The Ortho looks great in rolling hills and green valleys with lots of trees, and even green valleys with no trees, but I have mixed feelings about everywhere else. I really think they bean counted the bandwidth just a bit too much, they should give us the option to at least use higher res near the airports at the minimum. 

I'm watching my bandwidth usage and its tiny, I could run this entire app out of just a few data center co-location plans very easily, wouldn't even need Azure with the low bandwidth usage.

 

Edited August 23, 20205 yr by SceneryFX

49 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

The overlay is good in MSFS, but the quality of the ortho can be pretty dreadful. Firstly, its Bing - which is way behind Google and Arc for mostbof the world - and secondly Its streamed.

The sins of the ortho are partially hidden by the nice houses and insane number of trees placed everywhere. But if you look, the ortho itself is often not a pretty sight. Nothing like the ZL17 you mention building yourself.

Yes, but you're missing the point that their server data isnt going to sit still.  They already mentioned that they plan to update on a semi-monthly basis rolling out regions.  And when they update - everyone gets it without having to lift a finger.  And you can be pretty sure they'll do it because its not that big a deal on their end.  Its kind of like the software updates on a Tesla that just pop in through the ether overnight 😉

I loved my ZL17 but the only people who could see it were me and anyone else who dealt with Ortho4xp and did the same thing.  And it did take a TON of space for just the US & Canada (I backed up onto an 8TB external drive).

One can critique the state of play as it is right now - 5 days after release.  But you'ld be foolish to ignore the ease of upgrading scenery for the entire entire user base at once if you're making an argument comparing the two sims.  The only thing comparable that Laminar has is the Gateway, and that's only for airports - and its only updated automatically for the user base at a new release.

Given that they're giving us the entire world, its a given that there will be areas that can be surpassed in quality by a really dedicated X-Plane user, but I dont think it will stay that way for long.

 

 

I feel like a lot of XP11 and P3D loyal have a very short vision. They are only judging the sim for what it is has now and ignore all the potential is has. In a year or so, P3D and XP11 will look like dinosaur.

1 minute ago, VFXSimmer said:

One can critique the state of play as it is right now - 5 days after release.  But you'ld be foolish to ignore the ease of upgrading scenery for the entire entire user base at once if you're making an argument comparing the two sims.  The only thing comparable that Laminar has is the Gateway, and that's only for airports - and its only updated automatically for the user base at a new release.

Given that they're giving us the entire world, its a given that there will be areas that can be surpassed in quality by a really dedicated X-Plane user, but I dont think it will stay that way for long.

They just need a monthly option for $5 month or something and allow us to download 60cm at least. The only reason the ground isn't all "noisy looking" like some of the other lower res ortho is because NAIP has a very noisy look to it, and Bing downscaled all the imagery. When you downscale it from a higher res, it's not nearly as noisy looking. The reason is because you can process it with unsharp masks before you downres it, and then it comes out much cleaner like the Bing is.

Even though it's somewhat clean looking, it's really unexcusably low res and it really shows when there are no trees. Mountains are one of the best things about flying to me, and it ruins the immersion in many places.

 

18 minutes ago, ShawnG said:

to be completely fair, if you asked me 5 or even 2 years ago what I thought about ortho or photoreal, I would have told you I hated it.  flat, no 3d objects, takes up all your HDD space for a small geographical area, ortho made by different sources don't match, used a lot of memory, no seasons, yada yada.  So up until Tuesday, I was definitely in the ORBX global landclass "plausible world" camp.  But credit where due, MSFS has solved the vast majority of those issues with how they've done it.  there are small issues with the ortho in different areas, and there isn't seasons yet.  But I'm on board, opinions changing when presented with new evidence...  Austin is a harder nut to crack than me though.  

Oh completely agree. I remember when I first saw ortho. Looked good from high up but low down was just nonsense. Asobo found a way to cover most of the bad parts of rtho. 

The greatest trick the devil (M$) ever pulled was convincing the world Ortho didn't exist.

1 minute ago, SceneryFX said:

They just need a monthly option for $5 month or something and allow us to download 60cm at least. The only reason the ground isn't all "noisy looking" like some of the other lower res ortho is because NAIP has a very noisy look to it, and Bing downscaled all the imagery. When you downscale it from a higher res, it's not nearly as noisy looking. The reason is because you can process it with unsharp masks before you downres it, and then it comes out much cleaner like the Bing is.

Even though it's somewhat clean looking, it's really unexcusably low res and it really shows when there are no trees. Mountains are one of the best things about flying to me, and it ruins the immersion in many places.

 

Yeah, I dont disagree that I'd prefer higher res in both ortho and mesh.  I'd love to see them set up an option to stream a more detailed version if your internet and machine can handle it.  As with anything server based though, you have to let it stabilize to see what the real numbers are before opening the pipe more.

1 hour ago, OzWhitey said:

The sins of the ortho are partially hidden by the nice houses and insane number of trees placed everywhere. But if you look, the ortho itself is often not a pretty sight.

I mean who cares as long as its hidden away nicely as in most cases for MSFS. Asobo will be doing region updates which will include imagery sourced from outside Bing where it's particularly weak.

Just now, Slides said:

I mean who cares as long as its hidden away nicely as in most cases for MSFS. Asobo will be doing region updates which will include imagery sourced from outside Bing where it's particularly weak.

It's really not hidden, I think you must be mostly flying around Seattle or really green areas where it is hidden.

1 minute ago, SceneryFX said:

It's really not hidden, I think you must be mostly flying around Seattle or really green areas where it is hidden.

Nope. I'm flying all over the place. 

 

We must be playing two different games, look at the color just NW of KPDX...

I'll grab SLC in a minute, and I've seen some even worse places than this...

These aren't minor airports nor is the off-color in small areas, sometimes it extends miles and miles.

This one shot has 3-4 different color zones and contrast that is exactly opposite from one side to another.

Edited August 23, 20205 yr by SceneryFX

26 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

Yes, but you're missing the point that their server data isnt going to sit still...

Given that they're giving us the entire world, its a given that there will be areas that can be surpassed in quality by a really dedicated X-Plane user, but I dont think it will stay that way for long.

 

 

Yes Sir. Exactly that.

 

33 minutes ago, SceneryFX said:

There is much much higher quality Ortho out there than what is currently in MSFS. I do not think MSFS has solved the problem at all, there are mismatched and off-colored tiles all over the map if you fly around enough. There is an almost NEON green giant tile right near KPDX Portland. The SLC International Airport is on a completely different color tile than the rest of the area. There are some black lines in some areas, some really weird mesh distortions, and I haven't even been flying that far yet, I've mostly done short trips.

I guess these are the areas you are talking about.  matched? of course not.  but hateful? not really.  and I saw nothing that was NEON green... 

40 minutes ago, Adrian123 said:

Competition is always good for the consumer.

Eh, not completely:

https://www.androidauthority.com/competition-bad-consumers-578882/

One problem that's mentioned in this article (and there are hundreds of similar articles just like this) is that competition creates a lack of standardization. For example, think about the good old BGL file standard that MS created. LM started meddling with it and P3d5 has a different flavor of BGL files. Then MS/Asobo turned around and changed it again.  And LR doesn't use it at all. 

6 minutes ago, ShawnG said:

and I saw nothing that was NEON green...

Maybe it was at night. 😉

Those don't look good at all, so not sure how you find that acceptable, but yes depending on the angle of the sun, there are definitely neon green tiles in many places, including Oregon and Idaho, and I haven't even flown all around.
 

Sure if you are flying in the evening it hides it more, or if there are clouds, but it still looks bad either way.