Simmo W Posted January 8, 2011 Report Share Posted January 8, 2011 Right, I'm confused. This link claims the new UK scenery is the best. I'll take a hit and order pack 3, for the Welsh and Manchester area, and be reporting back in the blog with a direct comparo. -1 already with the delivery method, snail mail to get FOUR DVDs delivered..http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/x-planestore/Categories?category=Scenery%3AUK+Photo+Scenery Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woweezowee Posted January 8, 2011 Report Share Posted January 8, 2011 Amerrir looked at the Beta some weeks ago:http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=48993 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goran_M Posted January 8, 2011 Report Share Posted January 8, 2011 At least they can claim to have the best dinosaur in x plane.(sorry, couldn't resist) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted January 8, 2011 Report Share Posted January 8, 2011 Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, Simon. I'd be most interested to know your thoughts to the claim and if it holds weight. As it stands now, Reno is higher res than that package, but perhaps there is something more to it that will make it live up to the words of marketing. Kudos to the developer, though! Regardless of claims it's a package that needed to be done, and it looks decent enough. Good to see! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simmo W Posted January 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2011 Agree Cameron, great to see more coverage of the world. I dont think I've ever flown in the UK, so this'll be a good excuse. I'll have to fly only during the day though, Amerrir confirms it has no night textures (thanks for the link Wow, I had read that very early review of the Beta). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kesomir Posted January 8, 2011 Report Share Posted January 8, 2011 Just a note that while the .org labels all 4 discs as complete coverage of the UK, Scotland does not appear to be covered (both northern sceneries state up to the border of Scotland).Last time I checked, it was still part of the UK, although you never know with the Scots! Hope that comes as a later development as there's some beautiful terrain up there and my joint favourite part of the UK.Tsk Simon. You won't be able to see my house with pack 3, London's in Pack 1! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dozer Posted January 9, 2011 Report Share Posted January 9, 2011 I think they're going to include Scotland when they can get it to stop raining long enough to get a complete set of well-lit aerial photos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simmo W Posted January 9, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2011 I think they're going to include Scotland when they can get it to stop raining long enough to get a complete set of well-lit aerial photos Ha Dozer, same here, would love Ireland too. If photos were recent (they're not) it'd be boring, white everywhere. Snoworld. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hobofat Posted January 9, 2011 Report Share Posted January 9, 2011 As it stands now, Reno is higher res than that package, but perhaps there is something more to it that will make it live up to the words of marketing. I was involved for quite some time in the creation of a photoscenery package for FSX (still unreleased), and we were also working on it for X-Plane as well. I had to pull out of the project due to real world circumstances that had (much) higher priority. Anyway, with the amount of coverage the UK (rather, England/Wales) photoscenery offers it's hard to imagine a higher than 1m resolution. We were working on a 30cm/px resolution for the FSX scenery, but had to scale it back to 1m/pixel for X-Plane for two reasons: 1) file size. FSX compresses textures into a propietary format so compiled sceneries are quite a bit smaller than the pile of .DDS files an X-Plane photoscenery has. 2) Legal restrictions: our aerial photography supplier would not allow us to use the higher res for X-Plane since the texture files remain editable by the user. FSX once again had the advantage of rendering the photoscenery uneditable. They were however fine with us doing a 1m/pixel resolution, as the difference is quite noticeable.Sidenote for the ultra-sensitive: this is not a "better than/worse than" thread, just my offering of a possible reason for the 1m/pixel resolution on the product we're talking about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dozer Posted January 9, 2011 Report Share Posted January 9, 2011 I get a reasonably accurate view out the windows when I set visibility to 1mi and fly at night. Runway lights look equally beautiful in every sim and scenery package... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpny Posted January 10, 2011 Report Share Posted January 10, 2011 I must be on the short list of people who don't like Photoscenery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simmo W Posted January 10, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2011 Why? I'm finding more and more I can't fly without it.Can't stand the random tiles, but lower res scenery (below 16) can be annoying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpny Posted January 10, 2011 Report Share Posted January 10, 2011 Why? I'm finding more and more I can't fly without it.Can't stand the random tiles, but lower res scenery (below 16) can be annoying.My personal experiences are:1) Looks like crap from low altitudes;2) Color shifts look unsubtle compared to X-Plane's global scenery;3) 2D pictures of 3D objects look silly when you're flying at low altitudes;4) It only really looks good if you can run it with max texture res, uncompressed. Because of limitations in the OpenGL driver, this put a limit on how much custom scenery you can run without running X-Plane out of memory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted January 10, 2011 Report Share Posted January 10, 2011 2) Color shifts look unsubtle compared to X-Plane's global scenery;Dependent on how the developer did their work. We've made a good effort for this in Enhanced packages.4) It only really looks good if you can run it with max texture res, uncompressed. Because of limitations in the OpenGL driver, this put a limit on how much custom scenery you can run without running X-Plane out of memory.The way this type of scenery is loaded was changed in version 9.52. It is no longer such a hit as one would expect. This is why products like RealScenery's now actually run faster than standard default textures in a DSF. It is also why you see reports like the following (FlorianR - Post #2): http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php?topic=1679.msg15078#msg15078 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpny Posted January 10, 2011 Report Share Posted January 10, 2011 The way this type of scenery is loaded was changed in version 9.52. It is no longer such a hit as one would expect. This is why products like RealScenery's now actually run faster than standard default textures in a DSF. It is also why you see reports like the following (FlorianR - Post #2): http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php?topic=1679.msg15078#msg15078I didn't say faster; I talked about memory usage.OpenGL keeps a copy of every texture in the application's memory so it can load textures when needed without a delay. Combine this with what I do--fly in NYC, with complex custom airport scenery and a converted copy of Aerosoft's Manhattan scenery--and, running max texture res and no compression, I can run X-Plane out of memory before my GPU runs out of VRAM. I've made X-Plane run into it's 3GB limit more than once, at which time it seg faults out.This won't be an issue for someone who doesn't fly the way I fly, but it's an issue for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simmo W Posted January 21, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2011 Finally received pack 3 of the RC Simulations UK scenery, about 10 days delivery to Downunder, not bad (but an agonising wait). ;D Good news - very nice packaging and support material > Bad news - I was expecting 16 gigs for 4 DVDs. Noooooo, it decompresses to.......SIXTY THREE GIGABYTES. No part-installation possible.This better be good. Taking 15 minutes to decompress each DVD. A more subtle/selective installation process would be great. But then again, once it's all done, it's over with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simmo W Posted January 21, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2011 Finally, 4 DVDs installed @ 20 mins each approx. Not too painful.First pics hereA more thorough review at the blog soon. This is bang for buck scenery, not as perfect as Realscenery's, but massive scale and still good quality. Weird colouring issues every now and then, but offset by some nice colours elsewhere.Absolutely no night textures. Frightening at 2am.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameron Posted January 21, 2011 Report Share Posted January 21, 2011 Thanks for sharing, Simon.Unlike RealScenery Enhanced, it also appears they didn't go through the effort to align all taxiways and runways. Good to know! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goran_M Posted January 21, 2011 Report Share Posted January 21, 2011 The "best" scenery in x plane?No night textures.misaligned runways and taxiwaysI guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simmo W Posted January 21, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2011 I also missed the fact that there are NO cars in this scenery, unlike Reno. Nope, this is not 'the best'. It's good in terms of size, general quality, Im glad i got it, but I just don't know why they say it's the best. You guys are the quality leaders :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealScenery Posted January 22, 2011 Report Share Posted January 22, 2011 Nope, this is not 'the best'. It's good in terms of size, general quality, Im glad i got it, but I just don't know why they say it's the best. You guys are the quality leaders :-)Thanks, Simon.I thought the delivery system might be a disappointment for many - having to wait for DVDs and not developing a system to handle the downloads. That is one of the main reasons I distribute with X-Aviation.The resolution is so high that this scenery cannot be downloaded.I have only seen a few screenshots, so I'm looking forward to your review. I believe these are aerial photographs and not satellite imagery. The former being very difficult to have consistent image quality over a larger area. However, I'm sure this 1m scenery is still a big hit with X-Plane pilots in the U.K. and elsewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaidenFan Posted January 22, 2011 Report Share Posted January 22, 2011 I didn't get the UK stuff mainly because of delivery. Thanks X-Aviation for coming up with a quick delivery system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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