BabtridgeMcJoystick Posted January 9, 2016 Share Posted January 9, 2016 Hi I recently got hold of the KEGE scenery and some of the freeware featuring very high resolution elements such as below: Now all I can think about is what it would take to make a much larger area like this, and whether ORBX has any plans to? Of course the ultimate dream would be whole regions to this level. Its just utterly breathtaking. Photoscenery always looks good, but the key with ORBX stuff is you can go under 500 feet and it still looks great. What are the chances of seeing more of this level of detail? Is it entirely limited by P3D / FSX 32bit architecture? If anyone can recommend other ORBX sceneries that contain these details I would love to hear about them. I am yet to buy SCA, are there some gems hidden away? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarrad Marshall Posted January 9, 2016 Share Posted January 9, 2016 G'day there, Thanks for the nice feedback on KEGE In response to your suggestions, all of our payware airports contain high-resolution photoreal terrain like the KEGE screenshot you have shared; some (like KEGE) have enormous coverage areas, some smaller. There are two constraints that limit our ability to develop even larger high-detail areas; man-hours and source data availability. Projects like KEGE are extremely time intensive; the project took 4.5 months full-time to complete, of which 3 months was devoted exclusively to the areas outside the airport boundary. Every tree, building and object is placed by hand, whilst the source data is heavily edited, colour-matched, blended and cleaned up for each seasonal variation. Source data availability is variable depending on the location; price, availability and quality of imagery all factor in to the size of an area we might cover in full photoreal-quality. For example, it is far more expensive for us to license imagery for some parts of the world than others, whilst some parts of the world (including a few locations I'd love to develop airports for) don't have suitable imagery available for FS use at all. That being said, there already exists in our catalogue expansive areas of photoreal terrain for you to explore - don't forget that many of our region products include photoreal areas covering interesting geological areas and points of interests. In terms of airports with large coverage areas (like KEGE), there was a discussion recently about the same topic: On 28/11/2015 at 5:47 PM, Jarrad Marshall said: If you're after coverage size, the three biggest in our library are KJAC, KEGE and KPSP - all have roughly 1400-1600 sq km of photoreal coverage. KSEZ (900 sq km), KTVL (500sq km), KBZN (~600sq km), KWYS (~380sq km) also includ extensive coverage areas. The PNG and Samoa Experiences (AYPY & NSTU) have large photoreal coverage areas blended with extensive vector/landclass/terrain regions, not to mention the many HD airports and dozens of POI's included with each package. If you're after slightly smaller (though still large!) coverage areas with extensive cityscape components (including plenty of interesting POI's), KSTS, KMRY, KRDD, PAHO, KSFF, YBCS, YBRM, YBTH, YSTW, YHBA amongst others are worth checking out. Cheers, Jarrad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrishunt Posted January 9, 2016 Share Posted January 9, 2016 Hi, regarding your second question - yes there are quite a few photoreal gems in SCA so well worth exploring. Due to the detail in the scenery it can be a bit heavy on frame rates but there's plenty to see outside of the big urban areas. One good example is the logistics base close to Apple Valley. In my view SCA is superb and another must-have in the cannon of ORBX US sceneries. I would provide better directions to the logistics base but I'm in the middle of an upgrade to the i7-4790k and having dismantled my PC in preparation discovered I'd been sent the wrong processor. Replacement due this morning so PC still in bits. Regards, Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boleyd Posted January 9, 2016 Share Posted January 9, 2016 Some commercial FSX/P3D photo stuff is almost mono-colored with lots of area a constant shade of green. You can use it for VFR but it is not very pretty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalconAF Posted January 9, 2016 Share Posted January 9, 2016 And to expand on what Jarrad already said, another big constraint is that photoreal scenery is...well...a photo of someplace at a given time. If the photo was taken in Summer, you will never see snow on the ground using that photo picture. To provide seasonal coverage of the area, someone would have to take that one summer photo and create (at least) 2 more photoreal files that have been altered for Spring/Fall, and especially Winter "textures". And that is a MAJOR project. Then, you have (at least) 3 photoreal files for the same photo area. And photoreal files sizes are HUGE to begin with. That's why most photoreal products only provide ONE season worth of scenery. Covering an entire state with 3 or 4 seasons of photoreal scenery would result in a HUGE storage capacity requirement on your hard drive just for that one state. I'm honestly very impressed that places like KEGE in ORBX have the surrounding photoreal scenery for all the seasons. Like Jarrad said, the developer has to spend large amounts of time to provide us with that. Kudos to the scenery developers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neucoas Posted January 9, 2016 Share Posted January 9, 2016 Anything from Jarrad is stunning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BabtridgeMcJoystick Posted January 17, 2016 Author Share Posted January 17, 2016 On 09/01/2016 at 7:11 AM, Jarrad Marshall said: G'day there, Thanks for the nice feedback on KEGE In response to your suggestions, all of our payware airports contain high-resolution photoreal terrain like the KEGE screenshot you have shared; some (like KEGE) have enormous coverage areas, some smaller. There are two constraints that limit our ability to develop even larger high-detail areas; man-hours and source data availability. Projects like KEGE are extremely time intensive; the project took 4.5 months full-time to complete, of which 3 months was devoted exclusively to the areas outside the airport boundary. Every tree, building and object is placed by hand, whilst the source data is heavily edited, colour-matched, blended and cleaned up for each seasonal variation. Source data availability is variable depending on the location; price, availability and quality of imagery all factor in to the size of an area we might cover in full photoreal-quality. For example, it is far more expensive for us to license imagery for some parts of the world than others, whilst some parts of the world (including a few locations I'd love to develop airports for) don't have suitable imagery available for FS use at all. That being said, there already exists in our catalogue expansive areas of photoreal terrain for you to explore - don't forget that many of our region products include photoreal areas covering interesting geological areas and points of interests. In terms of airports with large coverage areas (like KEGE), there was a discussion recently about the same topic: Cheers, Jarrad Hi Jarrad Thank you for your reply, I had a feeling the limiting factors would be along those lines. I will most certainly take a look at your recommendations, but would also like to ask if Orbx would ever look at creating something like the World2Xplane and G2XPL applications, which can take public domain photoscenery from sources like Bing and autopopulate it with autogen? I have a feeling that the problem would again be "licensing". What would the chances be of setting up a contract with a third party provider of satellite imagery, whilst ORBX itself develops the soptware? Such a thing with the financial backing and experience of ORBX is a mouth watering possibility! A guy can dream ...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BabtridgeMcJoystick Posted January 17, 2016 Author Share Posted January 17, 2016 On 09/01/2016 at 1:04 PM, boleyd said: Some commercial FSX/P3D photo stuff is almost mono-colored with lots of area a constant shade of green. You can use it for VFR but it is not very pretty. Yes thats what I seem to find with a lot of the freely available photoscenery - colour matching is sometimes a little on the monochromatic or even trippy side. That said, from a couple of thousand feet details like mountain ranges are just gorgeous. Shame it usually falls apart if you want to fly low VFR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BabtridgeMcJoystick Posted January 17, 2016 Author Share Posted January 17, 2016 On 09/01/2016 at 2:11 PM, FalconAF said: And to expand on what Jarrad already said, another big constraint is that photoreal scenery is...well...a photo of someplace at a given time. If the photo was taken in Summer, you will never see snow on the ground using that photo picture. To provide seasonal coverage of the area, someone would have to take that one summer photo and create (at least) 2 more photoreal files that have been altered for Spring/Fall, and especially Winter "textures". And that is a MAJOR project. Then, you have (at least) 3 photoreal files for the same photo area. And photoreal files sizes are HUGE to begin with. That's why most photoreal products only provide ONE season worth of scenery. Covering an entire state with 3 or 4 seasons of photoreal scenery would result in a HUGE storage capacity requirement on your hard drive just for that one state. I'm honestly very impressed that places like KEGE in ORBX have the surrounding photoreal scenery for all the seasons. Like Jarrad said, the developer has to spend large amounts of time to provide us with that. Kudos to the scenery developers. That's a good point, it would probably make my hard drive cry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BabtridgeMcJoystick Posted January 17, 2016 Author Share Posted January 17, 2016 On 09/01/2016 at 3:59 PM, neucoas said: Anything from Jarrad is stunning. Truetrue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelMoe Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 18 hours ago, BabtridgeMcJoystick said: Truetrue I buy that for a dollar Michael Moe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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