New VFR Netherlands photoreal scenery is out...

[Guest MvT]

Release date is 30/06/2005You can find beta screenshots here (Dutch forum)

[Guest jaapverduijn]

Hi Luis and Egbert!I'm happy, Luis, that you enjoy the landscapes of my little country. To me, it's mainly the "little" that's been bugging me about Holland since, long time ago, in my early twenties I travelled the world quite extensively. I've been longing for those "wide open spaces" of continents like Africa, the Americas and Australia ever since...I've been away from flightsimming for some weeks, due to lots of work and a bit of ill health, so it's only today that I ordered the scenery. I'll keep you posted, guys!Be well!Jaap Verduijn.

[virtualstuff 766]

Good luck with your health and I'm curious about this one to Jaap...Andr

[Guest jaapverduijn]

Bedankt Andr

[Guest Javis]

Ok, all dutchies and others interested in this new photoreal Netherlands scenery, i bought it 2 days ago and have it installed now ( nice quick delivery by Simware ! ) here's a first quick impression of it.Best start with the good thing. While i have a LOT of photoreal scenery,i have never had the pleasure of seeing my own country moving by underneath my virtual wings in photoreal fashion. And a real pleasure it sure is ! Thank you Horizon Simulations for giving me this long awaited opportunity. That said i'd have to say i feel quite dissapointed with the quality of the textures. If i compare it with that of f.i. the Mega Scenery series, ( the Northern California scenery covers 30.000 square miles where the Netherlands covers 'only' 16.000 square miles ) i'd say the Netherlands scenery textures are of sub standard quality to say the least. I have never seen such awkward jagged lines in all of the photoreal scenery that i have. For us Dutch sure we can find and pick the immidiate area we live in but you can forget about singling out your house particularly if you live in a 'rijtjes huis'. ;-) Flying over the amazing France VFR and Rhode Island sceneries by Vauchez and friends - in my 'photoreal scenery book' they are on top of everything else ( not meaning that new Paris and surrounding scenery, a bit of a dissapointment compared to the other France VFR stuff they have produced )- but also with all the photoreal Mega stuff including Mega City sceneries, and of course England and Wales VFR with the seperate mesh included, i still need a support for my jaw to keep it from falling on the cockpit floor constantly.I'm afraid i had to quickly come to the conclusion that flying over the Netherlands photoreal scenery i can leave that jaw support safely back in the hangar.Then there is the mesh...... Ever since i read they were going to include mesh for the Netherlands scenery i have been thinking they must've drank a lot of Heineken or visited a coffee shop (or both) whilst deciding that. Sure if there's one country which can do without mesh it's the Netherlands, niewaar. And if you ask me you can do away with the 'h' in mesh and replace it with a second 's' . Yes, first time i see a mesh makes things worse.Since we have no mountains or anything here in Holland the mesh is used to give depth to the rivers and canals. If it would've worked i'm sure it would've been a nice effect but alas it doesn't work : http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/121531.jpgThis is a view of the area i was born,raised and still live in, the Zaanstreek. The meandering river in the middle of the view is ' de Zaan' , the canal on the right is called 'de Nauernaasche Vaart' . If you happen to have linoleum in your house, good chance it is from Forbo, used to be Linoleum Krommenie, the industrial area which can just be seen at the top right. I guess i don't have to explain what's wrong here. That's a pretty 'mess' , isn't it. Good thing is that we can probabely get rid of this mess. Possibly already by not installing it. You are given a number of opportunities what to install and what not. I installed everything so i'll see if i can get rid of the mess or re-install. Nontheless, like i said above, despite the low quality textures and the mess, i now know that it's an absolute joy to be able to fly over ones own country in photoreal fashion and i'm going to have atleast double the price worth of fun virtually exploring my country from the air. For any dutchies outthere who can live with the not so good textures i can sure recomment this scenery, for anybody expecting Mega Scenery or England & Wales VFR texture quality, think twice.Doing this quick test flight i was flying between 2500 and 3000 feet ( anything lower and you'd better be flying blind ) and i can't wait doing some more exploring but first i'll try to get rid of the mess, err.. mesh.Thanks again Horizon Simulations for the effort in bringing us this photoreal scenery, highly appreciated! But i'm almost sure i am speaking for the, roughly estemated, 100.000 dutch FSimmers when i say that we could've done with a tad more crispy textures, i can't help the feeling of flying over the wollen jersey sporting the Netherlands image that my auntie Sien nitted for me.That's it guys, i cannot make anything else of it but still i love it ! cheers,Jan

[virtualstuff 766]

Thanks Jan for the detailed report, was afraid for this will wait for more screenshots and reports but if it's the same then I'll pass...Andr

[werver 0]

Hallo,Indeed the textures of this new scenery are not of top quality, but everything looks a lot better than the blocked textures of NL2000.It is possible to use the NL2000 airports into the VFR Nederland scenery. Follow exactly the instructions described on this website:http://www.freewebs.com/rubenvans/fs2004.htmAlso is it possible to use Eindhoven v5.0 in this scenery.Please post other sceneries which are compatible.

[Egbert Drenth 250]

Beste Jan,Thanks for your very detailed review.I'm going to pass this one. Helaas Pindakaas

[Hakkie 0]

First of all: I am not related to the NL2000 team in any way.At the last Flightsim weekend in the Aviodrome (www.aviodrome.nl), the NL2000 team showed the progress of their new release. This will also be a photorealistic scenery. If I remember well, the resolution will be 1 pixel=1 meter (correct me if I'm wrong or if this is not possible at all, I'm not a scenery guru!). Some teammembers made me aware of this huge difference compared to the released VFR Netherlands scenery. The new NL2000 version will still be freeware and is still being made by volunteers. They expect to have a long road ahead. Could even be 2nd part 2006 untill release. Many airports are also completely redone, including EHAM. They showed a demo of the EHRD area, which was very impressive. Even at low altitude. The team's main concern is not the development but the (freeware) distribution of the final scenery! It's expected to be several gigabytes/DVD's and one season 'only'. Sponsors are supposed to be the solution...Again, I'm not related to NL2000 at all, nor is this meant to keep people from buying the Horizon VFR Netherlands scenery. All I'm saying is it looks like the NL2000 team was right: the resolution of this commercial VFR Netherlands scenery is much lower than the one that is being developed by NL2000. Still, it IS very nice to fly over your own country and actualy recognize things.

[Guest mike_cyul]

Thanks for the excellent review, Jan. You should write more! :)Mike F.

[Guest Nightowl]

Hello Jan, and others too of course ;-)Nice to see a "review" this fast after release of a scenery. I hope you have seen the manual included in the box, as a lot of your issues are solved by useing the right settings mentioned in the manual. I live in a "rijtjeshuis" and I am perfectly able to locate my house. A agree with you about the default river beddings visible. I was in the beta team and we mentioned this issue. In the upcoming weekend we will be at the IFC held in Blackpool, and Horizon is also attending this biggest flightsim convention in the world. I will ask the people of Horizon about this issue (and some more too).As you mentiuon the mesh, there is terrain elevaton in the Netherlands, think at "De Veluwe" Limburg and the dunes along the Northsea coast. When you fly arround the "Waddeneilanden" you will see the dunes and elevation on these Islands. It is there!Pictures are taken on a level of 5000ft, so that is the best level to explore the scenery. From 250oft and lower the scenery will become blurry, just as all photorealistic scenery does. (Even Switzerland Pro has this blurry textures, prized tripple the Netherlands VFR prize). So I think the scenery is good when useing the right settings and reading the tips in the manual, but I also agree with you on the river beddings.

[Guest Andy Parton]

That screenshot shows the interferance of the default MSFS troughs used to depict roads/rivers etc. It can be disabled. Also, it looks like you are suffering from the blurries which affect all photo sceneries. Non eof what you describe is attributable to the scenery itself, but your system and setup.As for the mesh, yes indeed the Netherlands is very flat, but try flying out near Maastricht or along the West coast where the sand dunes are and you'll see just how accurate the mesh created from 20m elevation data really is.Overall, I'm very happy with VFR Netherlands and don't experience any of the problems described above.

[Guest MvT]

Yes, it's not the mesh that is causing this problems.Try this:Open terrain.cfg (in your FS9 folder) in a text editorFind this section and change the offset setting to 0://Stream Lines[Texture.1024] // stream lines / unknown / perennialType=1Size=4ExcludeAutogen=1MaskClassMap=3Textures=RiverSU.bmpoffset=-10 <-- Change this to 0When you are using Ultimate Terrain or American Data Roads, Railroads and Streams, you can even change it with the configuration utility

[Guest Pabra]

(TERRAIN)TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=0.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=0TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=0TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=7.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.5TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=0Give these settings a try; no mesh (this is holland, duh) and faster loading due to no extended textures or levels; no need at 3000 feet.paul @ ehgg

[Guest Javis]

>That screenshot shows the interferance of the default MSFS>troughs used to depict roads/rivers etc. It can be disabled.For all i know it SHOULD have been disabled. This from the manual : LWMA replacement Land/Water Mask is included with VFR Netherlands. During installation of this option, some default Microsoft scenery is disabled since it