I want no fake roads, and real roads, and night lights. Sam Adams.

[Room112 27]

BlueSkySceneries are a good option to start, if photoscenery is new: they are free. MegaSceneryEarth 2.0 areas I have are mostly terrific and worth to look when going payware. MSE has started offering European countries, too.

 

 

And all of Megascenery Earth is 50% off until next Monday.  :rolleyes:

[Brian Doney 127]

Two dislikes on my original post... ah, really?

 

Why? Unless you don't like beer - I can't imagine how anyone could disagree. Well, I can imagine it. But still...

 

I personally didn't vote on your post, instead, I just tried to answer your questions with the best information I had, but, I can certainly see how the tone of your original post might rub people the wrong way.

 

You've been a member here for a long time. Long enough to understand how long it has been since we've been able to have any optimism towards the future development of this platform. Sure, there is still room for improvement, but there always will be. Most of us are simply thrilled to see movement, developer interaction, etc., and though we may not be completely satisfied with P3D as it is today, it is enough, for now, that we have a developer that is listening.

 

Comments like:

 

 

 

Anyway, I can't believe the idiotic practice of using tiles that have pretty little drawings of roads on them has survived, but IMO it's an amateur move by LM. For all they've done right, they've gone and clowned up the ground.

 

 

 

 ..aren't really necessary, helpful, and could be perceived as inflammatory. Were you actually trying to say that LM are idiot, amateur clowns ? I personally don't think you were, but is it really a surprise that some might take exception to that ? Note that the votes are "Dislikes" and not "Disagrees".

 

I'd bet if you'd just omitted that small section, those votes wouldn't have been cast. 

 

In any event it's not a big deal, and certainly not something I want to get into a row over, but since you asked... 

[turner112 52]

 

 

I really don't understand why somebody, who needs perfectly real world roads or features, would like to use anything else than photoscenery.

 

Hi Grunt - Main reasons (autogen aside) are lack of night and seasons. Also, with Massive Scenery, the water isn't masked. Not sure about others, though.

"You've been a member here for a long time. Long enough to understand how long it has been since we've been able to have any optimism towards the future development of this platform. "

 

Hi Brian - True - and part of my rant was based on knowing how great the future is looking for P3D, and though I don't expect perfection, the road thing surprised me.

 

"Were you actually trying to say that LM are idiot, amateur clowns ? I personally don't think you were, but is it really a surprise that some might take exception to that ? Note that the votes are "Dislikes" and not "Disagrees".

 

I'd bet if you'd just omitted that small section, those votes wouldn't have been cast."

 

No, as said, I meant that it was an amateurish decision to include painted roads, especially given the management by a company that should know better. "Clowing up the ground" meant putting on frilly, unnecessary dressing and makeup on it. I feel it's a "smoke and mirrors" kind of thing that's largely inappropriate and very obvious. Though VFR pilots don't typically navigate by neighborhood-level roads, overall, it makes the neighborhoods look wrong/misleading in the sense that it acts to "camouflage" the real roads, among other things. I'd far rather see autogen houses or house / lot textures rather than roads, even if they weren't accurate.

 

But you're right, and yep - I was heavy handed. I think LM can take it but understand the perceived fragility of this hobby. Honestly, P3D is great, and LM is obviously giving it the attention it deserves, both on our level and in the sense that they are also supporting their larger commercial interests. (Or, one could say, they are supporting ours.)

 

Fine by me!

 

 

[kevinfirth 1,393]

The Isle of Man is a fully Built up photoscenery area - buildings, real roads where they really are, seasons and lighting. A complete treatment of photo scenery in higher res than Global products.

 

A good review - http://mutleyshangar.com/reviews/kf/iom/iom.htm

Thanks for the vote of confidence in my review!

(There'll be one for RevolutionX shortly on the same site-relevant due to the autogen issues on photoscenery being discussed here)

K

[gavink42 1]

I love photo scenery.  But the major downsides for me are blurriness at low altitudes and autogen buildings that don't match well into it.

 

I was researching purchasing Orbx.  But after several back and forth emails, they could never fix my forum login.  Eventually, I just gave up on them for that reason.

[turner112 52]

 

 

I really don't understand why somebody, who needs perfectly real world roads or features, would like to use anything else than photoscenery.

 

Hi Grunt, sorry, looks like my first response didn't take - anyway, mostly, it's the lack of night textures, followed by seasons. Night would come first in my book, though.

[kevinfirth 1,393]

Night and seasonal textures are part and parcel of Earth Simulations work. Shortly there will be region by region full uk coverage with exceedingly realistic autogen - and certainly excellent night textures from what I've seen so far... But it's only the UK..

[loge 42]

The way I see it is that Prepar3D is a generic, flexible platform for simulation applications, not a complete flight simulation game.  The focus of LM is not to develop sophisticated scenery, aircraft, weather etc., but high-quality and powerful core infrastructure that third parties can build upon.  I think of it like an operating system: in the same way that Windows comes with a basic word processor and image editor that haven't changed in a decade, Prepar3D comes with basic scenery and aircraft that haven't changed since FSX.  These basic 'applications' are perfectly usable, but if you want quality, features, and modern innovations in your scenery or aircraft, you have to buy third-party applications on top.  And just as an OS is judged by the quality of its core features, performance etc. rather than its bundled apps, Prepar3D should be judged by its core platform features, rather than its scenery/aircraft/weather textures/etc.

 

There are many advantages to this approach:

- LM have a limited team/budget, so by not spending time/money on developing new scenery etc., the more they can improve in the core platform.

- Competition between third parties creates a continuous cycle of product improvement.

- Users have many more choices: for example, some people like photoscenery, others like improved landclass-based scenery (e.g. Orbx), and others are happy with the default.

 

Personally, I am extremely happy with this state of affairs: I'd far rather LM continue to focus on optimizing the platform and adding new core features that third-party devs can make use of to produce even more realistic aircraft, scenery, etc., than to spend time improving the default scenery.

[turner112 52]

 

 

but if you want quality, features, and modern innovations in your scenery or aircraft, you have to buy third-party applications on top

 

Hi loge - I think it shouldn't be necessary to "correct" base textures, and it may have been just as easy for LM not to have added the roads to them in the first place.

 

While what you're saying is mostly accurate, it isn't a unique dilemma.

 

However, I'm at odds with thinking that a simulator should be judged by its core features alone (whatever those might be), but I get what you're saying. That's a little like saying a 1971 Vega is really great because with enough work, you can replace a lot of it and eventually turn it into a race car.

 

(I am not calling P3D a Vega. Just an example.)

 

P3D is not just an engine. Or... is it?

[Brian Doney 127]

It actually looks like LM changed a ton of the textures from FSX.  Everywhere that I have flown in default P3D looks waaaaaayyyy better than default FSX.  I agree with you though in regards to ORBX stuff.  It is the premier product set out there.

 

 

I'm just going by what I see in the World/texture folder. Obviously I cannot check 11,000+ items, but the handful I have checked are identical, and a good chunk are of 2007-2008 vintage.

 

That said, I am not certain either way. When looking at just the textures themselves though, not the lighting etc, just the textures, I really don't see a whole lot of difference.  :unknw: Out of all the behind the scenes details LM have shared with us, most if not all are about bugs and/or rendering. I can't recall ever reading anything that remotely concerned texture art, but do recall them explicitly saying that they were going to leave aesthetics to the 3PDs. If anything was changed, I'd bet it was for feature compatibility with DX11, over art/style.

 

Or maybe I need new prescription lenses.

 

 

P3D is not just an engine. Or... is it?

 

Honestly, that's the way I have understood it to be since P3Dv1. They aren't necessarily concerned with the artwork, only with rendering/features/bugs.

[anthony31 63]

I'll back up what Brian says. Checking the textures in Scenery/World/texture (that's the folder that contains all default landclass, road, railway and water textures) using the browse function of DXTBMP against those same textures in FSX I couldn't find any that were different.

 

A comparison of the .agn files (autogen data) also seems to indicate no difference between FSX and P3D. Autogen files will change in size depending on the amount of data (ie trees and buildings) they contain. If the texture files were different then the autogen files would also likely be different. Texture files are the same filesize as long as the texture is the same size (ie 1024x1024 pixel textures are 683kb in size)

[MikeT707 1,181]

I will have to take a closer look.  I could have sworn that things looked different, but heck, I could totally be wrong.  I was flying around in Montana yesterday in FSX and things looked not nearly as green as in P3D.  I will see what I find, but won't be til taxes are done.  

[Lynk 4]

It should be like X-Plane. Photo sceneries mixed with Openstreetmap, it is pretty smart and it would be nice to see that in P3D!

 

http://i.imgur.com/DtQfubL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/z5P4DrR.jpg