I am not spending $10k on Scenery

[ShawnG 1,823]

some people love photorealistic scenery...  It has drawbacks though.  particularly If you want to cover the globe,  the file sizes for good photoscenery get huge in a hurry,  I doubt you have the hard drive space to actually cover the globe, and even if you did, all that data has to load in FSX/P3D's not very well optimized memory address space as you are flying, which leaves you with lots of OOM's.  It's not too bad if you fly in one area, and just get a PR package to cover that would be OK, but not the globe.   That's where tileproxy has an advantage,  since it's downloading on the fly,  but the quality of the PR with that is hit and miss.

 

then you get to the fact that most PR is one season only, and looks horrid IMO when you are flying low.  that's why I like the Landclass based sceneries like ORBX and UTX,  you can cover more ground, it looks pretty good and the scenery can transition between seasons and with the time of day.  Photoscenery fans disagree with me because it's a plausible world not an ultra realistic one,  but I don't find the depiction of most photoscenery to be that realistic either for different reasons.  Horses for courses.

 

but one thing is true regardless.  if you want the best, this is an expensive hobby.  If  you want to avoid spending money, I would say just be happy with what you've got, and try to avoid flightsim sites where you get to look at all the new eye-candy.  will drive you nuts

[stevefromio 2]

some people love photorealistic scenery...  It has drawbacks though.  particularly If you want to cover the globe,  the file sizes for good photoscenery get huge in a hurry,  I doubt you have the hard drive space to actually cover the globe, and even if you did, all that data has to load in FSX/P3D's not very well optimized memory address space as you are flying, which leaves you with lots of OOM's.  It's not too bad if you fly in one area, and just get a PR package to cover that would be OK, but not the globe.   That's where tileproxy has an advantage,  since it's downloading on the fly,  but the quality of the PR with that is hit and miss.

 

then you get to the fact that most PR is one season only, and looks horrid IMO when you are flying low.  that's why I like the Landclass based sceneries like ORBX and UTX,  you can cover more ground, it looks pretty good and the scenery can transition between seasons and with the time of day.  Photoscenery fans disagree with me because it's a plausible world not an ultra realistic one,  but I don't find the depiction of most photoscenery to be that realistic either for different reasons.  Horses for courses.

 

but one thing is true regardless.  if you want the best, this is an expensive hobby.  If  you want to avoid spending money, I would say just be happy with what you've got, and try to avoid flightsim sites where you get to look at all the new eye-candy.  will drive you nuts

 

You really cleared that up. What a great response. I love how you gave pro/cons for both.

 

I am thinking of a product called REX textures. What additional packages would work well with it?

[ShawnG 1,823]

REX is textures for Sky, Clouds, Water, and Airport runways and taxiways.  It works pretty well with just about anything,  other than products that do the same, like FEX.

 

What type of flying do you like to do?  Jets, GA, military?

[stevefromio 2]

REX is textures for Sky, Clouds, Water, and Airport runways and taxiways.  It works pretty well with just about anything,  other than products that do the same, like FEX.

 

What type of flying do you like to do?  Jets, GA, military?

 

Older commercial aircraft, and a little bush flying in Alaska. I have been to Alaska, and I don't think any software could remotely represent it's beauty.

[JSkorna 137]

 

 

Sadly, you can't download it anymore.

 

Yes it is if you visit the FSET forum right here at AVSIM. In fact, you can even use Google Maps with the latest version.

[ShawnG 1,823]

well, no.  any Alaska scenery is a pale reflection of the actual terrain, but UTX Alaska,  ORBX Southern Alaska, and Pacific Fjords, and FSAddon's Tongass Fjords will net you a pretty good representation of AK, as well as large chunks of British Columbia and the Yukon for between 100-200 bucks.  you can demo ORBX pacific northwest for free (spring textures) as well as Iceland, if you want an Idea of what they can do.  (Iceland is more representative of their Global product than their regions though)  

 

Not aware of any photoreal for AK,  but if you wanted to see what a good photoscenery can do for free, you can download the NL2000 netherlands freeware,  lots of other lesser PR freeware on the freeware scenery site linked above

[Capt Speirs 52]

As for what I am looking for? The World, as accurate as possible.

That seems a bit fanatical. Do you know how long it would take for you to cover the entire planet, flying?

 

Just upgrade where you would like to practically fly.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

[fppilot 4,371]

 

 

Older commercial aircraft, and a little bush flying in Alaska. I have been to Alaska, and I don't think any software could remotely represent it's beauty.

 

As very well featured in a photo article in a recent issue of AOPA magazine.

[zmak 331]

learn to fly the Concorde and buy scenery from around 10,000ft on approach to a dozen or so of your airport hubs, that should eliminate 99% of world scenery for you.

[MrSpeaker 122]

Pilots 2010 mesh, orbx global + vector+ open LC (when it comes out) probably the cheapest route to cover the entire world.

[Mephic 129]

@up add Airport environment x, gsx, dx10 fixer and Rex 4 on top of that and to me a flight sim is complete graphics wise:)

[FloG 148]

 

 

Why doesn't anyone want photorealistic scenery?

If I may say that - that's the wrong question. Photorealistic scenery is quite popular, but as Shawn has pointed out already, the whole world in photoreal would not fit on any regular hard disk. Also, it is quite uncommon that one would actually want such a thing, as that would mean that you fly literally all around the world. Most people pick a few spots and fly around there most of the time. For such (rather limited) areas you often have photoreal scenery products, e.g. MSE for many states of the US, VFR Germany, there's a package for the UK, Switzerland Pro (or MSE as a second option), Austria Pro HD, FranceVFR and so on. Also, there's quite a few, really good freeware options available, such as the already mentioned BlueSkyScenery, and some packages for the Italian Alps come to my mind immediately.

 

Also, I'd like to say that ORBX regions do a good job, although of course they cannot come even close to photoreal, and for people who actually know a certain area it may be completely wrong, but not knowing the American West Coast at all, I can say that their regions are really great!

 

Whichever way you go, I'd suggest to take it slowly, one or two products at a time, that reduces the cost, and you still got plenty to explore!

[stevefromio 2]

learn to fly the Concorde and buy scenery from around 10,000ft on approach to a dozen or so of your airport hubs, that should eliminate 99% of world scenery for you.

 

How do you buy scenery from around 10k?

[zmak 331]

An example would be mega scenery earth. You buy New York FSDT airport along with MSE photo scenery for the state of new York, So on approach to KJFK you only see whats relevant.

 

You can do the same for any airport but be sure to make it a hub so you maximize available flights in and out.

[stevefromio 2]

Yes it is if you visit the FSET forum right here at AVSIM. In fact, you can even use Google Maps with the latest version.

 

Nope

Dead link

Account suspended.