What da' heck is this?

  • Always nice to see new stuff out there for Aerofly but... What an interesting release. https://secure.simmarket.com/landclass-jack…fr_12606).phtml

    Welcome to Jackson for Aerofly FS 2

    Jackson is a town in Wyoming's Jackson Hole valley in the United States

    NOTE: The scenery does not come with photo scenery as shown in the screenshots above. However, this package can be used with photo scenery which can be made with the excellent Geoconvert utility by IPACS.

    Features of this scenery:

    • Autogen for Jackson based on the latest OpenStreetMap (OSM) data.
    • Detailed 10m mesh covering over 2700 km2 (USGS)
    • High Quality Night Lighting
    • Basic Representation of KJAC included so that you can get flying right away!

    NOTE : Make sure to read the installation instructions carefully.

    [Blocked Image: https://secure.simmarket.com/images/products/4/4d/12606/217753_20190719191116_1.jpg]

    Devons rig

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  • I saw this and found it a bit irritating as the maker (this is his first product) calls itself "Landclass". We all know there isn't such a thing as landclass in AeroflyFS2.

    Besides, I think he would have found much more buyers if he provided photo scenery which shouldn't be an issue in the US where he could use USGS data. I suppose, the majority of AeroflyFS2 users is not intimate with Geoconvert and its friends.

    I might buy it after the new AeroScenery is ready. The choice of the setting is certainly an excellent one.

    Thanks and kind regards, Michael

    Intel i7-6700K 4.0 GHz / Asus MAXIMUS VIII RANGER / Kingston 32 GB DDR4 / Samsung SSD M.2 500 GB + Samsung SSD 1 TB + Intel SSD 500 GB (AeroflyFS2) + WD HD 6 TB / EVGA GTX 1080Ti 11 GB / LG 34UM95 3440 x 1440 / HP Reverb / Win 10/64

  • This is not an improvement, this is just incomplete. You can publish something like this for free, yes. But making money?

    If he/she chose an area already covered by photo textures to improve it is ok But this way? Same with the Mesh-Addons from Taburet;) But this is just my opinion. It is a bit different if you do such addons for a sim providing the whole world with flyable area or if you have a sim having only some region complete.

    Not much information, Let me guess, if someone have more information, it should be good:

    • Autogen for Jackson based on the latest OpenStreetMap (OSM) data.
      • We have cultivation, not autogen. This is simple to do with ready available scripts for sceneProc and even more simple with my generator using sceneProc. Are there own textures for cultivation included? Own objects?
    • Detailed 10m mesh covering over 2700 km2 (USGS)
      • This is an area of around 50 x 50 km, just to make the number better understandable.
    • High Quality Night Lighting
      • What High Quality? A new light system? This will be the standard lights from the cultivation. Am I right?
    • Basic Representation of KJAC included so that you can get flying right away!
      • Just the tsc airport definition? Or FSCloudport created? Flying right away… how... without photo scenery?

    Would be interesting to read what sources and tools he/she used and if there are credits. ;)

    Wish for Aerofly FS 2/4:

    - Flightpath recording on hard drive and replay in sim from different view points

    - Smoke for aerobatic planes

    - Multiplayer or at least watching other people flying sitting on ground or inside tower

    Edited once, last by flightxtreme (July 22, 2019 at 8:38 AM).

  • This remembers me of my postman who almost never delivers parcels in my box but leaves instead a note for me to go at the next post office during office hours to get my parcel.

    I wonder when they'll start their next service: pay 10 bocks and you receive a note saying that you can drive directly to the sender's and get yourself your parcel...

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • My bold prediction...

    Scenery packs excluding orthophotos will start to become a thing.

    I think John Venema of OrbX paid six figures to acquire imagery for TrueEarth GB and the quality is pretty low. When you take a look at the forums, plenty are talking about how they replaced it with Google imagery.

    The value is in 3d modelling work now: airports, aircraft, custom POIs. That can't be commoditised. It'll still have value in the FS 2020 world.

    That said, a commercial release like this, right now, when USGS is available for free, just seems lazy.

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • My bold prediction...

    Having access to some commercial developper material, I'm afraid there's no more business in purchasing aerial photos of European countries and selling as region-wide ground texture, even for high ranking flight simulators in terms of market shares. Added value is in the scenery itself...

    I tend to agree with you regarding streaming, despite some might be left behind with low speed ADSL...

    BTW: that could be a feature idea for Aeroscenery, but to workaround copyright issues when sharing photo sceneries, FSET can be pre-configured for fully automated scenery-making and shared free as a package.

    The user then just downloads and extracts the archive, double-clics on the icon and FSET automatically launches, grabs the pictures and compiles the scenery in the sim's folder. No need for setup or whatever, except maybe creating the desired work folders...

    Quite a few photo-sceneries were shared this way without actually sharing any photo material...

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

    Edited 2 times, last by Trespassers (July 22, 2019 at 2:02 PM).

  • I’m looking forward to seeing something nearing this level of automation for USGS scenery for the USA.

    A new release of AeroScenery that supports USGS is imminent, but I was disappointed to find that USGS only supplies tiles to zoom level 16.

    https://basemap.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/se…pServer?f=jsapi

    (Note how you can't zoom in that far. Ortho4XP uses this dataset and has the same limitation)

    For anything higher res you need a USGS account and to download individual high res image packages, unzip them etc.

    Their automated service requires additional account privileges, which I think they only give to educational / government institutions.

    Considering the orhotphotos are "free", they really do everything they can to stop bulk downloads.

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • Nick, tell me again the correlation between AeroScenery level and FSET levels. The USGS zoom level 16 is equivalent to what pixel level?

    Level 15 for FSET is what I am usually seeking for the immediate airport area.

  • Sorry, no idea about FSET, never used it.

    Zoom level 16 is the same for Google, Bing, USGS tiles and in the AeroScenery UI, which is around 2m per pixel.

    Zoom level 17 is ~1m per pixel.

    Zoom level 18 is the highest you normally see for flight sim scenery at ~0.5m per pixel.

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • Nick, tell me again the correlation between AeroScenery level and FSET levels. The USGS zoom level 16 is equivalent to what pixel level?

    Level 15 for FSET is what I am usually seeking for the immediate airport area.

    I'm afraid you're rather meaning Geoconvert Levels rather than FSET.

    FSET gives output resolution in m/pixels, that's IMO the most interesting value for the user, less confusing than Zoom Levels that carry the same name but don't match AFS2's Geoconvert Levels...

    My 2 cents

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • AS level 16 is about the same as AFS2 level 12/13. I think it would take level 18 (0.5m) to get to what IPACS uses as level 15 (0.5m) for close up detail.

    Well, in that case, the USGS at that gross level will not be very useful for airport scenery. Maybe limited to Flight Level flyovers for the tube liners. Sorry to hear these severe limitations.

    Maybe Trespassers idea of an automated script can be developed to take USGS to a more useful level.


    I'm afraid you're rather meaning Geoconvert Levels rather than FSET.

    FSET gives output resolution in m/pixels, that's IMO the most interesting value for the user, less confusing than Zoom Levels that carry the same name but don't match AFS2's Geoconvert Levels...

    My 2 cents

    Antoine

    Yes, exactly. I misspoke. I was thinking GeoConverter for comparison. I have settled in level 14 (1.1m) as the preferred wide area scenery level and level 15 (0.5m) for immediate airport or interesting areas like ports, city centers and highway intersections.

  • You cannot connect this directly.

    The "Zoomlevel" is the resolution you can download from the sources.

    The compilation Level from Geoconvert is the definition of the output.

    You can download Zoomlevel 7 and compile with "Level" 15. Does not make sense, but you can.

    And in FSET the Level goes into negative to get more detail.

    So Image Detail "Zoomlevel" Aeroscenery to FSET "Download Resolution"

    you can compare like this; (approx…)

    20 -> -2

    19 -> -1

    18 -> 0

    17 -> 1

    16 -> 2

    15 -> 3

    and so on.

    What tile level you compile from your sources depends on what you want.

    I would always try to work with the detailed download sources I can get. In this case for example the imprints of google maps are getting very small or even not visible, if you convert Image Detail "20" to only Level 9 to 13.

    Wish for Aerofly FS 2/4:

    - Flightpath recording on hard drive and replay in sim from different view points

    - Smoke for aerobatic planes

    - Multiplayer or at least watching other people flying sitting on ground or inside tower

  • While true, the one factor they all relate to, when limiting the conversation to AFS2 scenery, is the final pixels per something. Using GeoConverter with a target of 0.5m/p with a source download of 0.5 m/p will yield the preferred HD level for me.

    1.1m/pixel source and yield for wide areas does tend to make some large file sizes, but storage memory is cheap nowadays.

  • Maybe Trespassers idea of an automated script can be developed to take USGS to a more useful level.

    My "script idea" is rather intended for scenery sharing without sharing any copyrighted material, i.e. you share a pre-configured tool that automatically grabs the images and generates the scenery without requesting any setup or knowledge from the user.

    USGS-based sceneries may be shared without violating copyrights, thus it's much better to share the completed scenery.

    Geoconvert Level 14 is great for wide areas but quickly becomes heavy.

    Level 13 is an excellent compromize for en-route scenery even for GA.

    See for instance my test scenery below, seen from 3'500ft AGL, i.e. we're not speaking of tube liner cruise level.

    Magenta is Level 14, Green is Level 13, Blue is Level 12, Yellow is Level 11, Red is Level 9.

    Even flying a high-wing aircraft like the C172, you hardly never see Level 14 tiles from this height.

    Most of the scenery you'll see while flying is Level 12 and below and when you search down for details you mainly see Level 13 tiles.

    In other words, enabling Aeroscenery for USGS source even if limited to Level 13 or maybe 14 is already a great improvement for wide-area en-route scenery making. Higher levels can be locally compiled where worth it...

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • A new release of AeroScenery that supports USGS is imminent ......

    Thank you so much, Nick. :thumbup:


    In other words, enabling Aeroscenery for USGS source even if limited to Level 13 or maybe 14 is already a great improvement for wide-area en-route scenery making. Higher levels can be locally compiled where worth it...

    Yes, agree.

  • +1! Completely agree with you, Antoine.

  • All my scenery is made at "AeroScenery Zoom Level 16" which is 2.389 M/PIX and looks just great flying GA.

    Favourite airfields I make at "Zoom Level 18" 0.597 M/PIX IF the satellite images are of good quality, not always the case.

    Best wishes, Michael :)

  • nickhod

    Hi Nick,

    USGS can deliver higher resolution data.

    Yes you need a (free) account and have to use the Bulk Download Application.

    You even have to set a date to get rid of older and doubled tiles.

    But if you are lucky, you can download a 0.5 feet resolution.

    Please see an example from Orlando Intl here:

    Cheers,

    Thomas

    Cheers, Thomas