Yah, I wouldn't go into this for the money, but it's fun. I'm not an expert modeller, I'm a programmer that's done light modelling on the side as a hobby (and a little professionally when coding and modeling overlapped). I am actually better at 2D texturing than I am at 3D modelling. That's why I figured I'd give this a shot just for the heck of it...

 

You may not think you compete against Orbx, but you do. If I am flying Eastern Oregon where the Orbx textures are so close to Photo-Real that when I visited Bend it looks nearly precisely how I remember it, then yah you are competing with Orbx

It does take a lot of time to download, but it is a one-time thing for someone doing a mass distribution, but my point was it's like anything else, once you've done it once, you know how to do it easier the second and 50th time. I can do my downloads from a Gigabit DC connection if I want though, and I'm assuming so can they. Cogent bandwidth and a few other providers have gotten dirt cheap, so it's not really that expensive to just download them. Now letting everyone download them from you does cost some bandwidth, and I realize that is part of their $40 cost, but it's really cheap to just mail out some burned Bluray disk copies USPS (At least in the US).

 

I agree with you guys though, if MSE is barely breaking 1000 copies, then I am wrong, that is a harsh business. I figured as long as they've been around they were doing better.

 

Also, let us not forget that Bluray readers are very cheap now-a-days, and that you can burn some pretty large size disks. I think a better model is not downloading these things, but instead to ship them out when it comes to Photo-Scenery.

 

I wouldn't have an issue with the $40 if it was clearer and color-corrected, there are some simple standardized ways of increasing sharpness in textures with some standard filtering techniques.

 

I am a videophile so I am a bit OCD about this stuff. BTW, also keep in mind I am on a 106" screen, some of you guys are playing on an LCD monitor! So I see every flaw in its GREAT blown up glory.

 

Oh btw, cannot say this enough, don't forget to calibrate your monitor (even if just by eye) to get FSX looking better, because I find a default calibration doesn't look as good.

 

Problem with BluRay is even today, you still get a lot of dud burns, and its REALLY slow to burn a single disk. We can mail out DVDs with the scenery for a little extra but we tried the BluRay option and it didn't really work. What would be ideal is very cheap 64Gb USB sticks we could bulk buy and just copy the data to that and mail to the customer, although then the customer has to pay for the USB stick as well so it adds considerable extra cost. You could do a send/swap/return thing on USB drives.... We have tried that in the past with hard drives, but its always messy and time consuming from an admin side (for both us and the customer) and then sometimes drives get lost in the mail... creates more problems than it solves unfortunately.

Yah I imagine disk duds can be an issue, but assuming a more high-end burner using better commercial software would work (admittedly haven't tried). Automating the burning process would be a little expensive too, like you said not enough money in it to put all your efforts there. Somehow though Orbx is squeezing out a decent amount of money, but I guess they are the only one (maybe them and a few of the plane and airport designers).

 

I am just saying I don't think your produce has lower sales just because of the market, I think people buying Orbx means less money to buy your stuff (even if they want PhotoReal as well).

 

Competing with Orbx is hell, but they are not without their faults. Like I said their PNW auto-gen texture is pretty bad, plus they are not exactly doing all these tiled textures by hand either, a good majority of them are photo-based tiling tricks, and then they are just tweaking them by hand.

Yah, I wouldn't go into this for the money, but it's fun. I'm not an expert modeller, I'm a programmer that's done light modelling on the side as a hobby (and a little professionally when coding and modeling overlapped). I am actually better at 2D texturing than I am at 3D modelling. That's why I figured I'd give this a shot just for the heck of it...

 

You may not think you compete against Orbx, but you do. If I am flying Eastern Oregon where the Orbx textures are so close to Photo-Real that when I visited Bend it looks nearly precisely how I remember it, then yah you are competing with Orbx

 

Fair enough in that regard... but even still, our definitions of photo-real probably differ. When i talk photoreal, I am meaning what you see on the ground in the textures is what is actually really there. I.e. you can spot your house or specific landmarks. its REAL to the real world. Orbx uses textures based of real photos (you can call that photoreal of course) but you wouldn't be able to actually pick out actual real buildings or objects that exist in the real Bend, OR using it, unless of course there generic texture tile used there happened to be one taken from the exact real location.

 

But nonetheless, just a different meaning we apply to the term. I am sure there is some overlap of customers, but we find that the majority of the market is either photoreal (in our terms) lovers, or they prefer autogen. A smaller minority use (and enjoy) both. So no doubt there is some competition there, but its not a direct majority competition in that sense.

But having spent all day yesterday comparing Orbx to Photo-Real, there are many areas where you can spot real buildings. Missoula has a bunch of the real buildings, so does Bozeman, and so does Portland. Though I agree it is sparser. They may not be exact duplicates, but in all honesty flying VFR in Photo-Real the buildings are too smushed to be as recognizable as if you were flying VFR in a Cessna at low altitudes in real life.

 

Plus I was able to follow an interstate highway between cities and it pretty much perfectly matched Orbx's rendition, and some of the buildings did match, even saw a tourist stop that eerily matched the real buidlings between Great Falls and Helena.

Yah I imagine disk duds can be an issue, but assuming a more high-end burner using better commercial software would work (admittedly haven't tried). Automating the burning process would be a little expensive too, like you said not enough money in it to put all your efforts there. Somehow though Orbx is squeezing out a decent amount of money, but I guess they are the only one (maybe them and a few of the plane and airport designers).

 

I am just saying I don't think your produce has lower sales just because of the market, I think people buying Orbx means less money to buy your stuff (even if they want PhotoReal as well).

 

Competing with Orbx is hell, but they are not without their faults. Like I said their PNW auto-gen texture is pretty bad, plus they are not exactly doing all these tiled textures by hand either, a good majority of them are photo-based tiling tricks, and then they are just tweaking them by hand.

 

I don't think Orbx is rolling in cash, and I know many of their developers really only do this for a bit of pocket money. The Orbx CEO has frequently admitted that they are not making big money from their products, and are basically breaking even (the general gist of it anyway). I doubt many companies or developers in flight sim are rolling in money. Some make a living out of it at best, but that is mostly it.

But having spent all day yesterday comparing Orbs to Photo-Real, there are many areas where you can spot real buildings. Missoula has a bunch of the real buildings, so does Bozeman, and so does Portland. Though I agree it is sparser. They may not be exact duplicates, but in all honesty flying VFR in Photo-Real the buildings are too smushed to be as recognizable as if you were flying VFR in a Cessna at low altitudes in real life.

 

Plus I was able to follow an interstate highway between cities and it pretty much perfectly matched Orbx's rendition, so Orbx has good landclass and textures and photo mix.

 

Orbx does use sections of real imagery from the locations they cover in their products, so you probably did see real images from the real locations, but they are usually limited in size, and then blended in with their generic replacement textures. And yes, tall buildings in particular can look odd with photoreal because you are expecting to see a structure there with some height to it. Its not really as noticeable with small single-story and some double-story houses and structures as with some scenery, the shadowing gives the illusion of three-dimensions a little more.

Probably true, it's like owning a golf course, rich people often don't do it because it's the most profitable thing, they just want to tell someone they own a golf course

 

Any business where hobbyists are rampant always ends up being tough.

 

I think Orbx with FTX-Global and some of their newer stuff coming though is doing quite well, or is about to. I expect their sales are going up not down.

I don't think Orbx is rolling in cash...

 

Orbx does use sections of real imagery from the locations they cover in their products, so you probably did see real images from the real locations, but they are usually limited in size, and then blended in with their generic replacement textures.

 

I didn't mean to imply they were, but they have enough to pay some overhead, and we know VC's wouldn't touch this business with a 500-foot pole, so someone is doing some sales. I agree it is not a good business money-wise, but it's so fun to do... If I were doing everything for money, I'd have probably been a dentist not a computer guy, but sticking hands in peoples' mouths is not my idea of a fun day

Probably true, it's like owning a golf course, rich people often don't do it because it's the most profitable thing, they just want to tell someone they own a golf course

 

Any business where hobbyists are rampant always ends up being tough.

 

I think Orbx with FTX-Global and some of their newer stuff coming though is doing quite well, or is about to. I expect their sales are going up not down.

 

Possibly yes. They have a large fan-base which always helps. But I wont speculate on their sales or how well they are doing. I can say that the photoreal fan-base is slowly growing however, which is encouraging at least. A lot of flight simmers really want their backyards improved with scenery (of whatever sort) in flight sim, so products that cater for or address this issue generally do well. An example is that most of sales for MSE California, for example, are from those who live in California. The same holds true for most flight sim scenery products (but not all).

I will give another one of your products a try, since some others PM'd me and said they think Northern Nevada was one of the worst ones in the whole collection and that only the Vegas area looked right (some of Vegas scenery looked right).

 

Tell me this though, since I did not like Hawaii or Nevada, what is the best you have in the collection, would you say NH, Texas, or Vermont, or what, if you had to pick just one, which one came out the best?

 

I really was not trying to bash your product, but I've been to some of those areas in real life, and it looked so far from reality that it was just disappointing a bit

NH and VT are by far, IMO, the best in my collection.

 

HI and NV are probably the two worst of the set (how'd you get so unlucky as to choose these two?) and an unfortunate benchmark from which to draw any kind of comparison. Remind me not to take you gambling.

Easy, because they were the cheapest two

 

haha... You get what you pay for!

Uhm, I think New Mexico looks fabulous. I'da bought that today but I went with Colorado since it was 50% off for me.

New Mexico has some really interesting natural geography and is quite good in general. VT and NH also good. Wisconsin is really nice, but quite flat so might not be your cup of tea, but some real natural artwork there with regard to farms and the like. Texas is quite good, but LARGE. If you like desert terrain with some mountains, go New Mexico... IF you like greenery and mountains, VT or NH.

Hmm I hope we will see some nice sales offers around Black Friday / Christmas / New year, now after I've just got enough of landclass based scenery I've really started to collect some MSE coverage for the US and Europe. Been downloading Colorado all day.