Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
CFIJose

What a nightmare!

Recommended Posts

Guest Mik75

agree with Jeroen, 

 

it is a LOT of work. 

 

It can be done free and indeed not rocket science (not that easy either), but don't lead the newcomers to xp to believe it's a piece of cake pls.

But, what is to it? Where is the "work"? Seriously??? It takes a bit of time, but therefore, it´s completely free!

Ok, installing Ortho4XP with the needed Python scripts takes a bit of time. But there are 2 very good videos on YouTube, and with their help, I had set up up the whole show in less than 30 minutes! ;-)

And "creating" (a matter of selecting the desired tile on a OSM map, and thereafter clicking 4 boxes) the first tile, took appr. 30 minutes (ZL17, example shown above) to be completed. Even "activating" the automatically generated scenery in the sim is a matter of clicking the tiles on the OSM map in Ortho4XP 1.2. You can even have them on a fast external USB 3 HDD, or a second big internal HDD, no problems at all.

Please DON´T lead new X-Plane users to believe, it would be more than a piece of cake, to make your own ortho scenery!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

i am doing zl17 for the whole united states with orthoxp,i have to find a place to upload it to when i am done.each tile is about 7gb. people will be able to grab a favorite tile for there location,or download the whole country.i have all of the southeast part of the country done using bing.if anyone knows where i can put it please advise.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

But, what is to it? Where is the "work"? Seriously??? It takes a bit of time, but therefore, it´s completely free!

Ok, installing Ortho4XP with the needed Python scripts takes a bit of time. But there are 2 very good videos on YouTube, and with their help, I had set up up the whole show in less than 30 minutes! ;-)

And "creating" (a matter of selecting the desired tile on a OSM map, and thereafter clicking 4 boxes) the first tile, took appr. 30 minutes (ZL17, example shown above) to be completed. Even "activating" the automatically generated scenery in the sim is a matter of clicking the tiles on the OSM map in Ortho4XP 1.2. You can even have them on a fast external USB 3 HDD, or a second big internal HDD, no problems at all.

Please DON´T lead new X-Plane users to believe, it would be more than a piece of cake, to make your own ortho scenery!

well good for you ;)

 

I will let the absence of freeware ortho speak for itself. Not tomention the title of this thread ;)

 

peace


-Roland

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest Mik75

well good for you ;)

 

I will let the absence of freeware ortho speak for itself. Not tomention the title of this thread ;)

 

peace

Indeed, good for me, and everyone who's willing to give it a try! The results are (mostly) breathtakingly good! And again, completely for free!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The reason there's a real lack of free scenery to download is the huge cost of hosting the massive files.

 

Simheaven used to host a lot of files, but due to the costs of server space and bandwidth he stopped it. This is also the reason why the zonephoto.x-plane.fr site uses an ugly java plugin to stop folks from hammering the bandwidth into the ground with download managers.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I actually prefer ZL16 because of the lower file size. I fly VFR at all the time with ZL16 and it's good enough for me. That being said, I added gritty details to the tiles and also use Lumasharpen through Reshade, which makes quite a difference.

It might be a piece of cake, but I'm lazy and will rather buy a really good cake than bake one myself. ;)

 

I have only 4-8 hours to spend for flight simming per month, and that is time I want to use for actually flying and not for building scenery, as easy or hard as it may be.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

For me it works just fine. Although setting up the Java applet was a pita. ;-)

If you've got enough hard drive space, you should have a look at ortho4xp, which lets you build your own photo scenery for free (at the desired zoom level)!

 

ZL17 with very dense autogen trees, buildings and night lighting.

deyg98bc7t385zj0g.jpg

Looks to me to be worth a bit of hassle to get this kind of result.

  • Upvote 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest Mik75

I actually prefer ZL16 because of the lower file size. I fly VFR at all the time with ZL16 and it's good enough for me. That being said, I added gritty details to the tiles and also use Lumasharpen through Reshade, which makes quite a difference.

It might be a piece of cake, but I'm lazy and will rather buy a really good cake than bake one myself. ;)

 

I have only 4-8 hours to spend for flight simming per month, and that is time I want to use for actually flying and not for building scenery, as easy or hard as it may be.

Ok, good! ;-)

But, you are not "building" anything with Ortho4XP, you know?

You select a tile, or even a few (in batch mode), Ortho4XP does all the work, even shuts down the computer when it's done, and voilà, that's it. ;-) So, you can let it create awesome photo scenery over night, or while you are at work. All for free!

You can add, activate and deactivate your photo scenery per tile on an OSM map in Ortho4XP, by clicking with the mouse on it.

You can even create custom areas with higher resolution per tile. Let's say, you create a tile with ZL16, but you want to have the area of an airport (or 2, or 3) to be in ZL17, 18, or even 19. You simply draw that area on the map and save it, "work done".

 

You might want to have a look at this video, it's by Catstrator, taken from one of his flights during the Flight Angels event. It's not about proper aircraft handling, but in it, you see the sheer beauty of ZL17 photo scenery, created with Ortho4XP. He is approaching LSGS (best skip to 55:00), and the scenery (including dense autogen and even XPX's fantasic night lighting) looks absolutely fantastic! Better than every payware I've seen so far. Even the mesh (HD Mesh v3, which is free-/ donationware) is just out of this world:

 

https://youtu.be/RGLCxkjBs0w

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I know :) I used a batch process for builiding the tiles for the Pilotedge area. But I won't do that again, because while the scenery can look good, there are still issues like differences in color/brightness, airports that don't line up and need additional exclusion zones etc.

 

I would rather pay someone for that work or fly over the normal HD scenery.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest Mik75

I know :) I used a batch process for builiding the tiles for the Pilotedge area. But I won't do that again, because while the scenery can look good, there are still issues like differences in color/brightness, airports that don't line up and need additional exclusion zones etc.

I would rather pay someone for that work or fly over the normal HD scenery.

Well then! ;-)

I just look at it the other way around:

The scenery looks fantastic, while there might be some areas, where colours don't match perfectly or 3D scenery doesn't line up perfectly with the photo scenery. Therefore, it costs absolutely nothing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

All up to personal taste. I am fully with Mik75 on this. I can generate about 12 tiles over night in ZL17. If I check the quality of the provider before I do so I will not be surprised by color issues. And for me even the occasional off color is not a big issue given what other details I get in return. But again, to each his own. I just doubt that you will get payware scenery of an ortho4xp comparable quality anytime in the near future. 


Hans

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Probably not, but that's ok for me. I can't complain about something that I potentially could solve myself if I was ok with investing the time.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest Mik75

All up to personal taste. I am fully with Mik75 on this. I can generate about 12 tiles over night in ZL17. If I check the quality of the provider before I do so I will not be surprised by color issues. And for me even the occasional off color is not a big issue given what other details I get in return. But again, to each his own. I just doubt that you will get payware scenery of an ortho4xp comparable quality anytime in the near future.

 

That's it! It's the best what you can get right now, and it is breathtakingly beautiful, and completely free! Maybe that's the problem! ;-)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest

 

 


it is breathtakingly beautiful

 

Well, that depends on the quality, I guess. I downloaded and also created some tiles that looked absolutely horrible imho. It's all very objective. :wink: It's great to have all these options though!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Jeroen, name me a tile you tried and which turned out horrible and I am happy to replicate it for you. Sometimes it's a little thing that spoils the result. 


Hans

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...