Photo Scenery Massachusetts out!

[Lionheart]

Hey all,


Did you guys know that the entire state of Massachusetts is out at MegaScenery Earth?

You know this includes Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket... Let alone, all the various airports and inland area's up to its inner boarders...


I wish I had known about this. I'm getting it tonight.. One of my fave flight runs is to Nantucket via the Cape from Logan International. Always wondered what was inland of the beaches..

http://www.megasceneryearth.com/store/cart.php?target=product&product_id=601&category_id=113


Bill

[harleyman]

Dang Bill...I fly that same route too sometimes....

I did it lots in FS9 as there were so many nice addons for marthas vinyard for it..


Thanks for the heads up.....

Let us know how you like it ...

[falcon409]

Hey all,


Did you guys know that the entire state of Massachusetts is out at MegaScenery Earth?

You know this includes Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket... Let alone, all the various airports and inland area's up to its inner boarders...


I wish I had known about this. I'm getting it tonight.. One of my fave flight runs is to Nantucket via the Cape from Logan International. Always wondered what was inland of the beaches..

http://www.megasceneryearth.com/store/cart.php?target=product&product_id=601&category_id=113


Bill
Wonder how that affects Plum Island?

[Helldiver]

No effect on Bill Womack's Plum Island Airport as long as that Plum Island is loaded in first.

[spotlope]

Yep, shoudln't make a difference as long as Plum Island is higher in the scenery library priority. If this release is anything like preview MS Earth areas, one thing you might notice is that the Plum Island photoreal terrain doesn't blend as well as it does with the default terrain. I spent many hours color-correcting and tweaking the aerial imagery to get it just right, and the Megascenery product... well, not so much. :monkies:

[BOOM]

Thanks very much for the HU Bill!!
Cheers!!

[hey_moe]

Anybody got any screens shots.

[Helldiver]

That much is true. Bill's scenery looks like the real thing. Unfortunately where Megascenery takes over looks kind of gray in contrast. Why they don't color correct it is anybodys guess.
I much prefer flying on the North Shore instead of the "Irish Riviera", where the Cabots speak to the Lodges and the Lodges speak only to God.

[Scratch]

Anybody got any screens shots.

I hope it looks better than their Louisiana scenery. That looks like a bad polaroid picture.

[hey_moe]

I'm downloading it now...tis a biggie:ernae:

[spotlope]

Thing is, the source aerial photography is almost uniformly poorly corrected (if at all) in terms of color and contrast. I think part of the reason they're able to offer such large patches of scenery for a decent price is that they're not taking the days, weeks, or months to correct every image. As long as you go into the purchase with your eyes open to that fact, you should be fine.

I'll give you a for-instance: right now, I'm working on a patch of phototerrain for Emma Field X. It's not a big area, maybe 15km square. Even at that, and using 1m/px imagery, I've got 6 individual images at approx. 500MB each. Compiled the whole area BGL is 223MB at the 90% compression setting - and that's only one season with blend and water masks. The whole thing takes about 45 minutes to resample on my system, and I've had to compile it a bunch of times to get it looking the way I like.

It's no small thing to do a patch of photoreal right, and to do it for a whole state would take me months. And that's not including autogen and seasons! For that reason, I cut the guys at Megascenery some slack.

[mike_cyul]

Yep, shoudln't make a difference as long as Plum Island is higher in the scenery library priority. If this release is anything like preview MS Earth areas, one thing you might notice is that the Plum Island photoreal terrain doesn't blend as well as it does with the default terrain. I spent many hours color-correcting and tweaking the aerial imagery to get it just right, and the Megascenery product... well, not so much. :monkies:

I purchased a portion of the scenery a while ago, and it all blended very well mesh-wise, the only small difference was a shallow "waterfall" in the mesh at the entrance to the river.

Mike

[spotlope]

Does it include mesh? I thought it was just the phototerrain.

[MCDesigns]

Bill W. has pretty much nailed it. From what I have seen and heard on other forums, the megascenery earth stuff isn't the best quality, especially resolution wise.

I tell ya, I used to hate photoscenery, mostly because what you could buy in FS9 was poor resolution at low altitudes and the autogen was lacking also. One of the best features IMHO in FSX is the ability to display high resolution with hardly any performance hit. Ever since I figured out how to do my own, I have been addicted to it, scouring the web looking for high res airports, adding autogen, it has TOTALLY transformed my sim experience. But it has also made me very picky about resolution which comes at a cost, HUGE file sizes = quality imagery.. Why fly over blurry blobs when I can see images like Tamworth or this airport image I d/led in Prague?!

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/6168/prague.jpg

[hobofat]

Getting photoscenery to look good takes a LOT of work, even if you have high quality source data. I'm working on the photo side of the Isle of Man project over at Earth Simulations, and even with fantastic source data it's slow going making it look just right in the sim. Couple in the fact that the source data for IOM is 50 gigs of imagery alone...

Of course that gets compressed when compiled for the simulator, but you get the idea. Doing the entire state of MA for that price, they have to compromise on something.

[Lionheart]

Im right behind you Mike.. Just got finished playing X3TC and have purchased and downloading the state of Mass now.. Should be fun.

Huge download, so I am thinking tonight is download night.. arrgh.



Bill

[Gdavis101]

I will probably pick it up tomorrow... Looking forward to those Nantucket flights!

[Mithrin]

Everytime I go there I am so tempted to get more parts but I know that so far I've been disappointed with every pack I got. Such a pity.

[spatialpro]

Why fly over blurry blobs when I can see images like Tamworth or this airport image I d/led in Prague?!

Michael,

Where did you download your Prague orthophotos??

Many thanks

Andy

[jmig]

Put me in the category of disappointed with MegaScenery. I purchased the Louisiana package and while I love the added details, the color looks like someone puked on the entire state.

Louisiana is NOT lime-green. I haven't purchased any thing else because of that experience.

[Lionheart]

....still downloading.

This is huge.

I can hardly wait to see Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Wooo hooooo!


Bill

[Lionheart]

......still downloading..

[dharris]

I downloaded their Las Vegas and Hawaii packs and the vegas one is alright, but the Hawaii one is really great. Got Dillingham also, and the files are very efficent and frames are fine. Detail is sharp.

[mike_cyul]

Does it include mesh? I thought it was just the phototerrain.

I think that what it did was to change my FSX settings.

Mike

[spotlope]

There's a definite distinction between their Megascenery products and the new Megascenery Earth. In the past, they focused on high-res patches of terrain that were color-corrected, masked, and annotated. Megascenery Hawaii is a great example of this, and I think it's a well-done product.

Megascenery Earth seems geared more to the tileproxy crowd who simply want photoscenery to cover as many large areas as possible and don't mind that the quality is less than stellar. That's fine - to each their own. I just want to make sure that people understand the difference between products such as this and smaller areas that have been obsessively corrected and matched to the surrounding terrain, such as you'll find in a number of better FSX scenery packages these days. It pays to be informed.

[Lionheart]

.....................Still downloading..


And now I find out they just released Arizona.. That one is next, lol..

This could take several days.


:d

[Mithrin]

Alright guys I said earlier that I didn't like any of the packs that I have downloaded so far. I purchased Washington State East today (irrational bugger me) because this area looks like it isn't going to be included with NA PNW. I must say most of this area has much better quality textures. Here's just a couple of shots. Still they make use of different source textures but at least the quality is ok.

http://www.mithrin.net/FS/other/MegaSceneryEarthWashingtonEast01.jpg

http://www.mithrin.net/FS/other/MegaSceneryEarthWashingtonEast02.jpg

http://www.mithrin.net/FS/other/MegaSceneryEarthWashingtonEast03.jpg

http://www.mithrin.net/FS/other/MegaSceneryEarthWashingtonEast04.jpg

http://www.mithrin.net/FS/other/MegaSceneryEarthWashingtonEast05.jpg

http://www.mithrin.net/FS/other/MegaSceneryEarthWashingtonEast06.jpg

[Lionheart]

Looking good Mithrin.

I recieved a free Washington 'tile' with my purchase of Massachusetts. I still have to download it. I would like to purchase all of Washington.


Almost finished downloading... About 1 more hour to go. :d

[hey_moe]

Well for me I really didn't care for it once I got it installed. Everything looks like it is washed out with a light green tint. The trees and building don't look right at all unless you are 5000 ft or higher. I like flying around 2000 to 2500 feet and the land texture is nothing more than a blob, plus no seasonal scenes. For 29 or 30 bucks for one state I wasn't impressed at all.Google flight even looked better.

[Lionheart]

Hey all,

Well took the entire weekend downloading it. (Had to redownload a couple several times as my Opera browser would crash, arrgh).

First, I purchased mine for $26.00. For some reason, they gave me a price break, which I am greatful for. Second, they gave me a free section from Washington, so I have yet to check that out. I think its from their first freebie release which I had never claimed. I now have it and will check it out.


Ok, I decided to check it all out and ran through all the area's, starting with my fave Cape and Islands first, then inland, then to Boston, then to the area just South of Boston on the coast. I took photos of each area.


Starting with Cape Cod..

[Lionheart]

Ok, here is Nantucket. I did see some bright green on the penninsula leaving the Cape and crossing to Nantucket. I got that in the last photo above.

Here is the main Island I have been wanting. Looks good to me. I have flown over it many times in TileProxy and this is what it looks like. (TileProxy quit for me about a year ago).

[Lionheart]

This is actually a large Island and has a huge little town on it along with more then 2 airports.

I posted a screenshot of the AP. Its set at 3,000 feet.

[Lionheart]

Next, I headed inland, to the heart of the state. Found some highways and some town area's. The above pic of the AP was actually over such an area.


Cool neighborhoods (compared to Phoenix.. lots of trees!)

[Lionheart]

This is one huge amount of area and very well done. Looks of course, photo real. I can hardly wait to fly over it in a Cub.

[Lionheart]

This is the last set. This is the coast just South of Boston. I had seen this in Tile Proxy and I think this scenery is better detailed.


Views on the scenery. Yes, there are some bluish sort of tree colors going on here and there. Yes, sometimes the photos on the terrain are brighter here and there. Same with TileProxy.

I am happy with this and feel I got a great deal. Mega Scenery Phoenix cost me $50.00 and that is a city. This is an entire state (and some great little islands) so I think got a huge bargain for half the price of Phoenix. The colors arent enough to detract me. (On hazy days in real life, its much worse). I think that may be what happened with these, is that they were taken on a hazy day (or days). I could be wrong though. I make planes, not scenery.

I am really happy with this.

Oh, my frame rates were usually around 30 FPS on my Apple, running with an ATI HD 2600 XT GC and 4 Gigs of Ram on WinXP. Not bad at all in my humble opinion.


Now to order Arizona... I think its three times the size of Massachusetts... eeeks!

One thing I need to fix somehow, is the runway at Province (Cape Cod at the tip) is the ground has a hill on the runway. That will have to be repaired. Shows like a hill with the runway printed on it, mid way down the runway.


Bill

[gera]

Thanks for all those shots Bill and Moe.......they sure look early FS9nish!!!! and something gotten out of the oven "quick".....no buy fer sure.....:gameoff:

[moore1018]

Thanks for sharing these screenshots guys!

It's pretty amazing how different the opinions are on photoscenery. I have been on the fence about purchasing any MegasceneryEarth scenery, but was so impressed with a few of these screenshots I went out and purchased all of the North Carolina tiles (near my home). Downloading now...will share a few pics once I have it up and running.

I have to say...even if the quality in some areas is not as good as the default scenery, having accurate visual cross country checkpoints should make for a much better experience for the VFR flyers.

[bushpilot]

Looks really washed out if you ask me. Some of the mountain shots look okay, but all those urban textures are horrible mush. I've seen better results when using tileproxy:kilroy:. Not worth the bandwith/money/HD space IMO.


Ain't no comparison to landclass based sceneries like FTX, which is very vivid and lifelike.

[JimC1702]

I'm on the fence when it comes to photoscenery. Some of it looks very good and some looks very bad. However, when they come out with New York State, I'll probably break down and give it a try.

Jim