Hi all,apologies again, particularly to Richard, for getting the inital thread off-course. Co-opting a topic like that is highly unfair so I'm trying to make up by starting a new one, one that hopefully stays focused on the pros and cons of the Alaska Cinematic series itself.I have no association with this product but I did receive a free copy in exchange for helping with compatibility patches for Ultimate Terrain. Keep that in mind when you read my comments.I'll start by answering David's question about the number of airfields in the area: there are 26 airfields and bases, all adjusted to the photoreal scenery and improved coastlines though none of them have been modeled to the level of the stand-alone Georender fields. As for overall impressions: anyone familiar with my work and some of my posts knows that I'm not a big proponent of photoreal landscape packages. The difference with Alaska Cinematic is that it is, in my opinion, located in the ideal place for photoreal textures: areas with dense vegetation cover are rare in this part of Alaska and the glaciers, rocks, and tundra can never be modeled in this kind of detail with the methods I'm using in my projects. Also, Richard is using aerial photography rather than satellite imagery, which helps a lot to keep textures very sharp even at low altitudes (and the high latitudes of Alaska actually help to increase the pixel resolution beyond the nominal FS limit of 4.8 meters, at least on the X axis). Thus, it's definitely a landscape you can fly "in" rather than just "above".On the minus side the usual "issues" with photoreal apply here as well: large file size, long loading times, tendency to have textures blur, limited autogen in settlements and forested areas, lack of seasons, etc. Whether those are actually issues for you depends very much on your personal preferences and, to some extent, computer specs (frame rate impacts are nil but slower computers will have more difficulties with loading and maintaining textures at highest mipmaps).Hope that helps.Cheers, HolgerP.S.: Here are a few links to screenshots posted by others:http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=38963http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...&mesg_id=199972http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...&mesg_id=199986http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=38937

Thanks for being classy and taking the high road here Holger, wish everyone around could do the same!

And Some Contrary Views from other users:Apparently Long Load times (4 Minutes)http://georender.org/newforum/viewtopic.php?t=129AI Traffic no longer there:http://georender.org/newforum/viewtopic.php?t=123Water and Land Anomalies:http://georender.org/newforum/viewtopic.php?t=116Possible Corrupt Install Files:http://georender.org/newforum/viewtopic.php?t=121Order Problems:http://georender.org/newforum/viewtopic.php?t=117Install Problems unless 3rd party program is used:http://georender.org/newforum/viewtopic.php?t=111You Know in the fairness, balance, and all that full disclosure stuff.Sure hope they get all that resolved.Grab My FREEWARE Voice recognition Profiles here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=58334]Cessna 172 Voice Profile[/a][a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=60740]FSD Avanti Voice Profile[/a].You will need the main FREEWARE Flight Assistant program to use it, get it here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=genutils&DLID=39661]Flight Assistant 2.2[/a]

Sonar 5: Please go away.Ricardo

Couldn't you just make your own thread complaining about all these issues with this "evil" payware stuff? I mean if you're happy having a bland aircraft with basic system functionality (try starting your freeware aircraft up from cold and dark without using CTRL E or just flipping the starter, OR find a freeware 727, 767, 737, 747-200, ATR, X, etc. that has a fully functional VC) otherwise stop complaining possibly causing people not to buy a product and eventually help run companies out of business because a lack of sales. There are some great freeware scenery, but most payware is well worth it if you enjoy the particual area. Do you feel special and important letting everybody know you are too cheap to thank people and support them for working so hard to make this hobby enjoyable to the rest of us? You won't get out your checkbook of course for almost anything, do you expect everyone to work for free? And is your attitude so naive you expect payware to be perfect? I might point out bugs in products but only to see if there is a fix or let somebody know that an issue is there. Never to personally bash said company.Give it up and find something else to do.

Did you actually read those Joe? The install and corrupt problems were solved with download manager/ not running AV software which are both standard practice freeware or payware.The water and land anomolies poster was ecstatic about the product!How about you restrain your opinions on product you actually own, and can honestly comment about. Instead of drawing conclusions based on what you read about others...

Thanks Holger. That's a lot more airfields than I expected. However I'm sticking away from the photographic sceneries for now since my PC can't keep up, at least with Megascenery I kept getting the blurries - even following all the recommendations, and my system is fairly clean, just not enough CPU power I guess. When I upgrade I'll certainly take a look.

My apologies for the "other thread" guys...just wanted to say that we feel the scenery is top notch and keep up the good work!:-):-)

Does anyone else agree that the colours are a bit too dull? It could do with some retouch work in the form of added saturation/colorization IMO. It's still very good, it's about my only problem with the scenery. Something for Mr. Goldstein to keep in mind for the following volumes maybe?

Hi Jimmi,that's a good point. I too noticed that the colors seem subdued though I actually think that he achieved a believable level of colorization, at least under common maritime atmospheric conditions (i.e., high content of fine particles and droplets).I don't know Richard's reason for this particular level of saturation but I believe it could be related to the difficulty of giving snow and ice "natural" whites. The FS display engine is pretty bad with high lightness levels and white surfaces often take on visible non-white hues and patterns. Keeping color saturation low obviously minimizes that effect but in a place like south-central Alaska separating ice/snow from the surrounding sites to provide different levels of saturation would be extremely difficult.Cheers, Holger

Thanks Holger for this thread and the info, you answered what questions I had left and even though it looks really nice and is quite affordable, the lack of seasons, being an area I rarely fly and lack of dense autogen will keep me from buying, but I wish Richard luck with it and hope it does well. Looking forward to more of his airfield seneries!Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

Hi Holger,Saw your post after buying, downloading and installing Richard's latest tour de force and felt I should chip in with a few words.Frankly, for me variety is the spice of life and designers like you, Richard and Bill Lyons always provide quality products that quickly occupy space on my hard drive soon after their release. Reviews can be helpful, but I am sure most will agree when I say dedicated individuals like you have earned a level of respect by those discerning members of our community such that we will purchase/download and install anything you produce sight unseen. To date I have never been disappointed. You provide us with the variety and excitement that stimulates and maintains the interest in this hobby of ours.I had no problems purchasing, downloading and installing Alaska Cinematic Vol-1. My usual download manager Star Downloader didn't seem to be able to 'find' the files and so I just downloaded (ADSL) via 'Save Target As' and encountered no issues whatsoever.My first flight which lasted for over an hour has just been completed and I have to say I am very impressed indeed. Clearly Richard has worked very hard on this one and the degree of realism achieved in flight as you explore this area is quite astonishing. "Staggering" springs to mind.I followed Richard's advice to the letter regarding the various mods to the Settings made from within the sim and also the manual tweaks to FS9.cfg. I confess I felt a little dubious about some of the recommendations as several flew in the face of what I had come to believe were necessary to obtain good visual results and performance on my system. Boy was I wrong! Excellent visuals with fantastic ground and shoreline detail with striking definition and uncannily accurate 3D appearances of the various mountain ranges, peaks and glaciers. At times, when the light was just right I would look down at the snowfields and feel glad that I was cosseted in my nice warm aircraft. However, I kept referring to FSNavigator to ensure I didn't stray too far from the safe sanctuary of one of the many airfields...just in case ;)Your comments regarding photoreal scenery are, of course, perfectly valid although I did not experience inordinately lengthy loading times when compared with, e.g. Visual Flight's VFR Photographic Scenery Textures for England and Wales. Also I was pleased to find texture updating was fairly quick in flight (RealAir C172). Doubtless this was attributable to the various configuration mods recommended by Richard.All in all this has to be considered a superb example of what can be achieved and will certainly satisfy the many who have been searching for the most realistic simulated experience possible in an area of the world which holds so much beauty and rugged splendour.Regards,MikeEdit: forgot to add my system specs...again :(P4 2.4GHz (400FSB), 1Gig PC2100 DDR Crucial, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (Omega 2.6.05a), SB Audigy (5.12.0001.0443), Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 17" TFT LCD 20ms Monitor (1280x1024x32), Gigabyte GA-8IRXP MoBo, Ultra-Quiet PSU 400W, WinXP Home (SP2), DirectX 9.0c, AGP Aperture = 128MB

Mr. Ricardo:Haven't you got anything better to do but to criticize and pester everybody or nearly everybody in this forum?Carajo en que ladillita (pediculus pubis) te has convertido.Please be a little more constructive.E.Cardenas

It always makes me a it nervous to have to alter settings in FS9 in order to run one aircraft or one piece of scenery, wondering what the effect will be on everything else in FS9. I guess the only solution would be to have 2 config files and switch back and forth, but that could be a pain in the neck.

Iposted a few of the problems myself. The "corrupt files,, in my case, was due to Firefox browser. IExplorer worked... Just took several attempts to get around to that step.Long load time is also my problem. Someone was kind enough to post an extract from Megascenery which has several suggestions to not only reduce load times but to also improve performance. Also, I had a slow main disk which I replaced yesterday. Load times dropped from 4 minutes to 2.5 minutes. There are 14264 textures mapped by the BGLs that FS2004 goes through during load. Normally, with synthetic textures, the load time is very much less due to the much smaller list of textures referenced by BGLs.I have "messed with" photo textures. The original color seems to change, as does the saturation when doing the resample and final display. I find the colors slightly purple in Cinematic, BUT I also found the same trend in my photo real of Half Moon bay. Maybe Microsoft will allow a finer resolution in the future and also allow an off-line premap, with checksum, to reduse individual flight load times.Finally, Tom Allensworth - suggest that the post above was plainly in bad taste, and poster warned. There is no constructive intent from such posts. Muck-raking should be the province of the tabloids not a respected web site!Dick Boley @KLBE