Makes sense what you say.

Personally I only do airliner flying online on Vatsim in Europe but despite spending most of the time at FL300+ I really can't take the generated scenery anymore when I know how good it can look with photo scenery.

Will give FSEarthTiles a go. Checked some videos on YouTube and even if it's lots more work for me it will be worth it to get away from generated scenery.

I wonder if the absence of a Ortho4FSX/P3D is for technical reasons or simply because no one tried to develop such a tool?

If it's technically possible here's me wishing a developer with the right skills reads this thread and decides to do it. I'm pretty sure this guy or girl would become a true hero within the FSX/P3D community!

Beside MS Earth packages , which I use for Europe , you could check Blue Marble NG.

From about 30000 ft and up you will see photoscenery for the whole world..

Blue Marble NG has 2x resolution of Blue Marble.

https://forums.chrisbelldesigns.com/topic/289-blue-marble/

I have a similar experience, from FSX to XP to P3D.

Ortho4XP is good, but the combination with World2XP makes it truely great. This combination of photo real ground texture with 3D objects from OSM data is unmatched in other sims.

I have used FsEarthtile, but to creat shore line and water mask is too challenge for me. For Ortho4XP, this is all automated.

And it's extremely difficult to add accurate 3D objects on top of the photo scenery created by FsEarthtile. Any suggestions how to overcome this difficulty?

1 hour ago, GSalden said:

Beside MS Earth packages , which I use for Europe .

Really...? I only have the MS Earth Germany package, but with its extended cloud fields and hard color transitions at tiles boundaries I considered this the worst investment I ever made for flight simulation. I even bought some autogen addon which, however, was equally poor. I uninstalled it the same day and never touched it again.

Currently, I use FTX Germany (North for now) which may be evil landclass-based but overall looks 500 % better when flying VFR.

Unfortunately, all approaches making really premium photo scenery for FSX/ESP-based simulators like Earthsimulations or Ultimate VFR failed. Maybe not without a reason.

Kind regards, Michael

MSE Germany I have improved by remaking some "bad areas " again with FSET.

I did not like some places where there was snow, while the rest was spring/summer.

Also I have improved color transitions in this way .

And I remade the complete Ammersee as half of it was covered with clouds.

It took me 2 weeks but I am satisfied now.

Regarding flying with photoscenery with an improved TileProxy :

WorldTerrain https://www.avsim.com/forums/forum/787-world-terrain/

I checked MSE out but when I saw the price where you'll have to pay about $100 for a single country and apparently still not get a perfect result I'm not that tempted. Also I read about people who tried to get in touch with the developers where they reported not even getting an answer...that made me even less interested in that product line.

As for WorldTerrain now that seems to be a very interesting product but since the forum was closed by Avsim waiting for the developer to show proof all the legal parts are in place I'm not sure if I dare to invest my money there at this point. Also with this product I read about people not very happy about not getting any replies when trying to get in touch with the developer. On top of this I noticed how people was talking about a price of $49 but checking the developer's site the price is now almost the double at $95 with an additional $10 per year subscription. The combination of a hugely increased price and silence from the developer when people try to get in touch with him certainly won't ring any good bells in my ears.

Looking at FSEarthTile that seems to be quite close to what Ortho4XP is for XP but in a less sophisticated form where you'll have to invest quite an amount of time adjusting things like the water stuff on your own making it a rather daunting task if you plan to have photo scenery for huge areas.

Haven't had the time to read up on this Blue Marble thing but will do.

Now when we're in 2017 and decades after the first versions of flight simulators were released and with all amazing data and technology available I find it a bit sad we need to have these kind of discussions going on rather than literally enjoy flying over our own houses down there. IMHO the evolution in this regard has been far to slow within our hobby.

The guy behind World Terrain to me seems to be one of those people that really tried to change all this and do something about it. Too bad though if he didn't make sure to have the legal aspects in place before doing so crippling the project.

So...maybe I'll just have to carry on flying over the rather dull and computer generated scenery just like I did for the last 20+ years although it looks a bit more real today of course compared to what it looked like 20 years ago.

The single one question I'm still most interested in is why there isn't a Ortho4FSX/P3D available and again if that is because of technical limitations on this platform or if it's for other reasons. I which I was a developer myself with the right skills. Then I would have been happy to develop an Ortho4FSX/XP myself and share with all you guys.

The maker of World Terrain seems to be the same as the one who made TileProxy , Christian Buchner....

3 hours ago, GSalden said:

Regarding flying with photoscenery with an improved TileProxy :

WorldTerrain https://www.avsim.com/forums/forum/787-world-terrain/

The YouTube video certainly looks interesting.

3 hours ago, GSalden said:

Regarding flying with photoscenery with an improved TileProxy :

WorldTerrain https://www.avsim.com/forums/forum/787-world-terrain/

Doesn't work with v4.

I have some good news regarding World Terrain where I sent the developer a message yesterday and already today I received a very positive reply they have been busy improving things and will relaunch with a new partner and distributor. He also informed me they have been working on improved autogen.

Looking forward to try it out.

Just now, newtie said:

Doesn't work with v4.

OK, although that's not a problem for me still using P3Dv3 it sounds odd they wouldn't support P3Dv4 so I guess that will come in the near future.

6 hours ago, pmb said:

I only have the MS Earth Germany package, but with its extended cloud fields and hard color transitions at tiles boundaries I considered this the worst investment I ever made for flight simulation.

Same here, Michael. I even made the mistake to also buy their Switzerland scenery, equally poor.

Maybe for you and Gerard, there is a better solution available for free! I use it now for quite some time, in Germany I use this photoscenery together with the ORBX Germany North scenery. Here is the link:

http://italyphotoreal.weebly.com/download.html

It covers all of Europe from the UK down to Greece with 2m/pixel and looks quite nice. Italy is covered with 1m/pixel. It also has its own free autogen.

The only problem is, it's free . Because this means, you have to download the respective tiles you want to have, tile by tile and install them then manually on your HD. The same goes for autogen. But I can assure you, at least for me it was well worth the effort.

Here is, how ORBX GEN and this photoscenery look together over part of Berlin:

 

And here it's somewhere over Switzerland:

 

There are several offerings of photoreal if you look around.  In some ways I have to agree in 2017 you think the whole world could be modeled in photoreal but in the real world that is still not possible at least on our platforms.  I have in contact with the USGS in Alaska and they admit (the US Government), does not have aerial imagery of their state... only small parts.

Her Gerard, how long do you "guesstimate" it took you to create Belgium?  btw... fantastic!

Why do you guys think several photoreal developers "failed" as a simmer here put it?  Are simmers not wanting the detail (like veg & 3D structures), they usually claim they need? MSE keeps chugging along and offer only the ground with no 3D scenery, veg, seasons or night lighting?  It less more here or are simmers really interested and will to pay for more detailed scenery?   I guess France VFR comes to mind as a sucess.

For Switzerland I use Swiss Pro from AS , as indeed the MSE version is not that good.

 

Here my list :

MSE : Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal

Scenerybox : France

GenX : UK 

Freeware : Austria

Swiss Pro : Switzerland

All of my countries have custom AG. Some payware ( OpenVFR , Prealsoft) , some freeware and some I have combined into 1 set per country with specialised apps. 

 

For the rest of the countries I have : FTX Global , FTX Vector ( lights disabled ), FTX OpenLC EU 

For the night lights I use : Night Environement + Black Marble

 

I am continuously working on improving how my scenery is looking, I use my custom PTA and p3d.cfg files for different weather /scenery situations.

Especially at night :   https://forums.chrisbelldesigns.com/topic/464-hurghada-amsterdam-screenshots/

and

Nice :

Here daytime over Gorinchem ( my hometown in the Netherlands )

 Regards, Gerard