MegaSceneryEarth and X-Plane

[alpha12125 213]

Sethos, did you create all your states with a few clicks and had no issues in the complete state like different colors, saturation, contrast etc.? Did you have no problems with airports?

 

Was it one click and you are done ? I am interested, because my experience is different and i would like to know what you are doing different.

[jcjimmy 150]

Hi,

I believe there is plenty of room for those who prefer MegaScenery or those who would like to make their own scenery.

 

I used MegaScenery way back when I still used FSX. I thought it would be a nice addition to X-Plane and I would buy it if available.

 

It seems they are slow off the mark to produce for X-Plane. So, I recommend that if you are interested in the product to write. Here is a link to express your interest:

 

http://www.megasceneryearth.com/store/cart.php?target=help&mode=contactus

 

Thanks. X-Plane is getting better all the time.

[Sethos 4,335]

Lol  You have a terrible temper,  I could just picture you bouncing around your seat veins popping out and screaming at your PC   :smile:

 

Haha, another one joins the fray. It must be nice to pile on people.

[jujumediazone 14]

Hahaha... poor Sethos1988... 

 

Glad everyone said what needed to be said.

 

I haven't tried the MegasceneryEarth but if they do come out with an X Plane version, I may give it a shot. But as long as it has an installer.

[alpha12125 213]

You are right, you actually have to do something actively, like click a button for it to appear on your harddrive. 

 i am asking again sethos.  With all your experience with photoscenery. Did you have no problems with different colours, saturation, contrast with each tile ? Did you never have to manually edit the photoscenery files ?

[tonywob 4,769]

There are problems with colours and saturation. Unless you are going to edit and colour match hundreds of tiles by hand then there will be issues. Even payware photoscenery has this problem.

[yidahoo 365]

Hi Sethos,

I am curious if the states that you have created can be uploaded to Avsim so people could download and use them. If this is the case, I might be willing to do the same so the community would have photo scenery created by the community. Thanks. 

 

It would not be a good idea to start sharing orthos. Most of them use data from Google Earth or Bing Maps, to distribute them in any form would be breaching their intellectual property. They could potentially come down pretty hard on anyone doing that. Its the reason you do not see orthos being shared anywhere. Either make them for your personal use or buy them from someone who has paid for the license to use the data

[alpha12125 213]

There are problems with colours and saturation. Unless you are going to edit and colour match hundreds of tiles by hand then there will be issues. Even payware photoscenery has this problem.

i know there are it was merely a comment regarding the it's one click and everything is the same quality as payware photoscenery.

[Pugilist2 878]

That is why I really hope a payware developer starts making photoscenery for X-Plane! 

 

Bottom line is that it's a pain in the rear to make it yourself.

[tonywob 4,769]

The only good one I know of is the RC Simulations UK scenery which is really good quality, however the sad truth about this is that now Ortho4XP generated scenery is better. It produces a better quality mesh, sharper textures, and nicer coast lines. It's also at least 10 years out of date, and it can stand out when using OSM scenery or flying over areas you are familiar with. I have similar fears for MegaSceneryEarth, especially if they don't colour correct the tiles.

 

For the US, I believe one is permitted to use the USGS imagery without restriction, so if someone decided to generate the entire US using this datasource, they could distribute it or even sell it (Someone can correct me if I'm wrong). There are similar licenses for a few other sources e.g New Zealand (Google and Bing however are not part of these, although both are better than USGS). There is even a high quality, legal and completely free (But worthy of a donate) scenery for the Iberian peninsular (Spain and Portugal). 

 

Simheaven used to have photoscenery for all of Europe, which was a simple drop-in download. They removed it because of the cheeky and constant requests for support and for editing colour on tiles, so I'm not surprised nobody else wants to do it, especially for free. For Europe we still have http://zonephoto.x-plane.fr/, and although it has a painful Java download system, it is pretty much drag & drop install and a lazy way to get areas you want.

[MikeT707 1,181]

It would not be a good idea to start sharing orthos. Most of them use data from Google Earth or Bing Maps, to distribute them in any form would be breaching their intellectual property. They could potentially come down pretty hard on anyone doing that. Its the reason you do not see orthos being shared anywhere. Either make them for your personal use or buy them from someone who has paid for the license to use the data

Could someone use USGS source data? That does not require licencing.

[tonywob 4,769]

Yes you can, as well as some other sources such as LINZ in New Zealand. You'd need a huge amount of server space though

[Guest-475 81]

The access to USGS data for direct download seems to be restricted in some countries. I can download single tiles from their site, but G2XPL always runs into time out. That's from Germany, but someone Italy was reportedly able to use USGS as a source when running G2XPL.

[tonywob 4,769]

Just don't go mad and restrict your downloads to 3 or so tiles a day. If you abuse the server bandwidth they will ban your IP.

[Guest-475 81]

I can't even get a single tile using USGS and G2XPL. However, I can download many tiles manually from their site using the same machine (and IP).

 

But I am done with creating the PE area now using Bing, which is not perfect but it get's the job done. Once MSE or annother vendor releases a good quality photoreal scenery for the US states, I will be buying some for shure.