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Posted

Thanks for the nice comments! They mean a lot to me and others that have made this project what it has become!

An incredible amount of work has been put into this latest overhaul of NorCal. After working on this for more than two + years and redoing various aspects of the scenery three times, I'm really excited to see it near completion!

The only scenery development left is along the eastern California border. The light at the end of the tunnel is very bright now! :D

Posted
  Quote

Thanks for the nice comments! They mean a lot to me and others that have made this project what it has become!

An incredible amount of work has been put into this latest overhaul of NorCal. After working on this for more than two + years and redoing various aspects of the scenery three times, I'm really excited to see it near completion!

The only scenery development left is along the eastern California border. The light at the end of the tunnel is very bright now! :D

That's great news! I hope this is not too early to ask, but do you have a price range in mind? Cheers, and good luck with the rest of the project!

Posted

Yes, we have pricing in mind. Can't release any info until everything is finalized with X-Aviation. Remember, you can also purchase just the areas in which you wish to fly. I think the pricing will be an incredible value for the quality and geographic size of the scenery.

Posted

Perhaps a more pertinent quesion is how big is the whole package? A section? (60+GB is great, but then when SOCAL comes out and other areas one does start to find oneself running out of HD space...)

EDIT: I obviously don't expect you to know the size right now, but a ballpark?

Posted
  On 8/17/2011 at 8:04 PM, YYZatcboy said:

Fair enough. I've got 1 TB but I also have a music collection that can be expressed in YEARS tongue.png

Man, that's a lot of tunes! Might have to offload some of those songs for more scenery space! :)

Posted

Here are some sample images of the quality and accuracy of the water in the new NorCal release. I have a few hundred hours of digitizing the major water features and coastline. I think you'll really enjoy flying over the water that actually matches the terrain. :)

These are in San Francisco Bay.

post-72-0-98258000-1313720061_thumb.jpg

post-72-0-54389200-1313720081_thumb.jpg

post-72-0-36343800-1313720108_thumb.jpg

  • Upvote 1
Posted (edited)

WOW!!!

I havent been so full of anticipation since I was a child!!!

... I "read" those toy catalogs with a religous ferver ... its a wonder if I could even eat supper ...

... such anticipation!

I do wonder what level of machine one would need, especially with X-Plane_10 just around the corner.

(of which I anticipted 10s release at Oshkosh )

With the release of multi-thread machines, as many as 12 for a six core machine (and I dont really know about Intels Sandy bridge machines) I would assume the more the better; could this be a problem for a machine with only two threads. I would also think the instulation of a fair sized SSD would be a big help.

My guess is this software is biased toward a minimum of 4 threads (8 would be better) and lots of memory.

Real Scenery has developed the nack to provide detail at 1500 to 2500 feet and yet not slow the machine down.

If we hapen to move this new scenery package to another drive (in order to work with another package (non sim related) will we loose anything when we need to move NORCAL back to the orignal drive to whince it was downloaded) or will we have to pay a new download charge?

I beleive this to be the "Best yet" of all scenery fo X-Plane ... just cant wait!!!

Gene

cozydvr

PS: will we be able to purchase a CD/DVD of the full package? Moving files back and forth can be a difficult thing; the added security would bring peace of mind. : Gene

Edited by cozydvr
Posted (edited)
  On 8/19/2011 at 8:37 PM, cozydvr said:

WOW!!!

I havent been so full of anticipation since I was a child!!!

... I "read" those toy catalogs with a religous ferver ... its a wonder if I could even eat supper ...

... such anticipation!

Thanks, Gene. I appreciate your enthusiasm and interest in the new NorCal scenery.

  On 8/19/2011 at 8:37 PM, cozydvr said:

I do wonder what level of machine one would need, especially with X-Plane_10 just around the corner.

If you have the Reno or Oahu packages, I think you'll find the computer specs are similar. I have a very modest machine by today's standard and get very good performance.

  On 8/19/2011 at 8:37 PM, cozydvr said:

If we hapen to move this new scenery package to another drive (in order to work with another package (non sim related) will we loose anything when we need to move NORCAL back to the orignal drive to whince it was downloaded) or will we have to pay a new download charge?

No need to worry about purchasing another copy. We wouldn't do that to you! :) The scenery comes with an installer, but once installed, you can just move the NorCal scenery folders out of your X-Plane/Custom Scenery folder onto another drive. When you're ready to use it again, just move the folders back. It's really drag-drop-fly.

  On 8/19/2011 at 8:37 PM, cozydvr said:

PS: will we be able to purchase a CD/DVD of the full package? Moving files back and forth can be a difficult thing; the added security would bring peace of mind. : Gene

Absolutely! You'll be able to purchase DVDs as a backup. In fact, I would encourage everyone to order a set of DVDs. However, you're certainly welcome to create your own backup if you'd like.

Eric

Edited by RealScenery
Posted
  On 8/17/2011 at 7:46 PM, RealScenery said:

Perhaps a more pertinent quesion is how big is the whole package? A section? (60+GB is great, but then when SOCAL comes out and other areas one does start to find oneself running out of HD space...)

Here are the final numbers:

  • 26 scenery areas
  • 96GB uncompressed and installed
  • 57,000 files

Individual scenery areas vary in size (both geography and MB/GB). See map below for reference.

  • Arcata: 4.5GB
  • Sacramento: 3.4GB
  • San Francisco: 2.4GB

All areas will be available separately, or as the entire NorCal package, with both download and DVD options.

The scenery areas are shown in the following map:

NorCal_Index.jpg

  • Upvote 2
Posted

Wow that's big.

Hopefully this means release is imminent. I'll have to see about freeing up space or getting an aftermarket 2tb hard drive installed on my Imac.

Looking forward to it! (And the other airport scenery that it might drive. (SFO anyone?)

Posted
  On 8/26/2011 at 2:43 AM, paulyg said:

How does this scenery impact performance? It looks too good to come without an FPS hit.

Hi, Pauly,

Believe it or not, there is often times an INCREASE in FPS with RealScenery products. The reason for this is due to the multiple layers that are normally present to create default X-Plane scenery not being present at all. Instead, we bake these textures in from the core, thus causing none to less FPS impact!

  • Upvote 2
Posted

The impact of the imagery is amazing at altitude. I wonder, would we notice any significant increase in detail at ground level? Ex: the look of mountain ranges close to airports. With X-Plane's scenery it is very easy to notice the lack of detail. Would you have any image to share?

Posted
  On 8/27/2011 at 3:47 AM, wotaskd said:

The impact of the imagery is amazing at altitude. I wonder, would we notice any significant increase in detail at ground level? Ex: the look of mountain ranges close to airports. With X-Plane's scenery it is very easy to notice the lack of detail. Would you have any image to share?

Hi, there. Thanks for chiming in!

Mountain regions look particularly stunning with scenery like this. Reno was a great example of that, and Oahu just as well! Check out the galleries on X-Aviation.com to see some examples.

In the coming days we'll begin adding more galleries up for NORCAL. I'll definitely keep everyone updated as we progress towards release! :)

Posted

That's great Cameron, thanks for that.

Last one and I promise to be quiet :)

How are you handling the licensing for the scenery? Is it by user, or by machine? I explain: I'm building a cockpit that will use 3 computers configured for front, left and right views. Should I buy 3 licenses or one? I assume 3, b/c that's what I will have to do with X-Plane. But it's always better to ask first ;)

Thanks!

Posted

Hi, there,

For personal use we allow you up to three installs at any given time for our products. Looks like you'll be covered with only one purchase. :)

For commercial use we have a completely different pricing structure.

Posted

I miss that old X-Pilot feature that would tell you all of the latest posts since your last visit! I totally missed the news about NorCal being done!

It looks great and I can't wait to try it! Good thing I have a 1.5 TB hard drive on my rig...

Posted (edited)
  On 9/1/2011 at 1:19 PM, Perry said:

I miss that old X-Pilot feature that would tell you all of the latest posts since your last visit! I totally missed the news about NorCal being done!

The feature is still there: click on "View New Content" in the top right corner of the page.

Edited by Kaphias
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