Where are all our major scenery developers?

[bean_sprout 1,201]

Regardless of where teams are at, MSFS will likely be a target.

Regards

bs

Edited June 29, 2021 by bean_sprout

[Bigsby 64]

On 6/28/2021 at 6:57 PM, Richard Sennett said:

KBOS is a big one for me - Developer mentioned in FT forum mentioned KBOS is second in line - something else first cant remember which one - east coast doesnt get much luv 😞 especially from ORBX  

Ditto KBOS.suprised it's taken so long

 

[steve310002 1,198]

20 hours ago, virtuali said:

It is a lot of work

Can't wait to see GSX in action! It's the addon I am most looking forward to in MSFS. Any chance of a sneak peak? 

[abrams_tank 7,424]

18 hours ago, avistudent said:

Because the freeware community is now dominating the market share, producing quality airports that are usually almost as good as payware.  For example, Gatwick by mkvy over at flightsim.to.

The freeware community has some select airports that are payware quality, mostly the more popular airports such as Gatwick.  However, a lot of major airports are missing around the world still, and when the freeware community attempts some airports, the outcome is sometimes not good at all.  For example, there was a freeware version of VHHH, and it was pretty disappointing (but it was free so we should still appreciate the work put in). Then VHHH is released by a professional developer (WF Scenery Studio), and the payware version is 100x better than the freeware version (FYI, I still appreciate the time the freeware developer of VHHH put in to make that airport, we should appreciate all the time the freeware developers use because it makes MSFS so much better).  

The amount of hours a developer needs to spend to create anything that is "payware" quality is absurd.  Whoever made the Gatwick freeware airport, that person (or persons) put in the time to do it.  Likewise, it takes a whole massive team of developers to make the FBW A320 as good as it is now.  I think for the next 3 years though, the payware developers will still have the upper hand because of the number of hours it takes to make "payware" quality stuff.  For example, without WF Scenery Studio, I think I would be waiting another 4 years until something even 70% of the quality of WF Scenery Studio's VHHH came out for freeware.

Edited June 30, 2021 by abrams_tank

[Ricardo41 5,949]

17 hours ago, PATCO LCH said:

IMHO MSFS looks so real I just don’t see much need for add on scenery. As stated above even the stock airports are acceptable I don’t see me going to the expense and storage of a bunch of sceneries. I scoffed at the insinuation MSFS might put several types of developers on the skids but I see what they meant after getting MSFS.

I agree and have to say I'm extremely angry at myself for having spent hundreds, probably thousands of $$$$ on addon airports for FSX and P3D.

The only scenery I'm going to buy is global stuff like Zinertek and REX, or if something truly new and innovative is released.

And, sorry, modeling the inside of Hangar 78, located in the Far East corner of an airport, or having a bunch of grandmas shuffle across the tarmac as "passengers" doesn't count as innovation in my book.

[micstatic 4,319]

1 hour ago, Ricardo41 said:

I agree and have to say I'm extremely angry at myself for having spent hundreds, probably thousands of $$$$ on addon airports for FSX and P3D.

The only scenery I'm going to buy is global stuff like Zinertek and REX, or if something truly new and innovative is released.

And, sorry, modeling the inside of Hangar 78, located in the Far East corner of an airport, or having a bunch of grandmas shuffle across the tarmac as "passengers" doesn't count as innovation in my book.

Why be disappointed?  If you are like most of us you got good use out of them. That’s like going out to a restaurant and being disappointed the day later because you spent money on food that’s now gone   Anyway I appreciate the freeware and all the work they do  but given the choice I’d rather have top tier addons even at a cost  

 

[mikeymike 362]

3 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

The freeware community has some select airports that are payware quality, mostly the more popular airports such as Gatwick.  However, a lot of major airports are missing around the world still, and when the freeware community attempts some airports, the outcome is sometimes not good at all.  For example, there was a freeware version of VHHH, and it was pretty disappointing (but it was free so we should still appreciate the work put in). Then VHHH is released by a professional developer (WF Scenery Studio), and the payware version is 100x better than the freeware version (FYI, I still appreciate the time the freeware developer of VHHH put in to make that airport, we should appreciate all the time the freeware developers use because it makes MSFS so much better).  

The amount of hours a developer needs to spend to create anything that is "payware" quality is absurd.  Whoever made the Gatwick freeware airport, that person (or persons) put in the time to do it.  Likewise, it takes a whole massive team of developers to make the FBW A320 as good as it is now.  I think for the next 3 years though, the payware developers will still have the upper hand because of the number of hours it takes to make "payware" quality stuff.  For example, without WF Scenery Studio, I think I would be waiting another 4 years until something even 70% of the quality of WF Scenery Studio's VHHH came out for freeware.

Can you please name a few good airport sceneries?

im still a virgin with msfs 

thanks 

mike

[Noel 4,503]

On 6/28/2021 at 4:54 PM, Bobsk8 said:

The way MSFS 2020 looks now, I seriously doubt if I will buy any scenery again. The default airports look like P3D payware. 

Me2, especially when Orbx doesn't even bother to strive to retain auto-tuning of ILS frequencies like most all default airports feature.  Hopefully they're going to fix this I've hounded them enough already we'll see.  FSDreamTeam does, and so does Roman Design of Canada (CYOW very nicely done).  For me unless I intimately know the airport, or it's an airport I'm frequently flying in or out of, the default airports are so good I hardly see the point.  Even regional sceneries seem silly to consider. My sense is the scenery engine is such that as data improves (Bing, photogrammetry, etc) this will likely be reflected in MSFS.

What is needed most now are excellent utilities like FSCaptain, Ground Services X, flight planners, ATC, real world AI liveries, and of course PMDG aircraft.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Noel

[Bobsk8 12,735]

4 minutes ago, Noel said:

Me2, especially when Orbx doesn't even bother to strive to retain auto-tuning of ILS frequencies like most all default airports feature.  Hopefully they're going to fix this I've hounded them enough already we'll see.  FSDreamTeam does, and so does Roman Design of Canada (CYOW very nicely done).  For me unless I intimately know the airport, or it's an airport I'm frequently flying in or out of, the default airports are so good I hardly see the point.  Even regional sceneries seem silly to consider. My sense is the scenery engine is such that as data improves (Bing, photogrammetry, etc) this will likely be reflected in MSFS.

What is needed most now are excellent utilities like FSCaptain, Ground Services X, flight planners, ATC, real world AI liveries, and of course PMDG aircraft.

I flew into a default airport last night in the DC6, KRDD in California. There were cars parked all over, aircraft parked, nice looking buildings, etc. Looked like an Orbx airport and it cost me nothing. I love the default airports. 

[Drumcode 1,893]

On 6/28/2021 at 1:06 PM, Dillon said:

From FlyTampa, FSDreamteam, to FlightBeam it seems they have gone dark in the last few months concerning FS2020. 

I am only just assuming, but perhaps they had all of these already released projects in the pipe since around the alpha dropped and by the time it released, they all finished their work hence the reason for the increased number of releases early on.

[Noel 4,503]

23 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I flew into a default airport last night in the DC6, KRDD in California. There were cars parked all over, aircraft parked, nice looking buildings, etc. Looked like an Orbx airport and it cost me nothing. I love the default airports. 

We were burned out of the nearby (70m south of KRDD) town of Paradise CA on Nov 8, 2018, and one other utility I would want to see is FireFighterX for MSFS.  I have a morbid curiosity of fires in California after that ordeal that nearly killed us during the harrowing evacuation.  We literally drove thru fire blowing across one road and left two vehicles twice trying to figure out which way to run (haha, nice try) as fire was encroaching and traffic stopped.  It took 3h to go 5 miles because the egress routes were all heavily impacted.

[abrams_tank 7,424]

2 hours ago, mikeymike said:

Can you please name a few good airport sceneries?

im still a virgin with msfs 

thanks 

mike

Hi, so first and foremost, I am mostly familiar with the airports that I purchased.  For CYVR, I own by the FSDreamTeam and FSimStudios version.  Both versions are good, although the FSimStudios version is probably better (but the FSimStudios version of CYVR also takes up more space I think, so it may be a little harsher on your FPS).

For freeware airports, people have said many good things about Gatwick and from the pictures I have seen of the freeware version Gatwick, it looks very nice.  You can search for it at flightsim.to.

Also, many people have said good things about the FSDreamTeam version of Keywest when it was released.  So you may want to check it out.

[regis9 4,014]

1 hour ago, Noel said:

one other utility I would want to see is FireFighterX for MSFS

This would be great to see in MSFS for sure. Even if someone is not interested in fighting the fires, having real time fire inserted into MSFS would be fantastic.

[Kilo60 660]

FLYTampa has been dead lately!

 

Really want their KBOS and Dubai Airports for MSFS!

[bbsmitz 132]

14 hours ago, mikeymike said:

Can you please name a few good airport sceneries?

im still a virgin with msfs 

thanks 

mike

So, here are a thread where a bunch are listed.  Some are out of date, but others are still solid.

1)  https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/590393-best-freeware-airports-for-msfs2020/

Also off the top of my head,

 

2)  Aerosoft Paderborn - https://www.aerosoft.com/en/flight-simulation/news/1st-aerosoft-dlc-for-the-new-msfs-for-free

3) NZA Simulations has a bunch of freeware - https://nzasimulations.com/shop

4)  Orbx also - https://orbxdirect.com/freeware

5)  Flightsim.to has a myriad of things.  If you sort by most downloaded, you can usually find some of the best stuff.  A lot is laid out in the first thread I posted.  SDR's stuff is phenomenal, Alex's as well.  Alex also has a payware site where you can pick up all his stuff for 24 euros - https://beautifulmodelworld.ru/.  

Aside from airports.

6)  We love VFR 1 (Europe) and 2 (North America) by @PuffinFlight is just spectacular.  Antennas, radars, chimneys etc.

7) Aircraft - Working Title CJ4, and FWB A320 are probably the best freeware airliners currently.  Honestly probably the best available currently along with the payware CRJ.

😎 There is also a bunch of addon mesh you can download to help get rid of the morphing.  Just search 'DEM'.

9) Last but not least, the Addon Linker is lets you keep all of this organized in a folder outside of your community directory, so you can only enable the mods you want to cut down on loading time.  Has a map of your addons too!  A must have IMO.

I think that's it off the top of my head.  Anyone have any to add, I'd love to hear it.