MSE2 Boston coastal issue

[PCAviator 37]

Rob,

 

Again, not being a developer, i am not sure how hard or easy it is to separate a watermask to a single BGL file that could be switched on/off etc. I'll raise that with the developer anyway. If it means a whole new second set of textures, then this is a problem, for filesize, and also for resampling time. A large photoreal area can close to a week just to resample using the FSX SDK resample tool alone I am told, and this is with 24/7 processing time on the PC. Smaller ones like Belgium can be resampled in under 1 day - but still significant.

 

Re costs, I think we'd be looking at around 3X for full country-wide watermasking. This would depend on the area of course, and just how bad the default scenery underneath aligns with water/shorelines. Inland countries or states with little water would take less time, but still it's fairly significant as far as I know.

 

Our business model in regards to this in a primary determining factor as has been explained previously in these forums, so we are hesitant (at this stage) to venture into things where the end result will mean a higher cost for the consumer. The current market is not very supportive of high-priced add-ons. There are exceptions of course (read PMDG 777 and Majestic Dash 8 as examples) but this is comparing apples to oranges in regards to MSE and our development team and scope.

 

Go back 10 years when the average FS addon was more in the $60-$70 range and it was more feasible.

 

However, these are things we are looking into for the near future. Our goal at the present time is to offer photoreal scenery of reasonable quality to as many people across the globe as possible, so the majority has a chance to fly their local region or country with a high-resolution photoreal option.

 

Thanks again for your constructive and suggestive comments. They are indeed valued by us.

[gizmosellsbunnys 106]

Take water even if the masking is off prefer it living in Minnesota as water adds to immersion to me.  Done editing in sbuilderx before masking water tedious labor intensive process.  The product price be 100 a state if done to perfection.  Minnesota is 10,000 lakes and landing on water if very common in the summer here.  Perfer the price to closer to 30 to 40 and if hits 70 dollars on higher just for small area you will lose customers. 

 

Like the watermasking even flawed for places like Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin as there are tons of lakes to land on with guppy or cessna.  Some of us do land on water, and if Ontario and Manitoba in Canada were like Minnesota I still buy it.  Technology needs to be make to automate the masking and the meshes to keep costs lower is part of the solution just trying to develop the technology to execute would help.

 

Belgium is pretty good for 27 bucks and waiting for the Netherlands and Germany got another HD drive just for Western Europe. B). Since, I also play Eurotruck simulator 2 compare and contrast  

[PCAviator 37]

Take water even if the masking is off prefer it living in Minnesota as water adds to immersion to me.  Done editing in sbuilderx before masking water tedious labor intensive process.  The product price be 100 a state if done to perfection.  Minnesota is 10,000 lakes and landing on water if very common in the summer here.  Perfer the price to closer to 30 to 40 and if hits 70 dollars on higher just for small area you will lose customers. 

 

Like the watermasking even flawed for places like Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin as there are tons of lakes to land on with guppy or cessna.  Some of us do land on water, and if Ontario and Manitoba in Canada were like Minnesota I still buy it.  Technology needs to be make to automate the masking and the meshes to keep costs lower is part of the solution just trying to develop the technology to execute would help.

 

Belgium is pretty good for 27 bucks and waiting for the Netherlands and Germany got another HD drive just for Western Europe. B). Since, I also play Eurotruck simulator 2 compare and contrast  

 

Thanks for the comments! There is quite a lot more of Europe to come. We have 8 European countries currently in the pipeline, most of which are near complete, and likely a few more after that (depending on imagery availability). There will also be more beyond that (and mixed in between) covering new regions of the world too. Stay tuned!

[Guest]

I'll be getting the MSE Europe scenery too, just need to get me another 1TB SSD.

 

 

 

I'll raise that with the developer anyway.

 

Thanks, I don't know exact work effort involved either -- other than reading how scenery is done from the scenery dev forums, but seems like the developer would just need to save a BGL prior to any masking work and this would be the optional BGL to use.

 

 

 

Re costs, I think we'd be looking at around 3X for full country-wide watermasking.

 

I'd pay that price.  Perhaps experiment (test the waters so to speak) with a high water masking state and see if other's are willing to pay for it ... given MSE's often discounted pricing from 10-40% I know it'll work for me.

[1mikel151 71]

Thanks, I don't know exact work effort involved either -- other than reading how scenery is done from the scenery dev forums, but seems like the developer would just need to save a BGL prior to any masking work and this would be the optional BGL to use.

 

 

 

 

I'd pay that price.  Perhaps experiment (test the waters so to speak) with a high water masking state and see if other's are willing to pay for it ... given MSE's often discounted pricing from 10-40% I know it'll work for me.

 

 

That's exactly what you do. When you first create the photoscenery BGL using the standard resample method it has nothing, no masking, no water, nada....just like Sim Savvy was, whose developer is the same person doing MSEv2 from what i have read.. Adding a detailed water mask takes some time and skill and honestly, the same amount of time or even less for just that equals the same amount of time spent on seasons and night textures since they are not near as tough to make and set up in the .INF file.

 

So in theory, based solely on the amount of work involved, if you already have MSEv2 files with water masking for $30, then tiles without it should be around $15 and ones with autogen and seasons would run about $40-$50, especially since the only cost is man hours and bandwidth.

[mikieristo 0]

 

 

If done right, you should be able to see the photoreal image under the FS water

 

It's funny you should say that Mike because that is exactly what I saw in Megasceneryearth V2 Colorado, near the mountains. The scenery looked amazing with the river over the photo, Infact I landed Captain Sim's float based Herc there and it was one of the most exciting landings I've ever done in FSX. Since they obviously know how to implement this technique I do not understand why they do not use it elswhere, is it too time consuming? I think it is worth it because it really does look great.

[SimSavvy 0]

The time has come to hear from the source. I am the one to thank/blame for all the good and bad comments

concerning MSE v2. Many of you know me as Sim Savvy and recall a $300 product I sold that stopped selling. I

specifically created that product to grab some sales off the MSE frenzy occuring at the time. And I did get a few sales

but it was too few. Three years later, by a fluke, I met Robert at MSE via e-mail. By chance, he was looking for someone

to make photoreal scenery because his producers had left him.

 

I describe myself as a hacker, not a geek, nerd or guru. MSE required watermasking and night scenery and I managed

to deliver one of these items. There is no one website or person who can tell you how to watermask, blend and create

scenery. So I gathered all I could and hacked out a product. I am the first one to see the shortcomings of my efforts.

Being a simmer, if I'm not happy with it, no one else will be either. So please let me tell you what I would like to see done

better with MSE. Better watermasking, better coloring, better flow with Autogen, and of course night scenery.

 

So why can't I just do that?

 

Starting with the water, Microsoft used water data current when the FSX program was created. Now the data is better

and that is a problem for photoreal. Basically, the old data places land where there is water and water where there is

land. To fix this would require re-creating the entire watermask within FSX. That's that, and believe it or not I'm actually

considering doing it assuming I can learn how. But currently I just do a wide blend (Gaussian blur) in production and it

does it's best to blend the default scenery with the aerials where this problem occurs. Is it good enough? Visually No,

but with over a half million dollars in sales behind us, I guess it was good enough for someone.

 

Now let me address the color issue. The US aerials are produced free by the USDA NAIP program. They are not color

uniform by state due to several factors. Mostly these discrepancies come from different camera settings on different

(cloudless) days in different seasons. Myself and three helpers have just begun the ominous task of color correction in

Photoshop. This has become a necessity because the aerials we freely obtain of the world are not as good as the NAIP

aerials. If I could afford to buy commercial aerials I would but they currently go for about 10K per city on average. So

we're going to practice and master color correct for now. The world aerials are particularly challenging because they

contain Spring, Summer and Fall combined. To date we have not been able to turn a brown tree green but we come

close enough. I will do a special color correction forum posting on this soon.

 

And finally, there is Autogen and night scenery to deal with. MSE has contracted some programming help to write me a

program to generate night scenery with my current data to help complete such a large task. It's in the works. Autogen is

another matter that I think is best left to the Autogen professionals. To be honest, I'm a photoreal purist and I have a layer

that removes the airports and runways so I can see little airplanes all over the place. To each his/her own.

 

In summation, it's a matter of time and cost that dictates the product quality vs quantity. Our US product is complete

and we have plans to redo it entirely with better coloring, night scenery, and hopefully better watermasking, starting this

January. Not being able to wait for better aerials or water layers, I will continue to churn out the best I can on the world

photoreal platform. You can hold MSE accountable for selling my scenery to some extent, but the "buck stops here".

 

My feelings always get hurt at these forums because I'm just trying to make you guys some scenery that you like.

Anybody can do this you know. I'm just one of a few who actually does all year long. Robert and I both have some

helpers but basically, it is just two guys that gave you the whole US and are now trying to give you the world.

 

Larry

[Guest]

 

 

Our US product is complete
and we have plans to redo it entirely with better coloring, night scenery, and hopefully better watermasking, starting this
January.

 

Wow, thank you MSE/Larry!

 

 

 

The US aerials are produced free by the USDA NAIP program.

 

Ah, yes, I wondering how you folks managed to pull this off and make money from it.  All the commercial images I inquired about where very expensive and the math just didn't work out to see any type of profit from it.

 

 

but with over a half million dollars in sales behind us, I guess it was good enough for someone.

 

These are the things I like to hear, and frankly have peaked my interest (yes I'm doing the math).  Please keep the scenery and updates coming.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[SimSavvy 0]

Sounds like you're a wannabee Rob. Contact me at woodsonl@sisna.com and I'll help you become a gonnabee.

Given your interests I'm thinking you might be a candidate to do the3D stuff for the next generation of FSX.

I mean the third party version that we all must complete because Microsoft is unable to do so.

[1mikel151 71]

Starting with the water, Microsoft used water data current when the FSX program was created. Now the data is better

and that is a problem for photoreal. Basically, the old data places land where there is water and water where there is

land. To fix this would require re-creating the entire watermask within FSX. That's that, and believe it or not I'm actually

considering doing it assuming I can learn how. But currently I just do a wide blend (Gaussian blur) in production and it

does it's best to blend the default scenery with the aerials where this problem occurs. Is it good enough? Visually No,

but with over a half million dollars in sales behind us, I guess it was good enough for someone.

 

 

Interesting read and based off the numerous water masks i have done. it doesn't make sense. It's been my experience that whether you have default ground or water under the photoreal, you still need to define what will be water and land with the water mask. Guess you guys have a really different way of doing photoscenery since you deal with larger areas than what is done on a community level.

 

 

My feelings always get hurt at these forums because I'm just trying to make you guys some scenery that you like.

Anybody can do this you know. I'm just one of a few who actually does all year long. Robert and I both have some

helpers but basically, it is just two guys that gave you the whole US and are now trying to give you the world.

 

 

 

Larry, sorry about that, but you are doing commercial work so you'll have to learn to deal with criticism. both good and bad unfortunately. Also based on the nature of what you are doing there are many steps and options involved which means if not all are offered, there will be customers questioning and wanting more.

 

Thanks for what you guys are doing, look forward to future products as I am a huge fan of photoscenery and other than my personal work, you guys are the main options in providing for the community. I hope you can also release some of your old SimSavvy items thru MSE like the FSAltitude style Africa scenery I contemplated buying awhile back.

[fscottee 10]

Skip the worldwide dreams and just create more MegasceneryX stuff.

[gizmosellsbunnys 106]

Seeing trees is futile.  Build railroads make the line than improvement rather than prefect the line and get no-where. 

[fscottee 10]

Well there's a number of VFR scenery that would successfully argue that notion. Generation X, FranceVfr, Swiss Pro, numerous others, including MegasceneryX. Besides, you can always turn off the trees if you don't like em.

[DAL1850 51]

 

 

Build railroads make the line than improvement rather than prefect the line and get no-where.

 

:blink:

[gizmosellsbunnys 106]

:blink:

Better off making photo-scenery and getting it out before making 100% perfect.  Color correction and perfect masking we would never have any scenery to fly. Updates will improve the color correcting and water masking.