SRM request. Hoping for a region to fill the void between SCA and CRM

[pmb]

2 hours ago, FalconAF said:

      

But realistically, it's going to be years, and possibly decades, before they manage to cover the world with the "region" quality at the same rate of release.  That's NOT a complaint from me.  Seriously.  Why?  I'm already 62-years old.  I will probably be dead before there are ORBX full-fat regions for the entire world.   

Actually it's even worse. The proportion of work for maintaining scenery alreay released has been continually growing and will keep growing. Whichever the future of simulation will be, it will (hopefully) be further developing and needs adapting available sceneries. There are still airpoirts waiting for Prepar3d2 upgrades, not to mention Prepar3d3. If Dovetail ever releases its DFS 2016(17?) and if it will be FSX compatible, which is to be expected, this might start another round of penta or hexa installers.

 

I don't have a simple solution at hand and I doubt there is one. ORBX is indeed doeing a great job and I agree they are the best available today, but their resources are limited. I am 63 and in a similar situation as you. I don't believe in even the full USA being ever ORBXified with regions, leave alone the whole world. But given I only fly VFR I can well live with a limited radius. I rather need continuous regions for flying, and that's where SRM would be a perfect fit indeed.

 

Kind regards, Michael

[dominique]

Michael, Falcon, please stop guys, being older than you, a ripe 66, you are depressing me  ! 

 

Joke aside, thats why I am glad for the OpenLC line of products.  It is generic in nature, not perfect in rendering the local geography,  but it gives a somewhat convincing cover to the ground, knowing that regions will never be done the world over in my time. I'd rather see regions made when ground details really count for a realistic flying like Hawaii or some part of the SW red mesa deserts than the rest of Alaska, the rest of Nevada or part of Utah where an organized generic tiling is enough to convince me that I fly there. Utah is a case in point, there are absolutely stunning landscapes in that state  - fond remembrance of Bryce canyon under a light snow -  but one can also drive hundred of miles of greyish, stony desert. OpenLC is enough there. Now, I've irritated the Nevada, Alaska and Utah lobbies in just one post. Not bad  ...

 

Isn't mid-Nevada Tak's country  anyway ?

 

That why I like the Experience packages too because they give details where you want details. I've a wonderful Port Moresby and  local strips and for the rest of PNG, Global, Vector and the Scenery Tech LC . And that's enough for a region that I like to fly. Well, OpenLC Asia would be, I am sure, a great substitute to the ST product !

 

Is Holger's team fond of majestic mountainous landscapes and shores like you say Falcon ? I think they have a excellent know-how for that kind of regions indeed which could btw be put to good use in Japan (hint, hint....). NCA showed they could do something quite nice with a more temperate climate too. I think Holger once said they had to remake their first attemp for NCA though but, at the end, it is convincing (I lived there). The deserts in SCA are not half bad. I'wish  they'd make a Phoenix-Albuquerque- NE corner of SCA-SLC. Woudln't you ? ANd oh yes, it'd have to include Truth or Consequences.

 

 

[FalconAF]

On 12/31/2015 at 2:22 AM, dominique said:

Michael, Falcon, please stop guys, being older than you, a ripe 66, you are depressing me  ! 

 

Joke aside, thats why I am glad for the OpenLC line of products. Utah is a case in point, there are absolutely stunning landscapes in that state  - fond remembrance of Bryce canyon under a light snow -  but one can also drive hundred of miles of greyish, stony desert. Now, I've irritated the Nevada, Alaska and Utah lobbies in just one post. Not bad  ...

 

Stop that!  You can be ripe or depressed, but it's against the rules to be both at the same time.  

 

The OpenLC products suffer the same wait time.  At the current rate of release it will be several more years before they cover the world too.  Again, that's not a complaint from me.  Just an observation. 

 

That's why I still use photoscenery in some places like where Nevada and Utah isn't covered by NA SCA.  In places where you could drive hundreds of miles without seeing any Autogen to begin with, the photoscenery provides a realistic texture and good terrain mesh utilizes it well.  I'll disable the photoscenery for night flying (can't see the ground then anyhow) to get any night lighting a different product may provide (which won't be much anyhow across 100 miles of night desert).  Any addon airports (freeware or payware) will normally still work with the photoscenery, even if you leave it enabled at night.  It's give and take, and there are always work-arounds.  Right now I'm in the process of "pruning" my Nevada state photoscenery product to remove the BGL files that conflict with NA SCA.  Trial and error in some cases, but I'll get to where both products work together for the entire state of Nevada. 

 

[dominique]

 Smart way of using what's on the market I'd say but why bother as OpenLC US is going to be with us in about a month ? Is the Nevada PS very good ? I don't know whether OrbX will use PS like in SCA or textures. I suspect textures as it may be less costly.

[Airwolf]

On 12/30/2015 at 4:46 PM, Rob Abernathy said:

Fun discussion here and I'd vote for a SRM region also, no matter what the final borders.

 

Rob, since you are on the Beta Team.  Can I nominate you to talk to John and rest of the team to work on this area. 

 

On 12/30/2015 at 5:15 PM, Chunk said:

Yes, that area would have to be split up a bit, probably three ways; otherwise it's an enormous area.  I'd buy all three areas in a heartbeat by the way.

 

3 More regions are most needed here.  Look at the potential revenue areas for Orbx here.  There are tons of amazing airports for these regions.  I can understand with the Pilotedge post - that this would be an excellent area to focus on. 

 

This would cover the best parts of the US in full detail. 

 

KEGE would sure need a patch to be in the regions lol.

[FalconAF]

10 hours ago, dominique said:

 Smart way of using what's on the market I'd say but why bother as OpenLC US is going to be with us in about a month ? Is the Nevada PS very good ? I don't know whether OrbX will use PS like in SCA or textures. I suspect textures as it may be less costly.

 

Honestly, if I'm flying from say Las Vegas to say Jackson Hole across Nevada right now, I prefer seeing the photoreal scenery below me across Nevada north of the SCA Las Vegas area.  I'm not counting houses or any autogen objects at that altitude.  That's just a personal preference of mine. The photoscenery looks more realistic.  That may change once I see how the OpenLC US release affects things.  The Nevada, Utah, and Arizona photoreal scenery I have is all superb above 500 feet, and it's currently 1 meter per pixel.  When they release the new versions that are 50 cm per pixel, I'm probably gonna buy those too.  But at 4 times the resolution the file sizes are gonna be HUGE for each state (NV, AZ, NM, CO, and UT already take up 192 GB on my hard drive at 1 meter per pixel resolution), so I'll be planning for that with my new computer build.  May eventually need a 2TB drive just for photoreal scenery.  

 

I doubt ORBX would cover anything like the rest of Nevada with just photoreal to fill in any gaps.  They could have done that with a lot of area in southern Idaho, but didn't.  It wouldn't be along the lines of how they develop their regions.  And I like the way they incorporate what photoreal they use now for localized places like Edwards AFB or smaller areas that benefit from it.  It's all good.

[Waterman981]

As a resident of the area I would absolutely love it... I do think a lot would be overkill though.  Most of Western Utah is empty and ugly... OpenLC would probably be sufficient here. Maybe a small pack that only adds features of interest... (Salt Flats for instance),   I'd say focus from I-15 to the Eastern edge of the Rockies in Colorado.  Give the National Parks lots of love... It would be great to have 3D objects placed for lots of the features in Arches National Park (Heli tours out of Moab!).

 

I did like the 4 Corners idea, and I would definitely buy all 4 if it was done that way.  One region to cover all of this does seem like quite a lot.  But however it is done I would hope it ends up covering the entire Rockies East to West.

 

On 12/29/2015 at 1:43 AM, pmb said:

I would support this and would certainly buy it. The Salt Lake City area alone (with the airport now under development by another developer) would be worth this. While I am looking forward to OpenLC US, I don't think it's a real substitute for a Region, at least not based on my experience with OpenLC EU. 

 

Kind regards, Michael

 

Who's doing KSLC?  Are they doing the old one, or the new one that they have just started rebuilding?  It would be a pitty if they are doing the old when it'll all be gone in a few years. (http://www.slcairport.com/thenewslc/)

[dominique]

7 hours ago, FalconAF said:

 

Honestly, if I'm flying from say Las Vegas to say Jackson Hole across Nevada right now, I prefer seeing the photoreal scenery below me across Nevada north of the SCA Las Vegas area.  I'm not counting houses or any autogen objects at that altitude.  That's just a personal preference of mine. The photoscenery looks more realistic.  That may change once I see how the OpenLC US release affects things.  The Nevada, Utah, and Arizona photoreal scenery I have is all superb above 500 feet, and it's currently 1 meter per pixel.  When they release the new versions that are 50 cm per pixel, I'm probably gonna buy those too.  But at 4 times the resolution the file sizes are gonna be HUGE for each state (NV, AZ, NM, CO, and UT already take up 192 GB on my hard drive at 1 meter per pixel resolution), so I'll be planning for that with my new computer build.  May eventually need a 2TB drive just for photoreal scenery.  

 

I doubt ORBX would cover anything like the rest of Nevada with just photoreal to fill in any gaps.  They could have done that with a lot of area in southern Idaho, but didn't.  It wouldn't be along the lines of how they develop their regions.  And I like the way they incorporate what photoreal they use now for localized places like Edwards AFB or smaller areas that benefit from it.  It's all good.

 

I may have obsolete ideas about PS from the time I tried it in FS9. It was not very good then.  50 cm/pix sounds interesting indeed and may give more depth to the coloring that I find often flatish. I am convinced that imagery and automated autogen is the future of simulation, texturing being a stop gap technology, but we are not yet there specially in terms of hardware, storage and processing. 

4 hours ago, Waterman981 said:

As a resident of the area I would absolutely love it... I do think a lot would be overkill though.  Most of Western Utah is empty and ugly... OpenLC would probably be sufficient here. Maybe a small pack that only adds features of interest... (Salt Flats for instance),   I'd say focus from I-15 to the Eastern edge of the Rockies in Colorado.  Give the National Parks lots of love... It would be great to have 3D objects placed for lots of the features in Arches National Park (Heli tours out of Moab!).

 

I did like the 4 Corners idea, and I would definitely buy all 4 if it was done that way.  One region to cover all of this does seem like quite a lot.  But however it is done I would hope it ends up covering the entire Rockies East to West.

 

 

Who's doing KSLC?  Are they doing the old one, or the new one that they have just started rebuilding?  It would be a pitty if they are doing the old when it'll all be gone in a few years. (http://www.slcairport.com/thenewslc/)

 

Yes the Western National Parks sceneries like Moab, Arches, Bryce etc,.. patching an OpenLC US  would be a real treat.

[pmb]

4 hours ago, Waterman981 said:

 

Who's doing KSLC?  Are they doing the old one, or the new one that they have just started rebuilding?  It would be a pitty if they are doing the old when it'll all be gone in a few years. (http://www.slcairport.com/thenewslc/)

PacSim is working on it, including the City area:

 

http://islandsim.com/

 

Really looking forward to this.

 

Kind regards, Michael

 

[RHaas]

Has anyone tried Blue Sky Scenery? They cover many of the missing areas with photorealistic freeware sceneries.

[Airwolf]

I just saw the new KSEZ p3dv3 pictures and I am just like Wow.  Look at that scenery and it is in Arizona.  So if an airport can be made there won't be nice to have the surrounding landscape to be in SRM (or 3 epic SRM regions, don't have a name for that yet).

 

Jarrad needs the full FTX region for all his airports 

[FalconAF]

20 hours ago, dominique said:

I may have obsolete ideas about PS from the time I tried it in FS9. It was not very good then.  50 cm/pix sounds interesting indeed and may give more depth to the coloring that I find often flatish. I am convinced that imagery and automated autogen is the future of simulation, texturing being a stop gap technology, but we are not yet there specially in terms of hardware, storage and processing.

 

Yes, we are.  It's not necessarily that you have an obsolete idea about photoscenery.  In FS9's time, the resolution of the scenery WAS lower, and you had to be at about 3000' AGL to have "non-blurry" textures.  Today, with 50cm/pixel photoscenery the textures are "crisp" and clear at anything above 500' AGL.  BUT...that is ONLY if your computer system can KEEP UP with loading the textures as you fly over them.  That should not be a problem at all with today's home computer systems.  But it STILL can depend on how you try to USE the photoscenery.  I have absolutely no problem on my computer using 50cm/pixel "city" photoscenery flying over it at 500' AGL using a helicopter, multi-engine piston, or even during an approach to a major addon airport at the end of a long flight in a complex jet aircraft.  My computer can keep up with loading the scenery fast enough to maintain crisp textures at even 500' AGL.  

 

Now, on the other hand, if I load up my F-16 and start flying across an entire STATE of 1 meter/pixel photoscenery at 500' AGL at Mach 1, yes...I can end up flying over the scenery faster than my computer can keep up with loading the textures fast enough to prevent "blurry textures" below me.  But at the same time, if I fly that F-16 at Mach 1 over a 50cm/pixel localized photoscenery area, like a city (Las Vegas, Phoenix, whatever city I own at 50cm/pixel), once the entire CITY (and surrounding area the product includes) has been loaded into memory (it will all get loaded eventually based on the LOD radius area the sim loads), I can fly over that city area in circles all day long at 500' AGL at Mach 1, and the textures stay clear and crisp.  All of the textures I am flying over HAVE been fully loaded into memory.

 

It all depends on the type of flying you try to do with today's high resolution photoscenery.  And you may be limited by your computer's capability to keep up with loading it fast enough for the type of flying you want to do.

 

ORBX uses localized photoscenery areas within their regions, like at Edwards AFB, etc.  And they work fine because the size of those areas allows them to get loaded into memory fast enough to even fly over them at high speeds.  IF your computer can load them fast enough to begin with.

 

I like photoreal scenery because I can use it the way I want to when I want to.  I like ORBX scenery because their regions are exceptional combinations of textures (both hand created and photoreal), autogen, airports, and a bunch of other things.  I use both types of "scenery" depending on the type of flying I'm doing at the time.  Neither one is "better" or "worse" than the other.