What started as a simple little add-on for myself turned into a major, multi-year project.  The goal was not perfection but really 3-parts: immersion, performance and enjoyment.  I think I have accomplished this but the only way to make sure is to let others try it.

So I am seeking beta testers to fly simwestFOTOREAL.  We need all types of simmers with all types of platforms.  So if you fly with P3Dv4, v3, v2, v1 and/or FSX or FSX:SE and are interested in beta testing please send me an email at...

‘projects @ simwest . com’  (FYI - there are no spaces in the email address).  Please type ‘BetaTester’ for the Subject line.

Here are some development shots:

San Diego, California, USA is where I live so I thought it best to start there. 

 

Point Loma in San Diego showing KSAN ahead and to the right is North Island Naval Air Station. 

 

The town of Big Bear, California in the San Bernardino mountains.  It’s been said in winter you can ski the slopes in the morning and hit the beach for some sun in the afternoon!

 

Big Bear at a winter’s night.  Looks like the slopes are in full operation.  As you can see night lighting is "baked" into the scenery... not placed on top.

 

Albuquerque, New Mexico

 

KABQ, Albuquerque, New Mexico

 

Calexico, Mexico

 

200 Miles North of San Diego, California is the seaside town of Santa Barbara.

 

Santa Barbara, nightfall.

 

"The Valley" (San Fernando Valley),  is an area north of Los Angeles.  Who can remember the song 'Valley Girl"!?  Here we are at 30,000 feet.

 

Yuma, Arizona

 

The idea of simwestFOTOREAL was to serve as a scenery “base” where one could fly with it on its own or add higher detailed add-on airports.  Here is California’s Ontario airport KONT with the default airport.

 

We then “dropped in” Shez Ansari's superb KONT.  While we can’t guarantee all add-ons will match this good, but this one turned out nice.

 

Even little "fly-over" towns that you may never see are modeled.  This is small town of Holt, California.

 

Palm Springs, California

Well, no need for more as I am sure you get the idea.  Thank you for checking us out.

Clutch

 

My mouth just dropped....

Hi Clutch,

What a superb effort - from San Diego all the to Albuquerque to Santa Barbara - holy smokes - what an area to cover... Better start buying those Terabyte drives - fellas... I'm a poor choice for a beta tester - but - simply WOW - thoroughly impressed... Normally - I'm not a fan of photo real but that looks simply flawless... LOL - I guess you've truly mastered Arno's ScenProc... I wonder how long that would take to crunch... This looks like it will give ORBX's "True Earth" a run for the money... Best of luck to you...

Why can't any of the developers be from the Northeastern US [sigh] - LOL...

Regards,

Scott 

Edited November 19, 20187 yr by scottb613

WOW!  Will you be able to provide seasonal? 

Jaw duly dropped!

Wow...amazing.  Email sent

Try and drop in my KNYL Yuma scenery and KLGB scenery into it too. Looks like it would blend nicely.

Yeah! That Arizona pic looks delightful.

On 11/19/2018 at 3:32 PM, scottb613 said:

What a superb effort - from San Diego all the to Albuquerque to Santa Barbara - holy smokes - what an area to cover... Better start buying those Terabyte drives - fellas...

+1

Just to get a rough idea, Clutch, how large is California with its autogen? Is it at 1m/pixel?

Thank you guys for the words of encouragement.  Just to answer a few questions, the shots just represent what we are working on not that is it entirely one add-in.  If popular, we would roll out areas across the USA state-by-state (or by large area).

Seasons are planned based on area.  For example, in southern California we added winter snow for mountain areas but not entire fully developed seasons where it is mainly wet/dry seasons.  Else, that can make a release up to 5 times larger to include PR for each season completely.  I'm all for seasons, I actually prefer them but it will just depends.

At 1m/pp, that could make California 60-80GB, throw in all seasons up to 150-200GB (guestimates).  Thank goodness HDD are droppin' in prices!

When can we get our hands on this and what region will the first title cover? Will it blend well with Orbx/LatinVFR Airports in the Socal area?

Edited January 18, 20197 yr by mikced76

Thanks for the interest.  We are still beta testing.  Always takes longer than expected.  But I am sure you would rather have the issues on our end rather than your end 😀.  We are testing with different 3rd-party add-ons as well.  Some blend nicely (like LatinVFR's San Diego), others... well being different developers there will never be a perfect match but we are seeing encouraging results.

Do you have any shots of the Las Vegas or Phoenix area?

On 1/18/2019 at 10:12 AM, Clutch Cargo said:

Thanks for the interest.  We are still beta testing.  Always takes longer than expected.  But I am sure you would rather have the issues on our end rather than your end 😀.  We are testing with different 3rd-party add-ons as well.  Some blend nicely (like LatinVFR's San Diego), others... well being different developers there will never be a perfect match but we are seeing encouraging results.

You let the Cat out of the bag? I'm so glad, I am having a very hard time not saying anything 🙂

Would like to see this with FlyTampa's KLAS!