Simple Scenery for Newby

[Olbalbal 0]

I am new to X-Plane and am enjoying the experience. Would anyone have a suggestion for a modest scenery package that would enhance flights in a particular area? I would prefer somewhere in the US. It doesn’t need to be a big area, just somewhere with a few airports that I can fly to. I am using a Mac for x-plane that runs it very well, although my computer is three and a half years old. I have 115 gig of free space on my hard disk. I am not very computer competent, so will need pretty detailed directions on where to find such a scenery enhancement and how to get it downloaded and working in x-plane. It can be either free-ware or paid. Either would be fine. Thank you in advance for any help anyone can give me.

 

Tuke

 

[tonywob 4,768]

I don't normally fly in the US, but I do know and have heard that Tom Curtis's scenery is excellent, albeit he mostly does Canada, Alaska, the Northern Rockies, etc. http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/x-planestore/Categories?category=Scenery%3ATom+Curtis+Original+Scenery

 

I used to have his Alaska/Canada scenery a few years ago, and it does add to the scenery, however the X-Plane default scenery in these areas for the mountains is actually already really nice, so it's a great starting point. It's not quite ORBX and a full area enhancement, but it's a great start.

 

You also can't go wrong grabbing hold of AlpilotX's HD Mesh v2 which will offer a much updated Mesh, roads etc for the US. He's also shortly due to release v3 http://www.alpilotx.net/downloads/x-plane-10-hd-scenery-mesh-v2/ (Instructions and downloads here)

 

For mainland US, I'm not sure and maybe one of our US-based X-Plane friends can step in and help out. There is a lot in the downloads area of x-plane.org, You'll almost certainly find plenty of freeware airfields and even some cities and orphophotos. Unfortunately I was going to give you some links, but x-plane.org seems to be down for me.

[MarioDonick 752]

Have a look at my scenery map:

 

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/viewer?mid=zKdUoyDRH6j0.k7Q3rMFgZpe4

 

It only shows a selection of good airports.

 

Most links are to x-plane.org, where currently a lot of server maintenance is taking place...

[JimmiG 244]

First, grab the HD Mesh v2:

http://www.alpilotx.net/

It's absolutely essential. Because of the way X-Plane scenery works, it's much more than a traditional "mesh". It also improves the landclass, roads, rivers etc. After you've installed a region, you can uninstall the default X-Plane scenery for that region to save HDD space.

While you're there, also grab the Treelines and Farms v2.

 

This one is also useful, especially if you like flying in the northwest:

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=16015

 

I'm also using this little modification to remove the 20-storey Soviet-style apartment blocks that X-Plane likes to place in every small town around the world:

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=18900

 

Installing airports is easy. Usually you just drop the folder into your Custom Scenery folder and that's it.

I tend to just search X-Plane.org for whatever airport I'm interested in. In addition to mariodonick's scenery map, there's one at http://xpscenery.net/

It contains virtually every airport made for X-Plane regardless of quality. Most of it is quite usable but you may need to learn the basics of the World Editor to correct errors such as missing excludes (often needed for compatibility with HD Mesh v2). Or, you could just remove the airports that don't work.

 

Also, the X-Plane developers are currently in the process of adding "lego-brick" airports into the X-Plane base program. Those are high-quality airports using only the X-Plane built-in objects and resources. This will provide some much needed base airport scenery.

 

(X-Plane.org is currently down for maintenance but it should be up again soon)

[tonywob 4,768]

 

 

I tend to just search X-Plane.org for whatever airport I'm interested in. In addition to mariodonick's scenery map, there's one at http://xpscenery.net/

 

This is normally the easiest way. Just go to x-plane.org and search for ICAO code or city and you'll often get a few results, screenshots, etc.. Also, it's worth adding that it looks like xpscenery.net is now a paid service.

[uwespeed 497]

I tend to just search X-Plane.org for whatever airport I'm interested in. In addition to mariodonick's scenery map, there's one at http://xpscenery.net/

 

And not to forget apxp.info. Great resource !!

[Olbalbal 0]

Many thanks to you all for your replies. I will work through your suggestions.

 

Tuke