Has anyone tried the SceneryTech landclass?

[Guest JimC1702]

I've already invested in both the Xclass and FSGenesis landclasses and each have their good and bad points. SceneryTech is more expensive that the other two and I really don't want to buy a third landclass without some feedback.Thanks,Jim

[Guest Derek D]

Hello, I'm the founder of SceneryTech so I may be qualified to answer some of your questions ;). The North America Landclass was released only a couple days ago so you may have to wait a bit for user feedback, but I'll try to answer your questions in the meantime.It's true that SceneryTech's landclass is a little late on the scene, since there are a couple other landclass products on the market. However I would like to draw attention to a couple big aspects of our scenery.First of all the landclass is processed using a more detailed land classification scheme which contains hundreds of different terrain types, as opposed to the standard FS scheme which only has 96. Since we start off with a larger "palette" of terrain we have more control over how the dataset gets downsampled to work in FS, rather than abiding by the 1-to-1 mapping that most other products use. It takes longer to make a landclass this way but it also allows us to deal with the "desert problem." You may or may not be aware of the unusually high amount of desert-looking textures in the default landclass, but the initial motivation behind creating our landclass was to clean up a lot of the misplaced deserts.Fixing the desert problem also required us to revise the slope landclass, and although this wasn't originally intended to be a part of the product we found that it greatly improved the texture transitions on slopes. No other payware landclass offers this feature.As a last touch we also decided to put a lot of energy into increasing the number of towns and cities as well improving the accuracy of their extents. We used a special algorithm that applies a gradient of sorts to urban areas, so you may find an urban highrise at the center of a city which then tapers off into a medium-dense urban area, then large and medium-sized suburbs, then a smattering of small suburbs on the outskirts.So a large part of what differentiates our landclass from competitors is the intricate processing tricks we used to generate the landclass. Marketing-speak aside, the product is wrapped in the Flight1 wrapper which offers a 30-day money back guarantee, so you can try out the product with peace of mind.Derek D.

[Geofa 108]

Thanks for the info Derek! It sounds great....I was in the same boat as Jim.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

[Guest Derek D]

No problem :).

[Guest weeniemcween]

As the improved slope landclass rather intrigued me, I had to take the plunge. At this point, I have all three us/north america landclass add ons: from Cloud9, FSGenesis, and now SceneryTech. I have to say that this last one beats the first two hands down. While the Cloud9 offering is heavy on urbanization, and the FSGenesis more on even vegetation, SceneryTech's does both equally well and has the smoothest transitions. I'm guessing this has to do with the three advertised features, being the slope landclass, increased number of landclass definitions allowing for a greater "palette", and wider data set. Again, the transitions are much more natural and easily visible divisions of landclass are now the exception rather than the norm.I took a few screenshots of areas which I thought really exemplified this strength. Obviously the sf260 is from Realair and the mesh is the FSGenesis North America terrain mesh at 19m resolution.Near Vancouver in February.http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/we...techsample1.jpgSedona, AZ in August.http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/we...techsample2.jpgNear Jacksonville, FLhttp://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/we...techsample3.jpgAnd my favorite. Putney, VThttp://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/we...techsample4.jpg But no hard feelings. FSG has the best mesh, Cloud9 perhaps the best fsx airport - Bergen - tied with flytampa's Princess Juliana, and now SceneryTech has the best landclass. Thanks, Derek!

[Alvega 2,124]

Is it just for the US or can we expect a Worldwide release?

[Guest Derek D]

Thanks for the kind remarks weeniemcween. You have a really nice machine for FS, you managed to impress me with those screenshots :-lol.

[Guest Derek D]

The North America Landclass includes more than just the US. It includes Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Central America, and the islands of the Caribbean. And this is the first in a set of six, which will include South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Indo-Pacific. So yes, the whole world will be covered in due time :-).

[Geofa 108]

Derek-I just bought it but when I try to install I get the error message that I need >net framework version 1.1.4322.I am running Vista and have Net 2.0. I am unsure what to do about this.Thanks for any assistance.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

[Alvega 2,124]

>The North America Landclass includes more than just the US. >It includes Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Central America, and>the islands of the Caribbean. And this is the first in a set>of six, which will include South America, Europe, Asia,>Africa, and Indo-Pacific. So yes, the whole world will be>covered in due time :-).Thanks for your answer, Derek.

[Guest JimC1702]

Well, I gave it a try, but unfortunately I'm very disappointed. Don't get me wrong, it LOOKS great. But, where I live it is the most inaccurate of the three landclasses I've tried. I'm in Fulton County in upstate NY. The cities of Gloversville and Johnstown, Amsterdam, Schenectady and Albany look fine. But the many small villages are totally non-existent. Mayfield, Broadalbin, Northville, Fonda, Fultonville, Tribes Hill, Fort Hunter, Canajoharie, Palatine Bridge, Fort Plain, Nelliston simply don't exist at all, and those are just from my short preliminary flight.The whole area is way too wooded and desolate. It should look more like the quilt of rural farmland as depicted in the other two landclasses. I will check it out more in the next few days, but at this point, I'll probably be getting a refund. Again, it looks fantastic, but I like to fly in my home area and it's just way to inaccurate.Jim

[Guest Derek D]

Yes unfortunately there are compatibility problems with the installer and Windows Vista that we are trying to hammer out. Check your mail...

[Guest Derek D]

I'm sorry to hear you are disappointed. We try to maintain accuracy in as many locations as possible, despite the incredible challenge of doing so, so all I can say at this point is to please send us a mail containing the problematic coordinates as well as what you believe the area should look like. Future versions of the scenery will take these reports into consideration.Derek D.

[Guest BOPrey]

Can you post some pix of the Grand Canyon? It looks better than the xclass I am using.

[rpowers 5]

I also have Cloud9 & FS Genesis LC.I have disabled xclass for US in the scenery library, and am using Fsgenesis.Have always liked Justin's products.It looks like fsgenesis installed in add on sceneryscenery folder.Can I make new folder for this and install it thru the scenery library and then I can disable it like I do xclass and try this new LC?Thanks,Ron