MSE Florida 4X Any new reviews or comments

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

What is water masking and is Florida 4X acceptable?

 

This is a quote from their MegaScenery Manual:

 

"Water-Masking Issues

 

"Water masking is the process of “telling” Flight Simulator where to replace photoreal textures with default or standard FSX water textures and water scenery type, primarily to allow the aircraft to land on water, and have that water act like water in the normal Flight Simulator environment."

 

"There are numerous issues inherent when trying to watermask a photoreal area. The major problem is that default Flight Simulator scenery is relatively “blocky” and not terribly accurate in its placement in the virtual world. On the flip side, MegaSceneryEarth imagery is very accurate, and very detailed.  Far more detailed thandefault scenery in its placement and data resolution in fact."

 

"When we go to watermask photoreal imagery, we are essentially “cutting out” sections of water that we see on the imagery. The result is that whatever lies underneath this cut-out area in Flight Simulator will show through the watermask or blendmask used. This creates a visual problem and inaccuracy, and you will find areas of water or blendmasking in MSE where you will see default scenery showing through, sometimes with associated autogen objects too."

 

"The only way to correct this is to provide exclude files for every instance where this occurs. Because the MSE coverage area is massive, it is extremely time consuming to go in and fix every occurrence of this issue, pixel-by-pixel. Doing so would add potentially years of development time to an individual product, and the cost would skyrocket accordingly."

 

'We have chosen to provide basic watermasking only with MegaSceneryEarth products, so we can keep development costs low, and hence, be able to offer you the lowest price possible for the experience of high-resolution photoreal scenery in Flight Simulator."

 

I personally like Florida 4X.  From what I have seen it looks very good.  Of course you are not going to see people laying on the beaches but otherwise it is nice (and the price is nice too! Well, I got it 50% off as I had the MSEv2 scenery).  I think you should go ahead and purchase it.  You may not be able to land on all of the lakes or waterways (well, you can but make sure your landing gear is down as the surface is not water) but it's still good for flying twin props and aircraft like the Phenom 300 between cities.  Just make sure you disable it if you are not using it as the scenery will load even if you are flying in California and that will take up resources while your system is loading the scenery.

 

Best regards,

 

Best regards,

[Christopher Low 5,332]

I could actually accept the lack of watermasking in smaller bodies of water like rivers and ponds, but lakes and coasts really need to be properly watermasked. In addition, it is also imperative that all coastlines, lake shores and islands are accurately rendered. This is not the case with (for example) MegaScenery Earth Northern Ireland. The accuracy and definition of some of the scenery in this region is shockingly bad, and completely unacceptable. IMO, a payware product should not be released at all in this state. It is no secret that a large number of Horizon UK photoscenery customers would love to see an accurately rendered photoscenery version of Northern Ireland (to complete the UK and Ireland collection), but that does not mean that we will accept any old rubbish. Do it properly, and we will pay good money for it.

[Manny 1,293]

AZ, CA, NV, and UT.

 

Yeah..they start out with crappy states first.

 

So cal needs vivid colors...what I have is washed out. that could do with some improvement

 

I like Hawaii Oahu that I have ...its color is just awesome... if they put out a 4X for that without washing out the colors, then that could be  worth buying.

 

AZ, UT is needed for Photoscenery...X4 and vivid colors. This area is better served with Phototextures than FTX global

 

For East US, I am using FSaltitude USA (East)  I fly high ..airliners It gives me good FPS and land at major airports...Low resolution textures is fine for a large area for 35K altitutde flying... better than repeat textures... This is no OOM area...except for JFK area... which is a tad crowded.

[rpowers 5]

Thanks for the replies.Good info.When I use MSE 2X I use default scenery+GEX+UTX under 2000' then enable MSE..Not perfect solution but it helps.Ron

[rpowers 5]

OK,Installed it and so far happy knowing pros and cons of photoreal. scenery.Took forever to download.Thanks for the advice,Ron

[Mike_CFII_MEL 788]

Hi Everyone,

 

I just picked up and installed Mega Scenery Earth X4 Florida, I dabbled in photo real in the past but gave up on it quickly... I didn't like the look, I even got burned on 50cm that I purchased but never received. Supposedly, the hard drive got lost somewhere between customers.

 

Anyway, back to MegaScenery Earth 4X Florida, I think it's great. For the first time i think photoreal is ready for prime time. I just performed a test flight at dusk in the sim and I'll have a video online shortly. Now if they could take these tiles and add night lighting I'd use this and nothing else in P3D3.

 

Video to follow.

[Mike_CFII_MEL 788]

Hi Everyone,

 

I just installed MegaSceneryEarth 4X Florida today, here is my first look (Dusk at KMIA) at the product. From what I've seen so far, it's a keeper!. I've dabbled in photo real in the past, but I just couldn't stand the view on final approach... Until Now!.

 

Photo Real Scenery is finally ready for prime time (IMHO) "for the most part". Although, I'd like to see these tiles worked up with some night lighting (overlay if possible) imprinted right on the tiles, forget all that 3D lighting stuff that looks like little dots suspended in mid air that cause loading studders that completely ruin the approach phase of flight.

I can actually see my home and pool when I zoom in. I think MegaSceneryEarth hit a home run with the 4X series, well Florida anyway!. Now if we can just get night lighting on these tiles.

 

[Christopher Low 5,332]

Wow, Michael.......that is one awesome setup you have there!

[Manny 1,293]

Now if we can just get night lighting on these tiles.

 

http://en.shop.aerosoft.com/eshop.php?action=article_detail&s_supplier_aid=13213&s_design=default&shopfilter_category=flight%20simulation&s_language=english

 

NE is actually 100 times better than what you see on this video.. I love NE..its the best. 

 

[Christopher Low 5,332]

Shame about the "music".

[Mike_CFII_MEL 788]

Hi Manny,

 

I purchased NE for two states, I cannot stand the load times for these dots of light that are suspended in mid air, I purchased NY and Florida and I no longer use them, every three minutes there is a pause to load these lights. It completely ruins the final approach landing phase of flight.

[Manny 1,293]

I purchased NE for two states, I cannot stand the load times for these dots of ligh

 

Mike, which sim are you using ? P3DV3.1? There is an issue that LM needs to fix for that issue which they introduced in the 3.1 patch... But I do not have issues in other sims or the previous versions... Hmmm Interesting. I need to retry and see the pause during approach...  LEt me double check

Shame about the "music".

 

 

LOL

[Manny 1,293]

OK I tested FE Dubai and I had 3 big pause where the cursor was on spin 

 

I then deactivated FE and did the same flight and this time there was no pause.

 

Hmmmm... I didn't realize it was NE that was causing it.. I need to talk to Chris from NE about this.

[Mike_CFII_MEL 788]

Hi Guys,

 

Thanks Chris, I waited a long time to finally get this setup in my home.

 

Hey Manny, I'm running P3D3.1, NE lights would be perfect if two things were changed/fixed. Remove the 3D lighting around the airports... say five miles back, the floating lights look a little ridiculous. Move them away from the airport and it won't be so noticeable. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY!!! remove those awful load studders, that in and of itself keeps me from using NE products.

[Christopher Low 5,332]

That must take a serious amount of power to run smoothly, Michael. What is your PC specification? How many monitors do you have in total for the window views?