Are you sure that Earth Simulations are using the same data as the Horizon scenery? Their AutoGenesis project is based on 15cm resolution data that is resampled to 30cm. I am not certain that the data used by Horizon was that level of quality....

 

Darren stated this was the case when I asked the question (its on Avsim somewhere)... he did say he should be able to achieve a far better level of colour correction, but I still worry that some areas will be messy due to the source material being poor. There are some areas with the Horizon scenery that are very grainy, and the attempted colour correction has pushed the limits in an attempt to make it usable; you can only do so much with what you're given. Having said that Darren is very skilled, and I'm sure he will do a good job, but it is a shame more up to date data is not available, or is out of reach for FS development.

Yes, I know the dodgy areas in the Horizon scenery that you are referring to. I always thought that the worst data was around RAF Lyneham. Some rather shocking colour saturation in that area, and not very nice to look at in broad daylight. To be honest, I was hoping that the first AutoGenesis areas to be released would be in England, and specifically in that area!

Could someone with the new MSE England & Wales be so kind as to post a few shots of the area around and to the west of Manston EGMH?

 

Thanks!

To sum up further on this after using it for a while now, the main thing I have noticed with the scenery is things are excellent around the cities. It does go downhill around the lesser known areas and those areas which you would never fly over unless on a long haul type flight. The Horizon scenery was excellent but personally I am sticking with MSE because I really like the Manchester area which is depicted much better than the Horizon version. It is also obviously nice to have nearly 100GB freed up for other things from the Horizon scenery, I imagine I'll install my discs though again in the winter.

 

I can also vouch for the MSE scenery in terms of the City of Manchester Stadium is having a lot of work undertaken for Manchester City's new football academy which can be seen. In particular they also painted the concrete floor of the fan areas blue in the last 2 years and this can be seen so the imagery is very recent. I would say some areas have very recent imagery whereas some areas do not and that might come down to the cost of acquiring satellite imagery for such a large area. For what is £17 I am happy with the scenery and I just hope they will release a patch in the future which better resolves the waterclass issues in some areas.

I know its cheap, but even so, the coast lines are terrible:-(

Some user screens of MSE England would be good.

 

 

 

Yes, I know the dodgy areas in the Horizon scenery that you are referring to.

 

There are quite a few areas. Some parts close to my home location are dreadful, with poor definition, a blue cast and a very course, grainy texture. Despite that, overall I was always quite happy with it, despite some less than perfect sections.

 

ES have just shown some Scotland screens, with North West Scotland being the first area to release in their new 60cm range 'very soon'. I must say it looks great, a far-far better than the Horizon effort with Scotland, which was a huge dissapointment.

 

Great news for all photoscenery lovers.

Hi Novation

 

 

I was disappointed to hear Earth Simulations are working with the same data for their new product as that used in the original Horizon scenery

 

 

We have the same source data for Scotland it's true, which is still the newest and best quality available for that particular area. After we've processed it all it does look quite "different" compared to GenX Scotland. B)

However,  the England & Wales source data we have now is all much more recent than the data which used to make GenX E&W. 

That is good news, Darren B)

Hi Darren & Vicky... thank you for the update, great to hear Eng & Wales will use newer source data :smile:

 

To be honest, looking at your Scotland screens, you would think that is new data too, as it looks a world away from Horizon's.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

 

Oh, and how soon is 'soon'? :wink:

 

 

Hi Novation

 

 

 

 

We have the same source data for Scotland it's true, which is still the newest and best quality available for that particular area. After we've processed it all it does look quite "different" compared to GenX Scotland. B)

However,  the England & Wales source data we have now is all much more recent than the data which used to make GenX E&W. 

Looks nice. For some odd reason, I think they don't invest much time in producing high quality screenshots that really show off what the product looks like on a good pc. Makes them lose sales that way, because I heard them say it's "4x resolution" or something along those lines.. it doesn't seem like it from the preview shots.

hi there. for my twopence worth.

                                                 I have for many years used horizon VFR UK scenery and had transferred it to an AIO when I went to P3D v2.2 as to be honest, It was a right PITA having to add all the different areas every time I upgraded to the latest P3D. When MSE announced that they were doing a Uk I was well chuffed thinking that it was going to be something spectacular , after all the old data that horizon used was photographed as part of the millennium project so is at least 14 years old now. I eagerly awaited the screenshots only to be disappointed that they used exactly the same data. I know this because my car is in exactly the same position in the MSE as it is in the horizon. I did contact MSE about this but never got a reply. When the product was released, the shots they used were from a different source and so thought that they must have got updated imagery, and to some degree this is correct. The East coast has had   a makeover and the colours are IMO very nice and much more true to life that the old horizon stuff, Manchester as mentioned previously is also good, and there is a spot on the west coast near the Scottish border that looks good also add to that the isle of white for good measure.

 But, as for the rest of it, its exactly the same product that I paid for all those years ago.

Good news though, If, like me you still have the update disks from the horizon scenery, then extract them all into a separate folder, say for instance UK HIGH RES CITIES, then add it as normal through your P3D scenery library and have it above the MSE UK entry, and it will add the better quality files over the top of the MSE stuff.

Bad news though is that the coastlines are terrible. some parts of the south coast have been totally obliterated on a scale not seen since jerry dropped may sticks of HE on it. I cannot believe that for a company in this day and age, with the it technology that is around today compared to 10 years ago, cannot make something better to cover a country with one of the busiest airspaces around just baffles me. I did PM MSE about this and have not had a reply in over 3 weeks so probably they are ashamed as I am to admit to having bought  this product.

 

So anyway, before you think I am just bashing MSE you can forget it. I have every state in the US by them, and the high res cities,  Switzerland, Netherlands and  Belgium. I reckon conservatively I have spent about £880 so far on stuff that I really am impressed with, apart from certain parts of some states obviously, but on the whole, very happy. Its just like, What the hell went wrong with the UK?. gingerterry

As Darren himself has stated over on the ES forum......there is a reason why the MSE scenery is only half the size of Horizon GenX.....

After purchasing and installing yesterday I took the hop acrass the pond from KIAD-EGLL. I would have liked to report earlier but I was too tired to stay up and complete the flight. This morning I watched the F1 race with mys son and resumed the the flight at the TOD. Over all my impressions are favorable considering the products price. The resolution stayed quite sharp up until about a 1000 feet. Since I am a tubeliner most of my concentration is required at this point so resolution lower than this does not bother me. I will say that the colors did seem a little washed out for my liking. I would have like to see deeper greens and browns. Overall, for the value I am quite pleased and it is nice to take off and land from two photoscenery countries. Just my perspective from the average consumer!  :rolleyes:

 

To my mind washed out colours are a *good* thing for realism - if I have a criticism about Horizon GenX it would that the colours can seem way too oversaturated during the middle of the day. When I look out of the window I see colours that are always washed out by atmospheric haze/cloud/fog etc. But that's just me, I am aware that some people like the overdone HDR type colours.

Hi,

 

I bought it and I like it. It is on par with other MSE products. I've only flown over Wales so far and I've found that the coastline is great and blends well with the rex  sea textures. 

On the fence with this one already have Horizon VFR 2.0 is it worth me buying this as the price is tempting but I dont want to be dissapointed....any screens from Manchester would really help as well if poss....