeit lower-resolution textures) but these products cost as much as 5-6x more than the comparable MSE photoreal scenery and they likely took years to develop.

 

Please note, that i no way am I trying to make any excuse for the limitations of MSE. I am just trying to get the facts out there and the reasons why the product we offer is what it is. We will of course continue to provide fixes and patches where major issues exist. Some smaller issues may not get fixed, because the nature of the product and the differences between FSX and photoreal imagery placement are such that the chances of many smaller issues arising can and does exist. We are working to our own business model... That is, provide a high-resolution photoreal product to as many flight simmers as possible (in terms of geopgraphical coverage) for the lowest price possible. Naturally, this model means there will be some compromises, hopefully some of which I have addressed above for you.

 

Lastly, I read as many forum posts here as I can, and I am passing on the information for major issues to the developer to look at. We cannot fix them all, but we are indeed reading your comments and will attempt to provide as many fixes as possible for major problems. We are indeed looking more closer at new products before release to further iron out major issues before the product is offered to you, the customer. This has resulted in two of the latest planned releases being sent back to the developer to check and fix some noted issues... But you can expect the fast pace of releases to continue, so look out for more MSE in the very near future as we expand into Europe and other parts of the world thereafter.

 

Constructive comment very welcome to this!

The problem, as pointed out is that the default land and coastlines were not excluded and since they do not match the real layout like photoscenery does, you get the overlap. UTX users will probably not notice since UTX reworks the land definitions more realistically like in the photoscenery.

The fix is not hard, but a little work, basically you have to exclude the land and coasts and redraw the land and coasts when needed and possibly redefine new water polys. Personally, If I had to choose between water masking and none, I would choose masking as I can fix the issue myself if needed, whereas I can't add water masking

 

I can understand PCAviator wanting to keep price down, but I doubt that if offered a choice between a simple photoscenery tile with water masking only for $30, over a complete package with exclusions, seasons, night textures and autogen for $60 that users wouldn't be inclined to go the complete route. Think the way users think of the quality difference between Abacus products and PMDG. Guess we'll never know till it is offered in both flavors.

The problem, as pointed out is that the default land and coastlines were not excluded and since they do not match the real layout like photoscenery does, you get the overlap. UTX users will probably not notice since UTX reworks the land definitions more realistically like in the photoscenery.

The fix is not hard, but a little work, basically you have to exclude the land and coasts and redraw the land and coasts when needed and possibly redefine new water polys. Personally, If I had to choose between water masking and none, I would choose masking as I can fix the issue myself if needed, whereas I can't add water masking

 

I can understand PCAviator wanting to keep price down, but I doubt that if offered a choice between a simple photoscenery tile with water masking only for $30, over a complete package with exclusions, seasons, night textures and autogen for $60 that users wouldn't be inclined to go the complete route. Think the way users think of the quality difference between Abacus products and PMDG. Guess we'll never know till it is offered in both flavors.

 

Thanks for your comments Michael. Valid points. I think however that any "full flavor" package would more likely be 3-4x the price, so closer to $100 each, which i think is quite prohibitive for the majority of customers.

Sorry, was just basing the price off how much work is involved since I have done it often, then again, i don't know how you guys are doing it.. Also if both versions were offered I would think any perceived extra cost could be made up with the basic versions since getting the photoscenery into the sim with no masking is fairly quick and easy with little man hour cost and the main costs coming from the source data, if commercial data was indeed used (there is some good quality free data available).

 

Based on my personal experiences I can see making a complete state with seasons, night lighting, excludes and autogen taking less time than one of the ORBX detailed airport addons with the most time being the water masking and the compiling. Once you do it one time, it is fairly the same process over and over unlike airport design where you have more hoops to jump thru and more variables to deal with.LOL.

 

Anyhoo, it's your business model, I am just playing devils advocate since I have a desire like some others for more features. Thanks for doing what you do provide..

Sorry, was just basing the price off how much work is involved since I have done it often, then again, i don't know how you guys are doing it.. Also if both versions were offered I would think any perceived extra cost could be made up with the basic versions since getting the photoscenery into the sim with no masking is fairly quick and easy with little man hour cost and the main costs coming from the source data, if commercial data was indeed used (there is some good quality free data available).

 

Based on my personal experiences I can see making a complete state with seasons, night lighting, excludes and autogen taking less time than one of the ORBX detailed airport addons with the most time being the water masking and the compiling. Once you do it one time, it is fairly the same process over and over unlike airport design where you have more hoops to jump thru and more variables to deal with.LOL.

 

Anyhoo, it's your business model, I am just playing devils advocate since I have a desire like some others for more features. Thanks for doing what you do provide..

 

Michael,

 

No problem at all. I thank you for your input, which I am passing on. I'd be all for a totally encompassing photoreal product... who wouldn't ?! Perhaps in the future, once we get more of the base product out and we are finding useable data harder to come by, this might be a valid option to investigate... Time will tell I guess.

 

Thanks again for your comments. Appreciated.

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer, it makes me understand the problems involved better.

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer, it makes me understand the problems involved better.

 

No worries bernd.

I have purchased all the states and for the most part they are great but if I had a choice I would prefare no watermasking for rivers and lakes. It is not just about the problems that are introduced with masking but also the fact that FSX rivers and lakes just don't look realistic compared to the amasing colours that photo's provide. You end up with this hidiously artificial cartoon looking blight over the majestic photoreal scenery which breaks the immersion factor. I too beleave that most people who fly waterbased aircraft would prefare Orbx scenery. Out of curiosity if you provided no watermasking and someone wanted to land at lake tahoe could they install a scenery with a landable lake?

I have purchased all the states and for the most part they are great but if I had a choice I would prefare no watermasking for rivers and lakes. It is not just about the problems that are introduced with masking but also the fact that FSX rivers and lakes just don't look realistic compared to the amasing colours that photo's provide. You end up with this hidiously artificial cartoon looking blight over the majestic photoreal scenery which breaks the immersion factor. I too beleave that most people who fly waterbased aircraft would prefare Orbx scenery. Out of curiosity if you provided no watermasking and someone wanted to land at lake tahoe could they install a scenery with a landable lake?

 

 

depends on the scenery. As long as it sits above the photoreal in the library and is done right, then you should be able to have water.

 

i have to disagree on no water masking. If done right, you should be able to see the photoreal image under the FS water. I fly amphibs and use sailboats quite a bit and I do lots of photoreal pacific islands and the photoreal atolls and reefs under FSX water is really spectacular IMO.

ORBX scenery is still just FSX water depending on your settings and video card unless they use photoscenery also.

It would be interesting to find out how many photoscenery users actually want to land on lakes or rivers? I have this feeling that those who like water-ops are probably more aligned to the autogen-type of scenery anyway.

 

I agree with this statement -- I'm not that interested in water landings.  

 

However, I have no idea if I'm in the majority or minority or what the breakdown is.  What the developers might want to consider is supporting both (masked or no masked) at install time or provide a control panel that lets us switch On/Off the masking (rename the BGLs as needed).  I know this is how other photo scenery vendors do it.

 

I think this option doesn't require huge development efforts since MSE is already doing the masking just save a set that isn't masked.  Heck, if you don't want to build a control panel to turn them ON/OFF, just give us details on how we can rename .BGLs for those masked regions.

 

But I would be curious as to how much more it would cost to provide a scenery set that has carefully worked over water masks?  Are we talking 2X, 3X, 10X more in retail price or just a 20% bump?  I know your MSE V1 scenery had nice water masks (better than the V2) and I didn't seem to mind paying for those so whatever the MSE V1 cost back then seemed ok to me.

 

Rob

As far as I know, and I am not a developer, but the watermasking is a difficult issue when you overlay photoreal scenery onto default FSX scenery. The major issues come about because the default FSX scenery is not as "detailed" in terms of location of rivers, shapes of coastlines etc as that which the photoscenery textures provide. So you have some overlap when you go to "cut out" or "blend" with transparency over water areas, for example. When you do that based on the photoreal land locations, often you will see the default FSX scenery underneath where you see land or other objects that shouldn't be in that spot if the FSX data was as accurate as the photoreal imagery. (Hope this makes sense).

 

Well, that explains the strange "faerie circles" of MSE Mass 2.0 that "bleed through" MSE Ultra-Res Boston around water bodies I've been seeing.

 

 

I agree with this statement -- I'm not that interested in water landings.

 

Ditto. My interest in water bodies in MSE is strictly for visual reference - not for landings. Water landings are for bush flying - and for this, there is ORBX.