IPACS, scenery question.

  • will there be any scenery created at the 32cm per pixel resolution? I am eager to see the capabilities of this program for areas like the Hawaii island or other lands with beautiful water surroundings. I know that this extended detail resolution takes up a lot more space on the hard drive but it would be cool to see a smaller area get rendered this way. Thanks for the great program so far IPACS, and keep up the fantastic work. What a joy to fly in your sim.

  • You can get very high resolution scenery using our geoconvert tool. We have tested scenery at 0.25m and it looks and runs great in Aerofly FS2!

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • I would like to see one or two Hawaiian islands done at the DLC level as well.

    We might see Jeff's Key West scenery first to get a taste of the emerald water and white sand beaches. Well, not many beaches in the keys but plenty of pretty water. :P

    Regards,

    Ray

  • I would like to see one or two Hawaiian islands done at the DLC level as well.

    We might see Jeff's Key West scenery first to get a taste of the emerald water and white sand beaches. Well, not many beaches in the keys but plenty of pretty water. :P

    Regards,

    Ray

    Just came back from vacation in Key West! Now back to work. I'll have the 'Florida Keys' scenery ready soon, just finishing up with it now.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • The Florida Keys??
    Where can I get this?

    All I am finding is that one small downloads page with an airport here and there, or a ship; is there another download page tucked away somewhere for full scenery like the Fl Keys please?☺

    Just to save Jeff time.

    He has been creating the Florida Keys scenery as a personal project and will share it on here with all of us once it's complete.

    The downloads page you have seen and DLC's shared on Steam are the main areas where you will see new scenery/aircraft be added, unless another member shares a project with you before it's been uploaded.

    You can quite easily create your own scenery using the GeoConvert tool and tutorials can be found on the IPACS wiki pages & YouTube videos.

  • I look forward to the Florida Keys upload then. That would be a treat to fly around. Will be checking back here for it, thank you for your response Dean. Much appreciated for the information.

    The Geoconvert tool has been out for much of the year right? Wondering where is the user created content after all this time? The add on ships and airports on the download page you mentioned look fun, but that's not really a scenery like the tool was supposed to help customers create and share, right? I am puzzled that nobody has tackled learning it after all these months and posted up a bunch of downloads? Maybe I am out of the loop?

    It's good to see a few people posting they are trying to learn it. And I see all the threads on the bugs and crashes. I read in the forums where some are posting their plans for it. But after all these months still nothing? I have looked at the tutorials and admit I simply do not have that much free time or patience to tackle something like that myself. Like they said on the Steam forum, it totally isn't for everyone. I hope I am coming over properly, I only mean to ask if I have missed something? I'd hate myself if there really were lots of user created areas of scenery somewhere and i just missed it.

  • Currently even with no money being exchanged for downloading someone else’s scenery, most of us are hesitant due to questions of imagery ownership. I for one have focused on Washington state which I did in lower resolution with some high-resolution inserts. It probably took 30 - 40 hrs. to generate from FSET and Geo convert so I understand your reluctance to do it yourself. We all wish we felt comfortable to share and I know that there are maybe 50 users who have done some Geo converting.

  • The amount of user scenery is probably in the hunreds of airports and thousands of miles of hd scenery. The problem is that the users have no method of contacting each other to share. IPACS opted out of any type of exchange using this forum due to their interpretation of the copyright infringment.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • The importance of Clarbo's question (above post) cannot be overstated for the future success of the AF2 platform. What made the Microsoft flight simulator program a mega success? It was not the product, it was the massive ecosystem that was built around it, both by freeware designers and commercial outfits alike. I know, I was the owner of one of the very first add-on companies for it.

    The people on this forum are enthusiastic about AF2, and some of us sense there's something really special here. It's like looking at MSFS before MS got hold of it. (I remember those days!)

    But, will AF2 have a future? It's not just up to IPACS, it's up to the enthusiasts to also be part of the growth. We need to ask ourselves what the next step is, and how we can help. How do we find people who can build new aircraft for the sim? How do we source photos that can be used for more scenery areas, and make them legitimately available as completed scenery? How can we help IPACS and have IPACS help us?

    As AF2 moves closer toward the end of the "early access" period, these questions need to be asked and answered. A good sim can only become great by creating the ecosystem around it. Then, it becomes unstoppable.

    - Kenneth

  • Ok, having read the above answers:

    First, thank you for the answers my friends. Now I am getting a better understanding of the delay.

    Secondly, considering the above answers, what future does this sim then advertise as far as additional scenery?
    An honest and valid question considering the amount of investment I already have in the sim plus the additional expensive but limited dlc sceneries.

    Lastly, if the Florida Keys are about to be uploaded then how will they be legally OK, so that the other people trying to work with the geoconvert tool might also follow those steps?
    I appreciate your kindness and time in educating me in this matter/

  • A loose interpretation of why the Florida Keys will be OK to download is the reasoning is that it is intended as proof of concept and part of a tutorial and not strictly downloaded scenery. Jeff can state a more exact reason for you.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • I look forward to the Florida Keys upload then. That would be a treat to fly around. Will be checking back here for it, thank you for your response Dean. Much appreciated for the information.

    The Geoconvert tool has been out for much of the year right? Wondering where is the user created content after all this time? The add on ships and airports on the download page you mentioned look fun, but that's not really a scenery like the tool was supposed to help customers create and share, right? I am puzzled that nobody has tackled learning it after all these months and posted up a bunch of downloads? Maybe I am out of the loop?

    It's good to see a few people posting they are trying to learn it. And I see all the threads on the bugs and crashes. I read in the forums where some are posting their plans for it. But after all these months still nothing? I have looked at the tutorials and admit I simply do not have that much free time or patience to tackle something like that myself. Like they said on the Steam forum, it totally isn't for everyone. I hope I am coming over properly, I only mean to ask if I have missed something? I'd hate myself if there really were lots of user created areas of scenery somewhere and i just missed it.

    I have created CYZX, CYHZ, CYYT, CYQX, CYQM BUT , I have no idea what the legalities are of using Geoconvert with Google Earth data. SO I have to keep them to myself. There is one person on the forums here I have shared a couple of these with to help me test and he has been invaluable but I can't share publically because of the uncertainty of all this.

    I asked earlier how IPACS does it and got a rather vague answer that they don't use Goggle Maps but for some reason they never expanded on what they do use.

  • I keep thinking there should be a very simple solution to the freeware sharing of user generated data using FSET and GeoConverter. Something along the lines of the one building the scenery does not provide 100% of the working files, more like 99.98% but retains a missing link that will keep the scenery from running properly.

    The user that downloads the user generated files would have to provide the missing link by generating the the missing pieces. That way it would be more like a homebuilt airplane and 100% legit in the eyes of the current unwilling ones.

    The tmc file data could be provided and the necessary co-ordinates but the end user would have to perform this final step for true ownership of the working product and, of course agree not to share the product with anyone else.

    Or something simillar where the shared scenery project has to actually be a “shared” project.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • Did you get my latest email from a few days ago about my encounter with one of the people I contacted about the models and his reaction.

  • A loose interpretation of why the Florida Keys will be OK to download is the reasoning is that it is intended as proof of concept and part of a tutorial and not strictly downloaded scenery. Jeff can state a more exact reason for you.

    Regards,

    Ray

    The Florida Keys will released safely due to what you have said but also due to the fact that I have manually taken each and every image tile and customized them, then saved them as an all new TIFF.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Did you get my latest email from a few days ago about my encounter with one of the people I contacted about the models and his reaction.

    Yes, I did. Sorry I failed to reply. I have been on vacation. Some folks are lke that.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • IF Geo convert is going to remain an unpolished extremely difficult to learn and actually use dos-level-dev tool, and customers cannot legally fileshare sceneries online in an open format like FSX or prepar 3d does; then is ipacs going to release real global scenery files later on instead of all these little sections of parts of states etc?

    I am just trying to see the endgame, release goals is all.
    Too much vague and guessing is going on. It seems nobody has an honestly clear picture of what is being offered and what we can look forward to. No disrespect intended in any way. But everyone I ask is in the dark as to whether you will ever actually end up ever doing in AF2 what has been done in the other 2 big player sims all decade.

    I love how AF2 looks and runs. Will it or will it not become what the others are please?
    And I direct this question to any and all who can answer. I am searching for something fantastic to get excited for in the future of this sim in the area of actually taking off from one national location and fly cross country or intercontinental to another airport; over real textured scenery.
    Sorry to be so specific, just searching for that elusive concrete answer is all.