woodsonl

I'm just a guy trying to make a living pleasing flight simmers. I do my best like everyone. The scenery I make has been described to me in the range of awful to excellent. I failed with Sim Savvy and I am trying again with MegaSceneryEarth. I am one of a few people willing and able to make photoreal scenery. I am sorry if you think I ###### on you. And our new scenery does have water masking. Larry

Thank you all for your help. I think we have it. http://www.sim-savvy.com/Downloads/Connecticut_South1.zip http://www.sim-savvy.com/Downloads/Connecticut_South2.zip The night scenery is next. Larry

Ok How do I upload and post a picture to this forum? I have to search hard everytime and I can't find it this time. Found it. Here is a night shot Thank you for the blending info also.

I have completed an attempt at the night scenery. It is quite different from the default night lighting technique used by others. The roads serve as my street lights with a process that is fast and simple to do. Please try my sample and let me know what you think about my results. The area done is Southern Connecticut KBDR. The water masking has not been blended yet and a few lakes need to be removed still. http://www.sim-savvy.com/Downloads/CT_South_Sample.zip Thanks Larry

Of course, it always gets better as long as we keep trying. Perhaps someday you can open your window look out and wave and see yourself doing that on the simulator :) For now I would settle for a great watermask and blend. Below is the SDK sample blendmask and below that is mine and finally the results I'm looking for help again

Thank you. You said the M word. It's OK. I have signed a contract to produce scenery for MegaScenery and finish the continental US for them. Their previous producer is no longer interested in the project. As mentioned, I have a competent partner now and that will prove to be the difference between the quality of my current product and MegaScenery. MegaScenery has made it clear that I can continue my product but it is a gray area. Working on their product will improve my abilities to improve my own product. Adding a watermask to Sim Savvy involves re-doing the product entirely. My current product took 5 computers 6 months 24/7 to complete. So you see the customer effort mentioned above is the best option at this time. It looks like Petraeus will give us a start. Finally, regarding the night scenery, thank you. That's exactly what we're going to do.

That was the point I was trying to make. My income from sales does not allow me to work my product full time. I do plan on making an income with this next effort. I already have a partner and we are commited to providing quality water masking & night scenery for the sim community. You will continue to get support from Sim Savvy but no improvements to the product are planned at this time. The water masking technique mentioned above and customer help is a viable option and has been discussed in the past. However, organizing such an effort can be time consuming and frustrating when people fail to deliver.

We do want and need that process very much Petraeus. I can post it on my website if you like. I am after high quality and the blend mask is what I was looking for and will be using most likely. But I will test all methods I can find to use the quickest one that has reasonable quality . If we can make this a freeware project that many can contribute to, it would be best. Because. I will be signing a software publishing agreement and the scenery will be produced for that venue, not Sim Savvy. And the company I'll be producing for is monitoring this forum so please be kind :) Larry

Thank you guys already for the help and encouragement. You both asked who the company is and it is their wish to make sure I can actually produce before announcement. I can tell you they were left high & dry and I aim to help them make a comeback. Masking means anything with a certain color (white for me) will show through to the default scenery. I currently create the Geotiff to resample in a GIS mapping program (Globalmapper). The first picture below is the scenery I'm trying to match. The next pictures are my attempts at creating a coastal polygon to match the aerials. I have a GIS shapefile of the ocean coastline that does not quite match the aerials. And the shapefile and aerials do not match the data used by Microsoft long ago. Having seen a blend between aerial & default water that is what I seek. Anyone seen that and possibly know how it's done :)

I've made a lot of simmers happy by providing photoreal scenery of the entire continental US. All of my customers wanted me to continue to improve the product with water masking and night scenery. However, my sales were not sufficient to justify my continuation of the project. But that has changed. I have been asked to continue for another company that makes photoreal scenery like mine. This time to include water masking and night scenery. I am ready and willing to begin except for one thing. I don't know how to make the night scenery and my water masking is not as good as the product I'm trying to replicate it for. That's why I'm seeking help. So please help me help you by leading me to the information I seek. Thanks Larry

I am a third party developer and a 3PD too. One of the new ones who is in it for the money.Arwen, I'm used to getting bashed at forums and now I like, and expect it.I am not a true simmer because I don't sim very often. I once used FSX to supplement my flight lessons and I made some photoreal for my own use. I saw huge numbers of flight sim forum members and assumed it was a large cottage industry, at least a million strong.A 1% market share would make me a rich man. It did not happen. My 300 sales were to hard core simmers found at forums like this one. I have never been able to reach the larger market of consumers who just want to fly easily without much knowledge. Microsoft Flight is an attempt to do just that. It is also common practice these days to hook a customer into a continual purchase scheme and Microsoft is no exception. The guys at MS do read these posts as a competent vendor should. But they do not respond because they are corporate "old school" and will continue to be. But as a flight sim vendor like Microsoft I would like to ask all of you these questions.1 Why don't you just buy another flight simulator program? It's the only game in town.2 Why should I make and sell a product for you in the first place? It's a trade and we both get what we want.3 Do you think I'm producing something that is not the best I can do? Why would I do thatMy point is, you guys (and girls) want something better and you probably won't get it with MS Flight.4 Do you expect me to believe that someone can't produce a better flight sim program? With 300 sales waiting someone could get rich.If it sounds like a whiner it is :)

Yes, the scenery has been completed for two months now and everyone who has purchased since has gotten the full product.My problem has been getting the upgraded scenery to previous customers. I had hoped sales would allow me to buy 2T drives to complete this process.But I'm stuck with 500G drives instead making the process drag along. About half the upgrade customers have sent me a drive for the full copy.But I still have 50 more people to upgrade with two more 500G batches of scenery. It actually worked well the first time around but not since.

My upgrade list is one ugly spreadsheet :)What else can I say? I'm just a little old scenery maker.And if anyone wants to take over it is free for the taking.SorryThe bold is stuck on my postings here for some reason.And I have to select view unicode to even see the postings :?

Sorry Michael. I did e-mail everyone several times and I assured them the upgrades would continue as promised.The third batch is not back yet. I'ts been about a month and I've contacted you about it's whereabouts.It should have been to you a couple weeks ago from James in New Jersey. This is my typical upgrade challenge.Why didn't I hear bach from you there but heard back about the forum the next day? I don't know and I'm not placing blame.Things have just not worked out. What everyone is missing is that there is no longer enough profit to support the product.I tried and did make another product for X-Plane. I received no response whatsoever in five days time with a news release.It's over for me but the photoreal community lives on and adapts. Thank you Michael for hosting the forum. I will see that you get your upgrade soon.Sim Savvy

I made some scenery for X-Plane and it worked well.But they have no compression scheme so one state would be 600G and have to run local on drive that the program is installed on.What comes after terabyte?

It did and the next one should be done by now, but

I forgot to change Vermont & New Hampshire to never expire.So now I have to put them back. (9 hours each)New Jersey just had the wrong name and it is working now.It's always something :)

I'm starting to notice a difference with the settings on the 1 meter (50cm) scenery.I installed to an older notebook and had to bump up the notebook resolution to get a good clear image.i7 has proven to be 3 to 10 times faster on all of my operations and it multi-tasks up to 6 things at a time.The USB 3.0 cut my load times in half as well as my file copy time which is reduced to 2.5 hrs from 5.As I finish the new 1 meter I wonder how many will load and if I'll reach a limit before I get to the 2T final.Fortunately, I can always declare Texas to be another country and make space that way :)

You can wait until the end to purchase. I think it will take me 4 more months.Now that I have all the aerials the first step is gone. The second step in the process is the time consuming one.To generate a grid of GeoTiff's to resample for one state takes one computer about 1 to 2 weeks to process (24/7)I currently have a primary contact in the UK who sends the upgrade drive back to me for reload after it has made the rounds.I'm trying to find a distributors internationally. Anyone willing please contact me.

I received this letter below from a customer who has found a good configuration using UTX.Can someone please add to this information? Hi Larry,I'm really glad to hear about progress on the upgrades, especially for Texas. At least 90% of my flights are within 200 miles of Houston. The higher definition will greatly help since I use a 67" DLP as a monitor. I think I mentioned before, Sim Savvy works really well with Ultimate Terrain X. Savvy and UTX are great companion products. "Savvy by day, UTX by night!" Everything between the two line up perfectly, even the vehicle traffic on the numerous back roads. UTX corrected many FSX default object locations so, for example, major sports stadiums are placed perfectly with Savvy's parking lots, etc. I think you have cured me from Auto-Gen scenery. Now I keep Auto-Gen off even when I'm not on your photos. This allows me to crank up the object density for airport buildings etc to maximum. I switch your scenery off during night flights and let the UTX pick up from the layer below. It's hard to beat UTX night effects although the elevated UTX street lights actually will show on top of Savvy so your stuff is not totally dark at night. When it comes to water, the UTX water would align with Savvy's photos perfectly, but I have not been able to layer the UTX water on top of your photos. If that could be done, it would be a knock-out! Default FSX does not have the extensive rivers, coastlines, bayous, etc. that UTX does. You might consider nudging your resources in the direction of resolving water issues using UTX. I think the two products could really enhance each other! You have raised my FSX to a new level of realism. No longer do I worry about running off the edge of the photo world after only a hundred miles are so. Your unlimited horizon is what sets Savvy apart from xxxx-xxxxx. I look forward to your upgrades. (I'm totally happy with what I've already gotten from you!)

I'm full of bad news today. I bought the aerials from EarthOnDrive. They do not really have Alaska & Hawaii and now that is my problem.They only had terrain data for Hawaii not aerials. I can get some from another commercial source but they will probably have to be freeware for that reason.They do have Alaska 1 meter in 1990 black & white. He claims they have a colorizing technique but I have little faith in that.They did have four counties in color but three were lousy color and the fourth was the size of 1/4 of Rhode Island.I will explore my options further before sending out a retraction. When it comes I will make good to my customers for my failure.And thank you for bringing it up.

First let me say it's great to have this dedicated forum to provide us all with help in the effort. The answer to your question about water masking is yes and no.I spent two days trying and I thought I had it but instead I just wrecked a weeks worth of work :(But I may have half the solution because I found an ocean shapefile layer that matches the photoreal pretty good.The problem and ultimate failure arose when I realized that FSX has coastal land placed where there really is none. So Travis gave me the next idea to try. But I don't have a week to spend on it so here is where the help comes in.His idea is to change the landclass and put water over the entire world leaving the terrain mesh.When I generate the Geotiff before resample I include the ocean layer that matches my photoreal and make the oceans white.In the resample I make the white transparent and the default ocean bleeds through.So all I need is for someone to tell me how to change that landclass. It's so simple for someone who has spent a week understanding it all.I am very busy trying to keep my promises to my customers and it's going well. But everytime I stop to do something else my current project suffers.Did that answer your question Ray?

That was one large step by Tom and one giant leap for PhotorealThank you all for making it happen. I'll go over there right now and start some fires :)

No news is bad news this time. I've just wasted a day trying to make it happen and it did not.I have a working forum on a European website but I can't even manage to turn it back on.Then apparently I deleted some files on my new server thinking I would never need them, but I do.I can't even uninstall to start over. But I can get the job done, IF I stop making & delivering scenery.And dedicate myself for the next 6 months to get the dang thing going.I am disappointed because I had great plans for the forum.But I simply cannot because I have the two jobs mentioned above.If someone out there wants to help me jump start you can contact me.But I must say I'm sceptical because NO ONE has completed a computer task for me yet.With the exception of my daughter in-law Kim who helped me with my spreadsheets last week.Sorry Mike. The ball (plane) is back in your court (destination)Sim Savvy

Sim Savvy says: We do need a support forum handled by someone more professional then me :)But I think it should be an all inclusive photoreal forum that would include other vendors and part-time enthusiasts also.You guys are the latter and I definetly need your help because I have reached the level where I simply cannot do more then I do.I used to make scenery all day and now I am lucky to respond to everyone's inquiries the same day.Technology advances so quickly just keeping up daily is a challenge and that is where a forum is extremely useful.I have lots of ideas to explore to create a better flight sim experience but they are on that long list of things to do.A forum would fast-track my ideas as well as those of others. I could dedicate 1 hour a day to such a forum.So here are the numbers. I've sold about 250 units to date. Most were sold since last May but the older customers are still with me.Megascenery & Blue Sky are the two vendors I strive to compete with and they both have substantial market share.And when you add the international photoreal vendors you now have enough players to justify a forum.The possibilities are endless. I have three items to start with. Water masking, color, distribution, all mentioned above.So who wants to run it?