MegaScenery Hawaii X With FS Dreamscapes ProMesh Hawaii
By Kevin Glover
21 March 2009
It's sort of strange how some areas are given so much more attention than others, even in default FSX. Hawaii is one of these areas, but I really can't complain. It's certainly a beautiful area, and Honolulu looked fine even with the stock scenery. However, high-quality photoreal scenery and an intricate mesh certainly make a big difference. Nonetheless, photoreal scenery, when left plain and unadorned, has little to write about and does not offer much more than pretty vistas; so, a reviewer finds himself in a position to cover the aspects of the product such as they are and to also include a large number of images, showing the good and bad of the product, to make up for length, or lack thereof, of text.
First Impressions
At a download of 430 MB and 130 MB respectively, these products come at a fairly low price compared to comparable products. Installation was quite trouble free, but Megascenery's Hawaii X (hereby referred to as Hawaii X) asked to modify some of FSX's settings in order to make the scenery run as well as possible; not the settings used in the FSX menu, but rather the ones which can only be adjusted in the .CFG such as Level of Detail radius. I personally allowed it to make the changes and haven't encountered any adverse effects from this in other sceneries. The Megascenery manual is quite well done and explains the different aspects of the product, includes all necessary charts, and serves as a good guide for those who are new to photoscenery. Meanwhile, the one for the ProMesh reads rather like an advertisement.
Hawaii X
Oahu is known as the big island of the Hawaiian archipelago; it covers approximately 600 square miles. This scenery is at 1.19 m/pixel per pixel as far as quality, and on the whole I found that quite satisfactory. At low altitudes, say, below one-thousand feet, the scenery looks terribly blurry. However, at more normal altitudes, I hardly had issues with the textures. All of Oahu's airports are covered by this scenery. The unusual thing about this package is that it places a flatten around all of the airports so that all of the tarmac, taxiways, and runways are elevated a good fifteen feet or so (read post script!). The default textures are used for all airports. Oddly enough, I even found a random strip of taxiway up on a cliff near Wheeler AAF. I rather wonder... Depending on what DX mode you're in, there will either be a pillar of earth beneath the taxiway or it will just be floating. Additionally, some of the objects are growing into each other and AI aircraft will be found in the foliage around the airport.
Upon flying over this scenery, you must remember that this is Hawaii, and all of the natural beauty of the island is gloriously captured by the photoreal base. Say we take off from Honolulu Int'l. Head west over the hills and you'll be first greeted by the hoards of civilization climbing about halfway up the mountain's slopes. This civilization, by the way, uses all default buildings although many have been repositioned to look better. There are tons of fascinating details to see, such as roads (which have traffic) disappearing into tunnels or even a crater.
If you continue to go in, however, you'll find a rather odd phenomenon; it seems that the sky wasn't entirely clear when they took the images as there is a 'cloud' or rather a cloud-colored blotch, on some of the hills. Unusual, but for whatever reason I rather like seeing it. There are several of these around the scenery, and they look fine if you're not flying with autogen, but rather less intriguing when there are clouds poking through the trees.
If you should choose a fast aircraft, remember that blurries tend to be more noticeable with photoreal sceneries, especially at high speeds. Sometimes, when on the ground, if you look at a low level across the scenery it's surprising how it all deteriorates into a sludgy mess. Never mind, though, since it's really something that will happen to any scenery. The scenery also includes great night textures. These are of the same quality as daytime, and the roads are very noticeable and bright, whereas much of the mountain regions are very dark. Oddly enough, I've heard that, on some installations, there would be more than one object trying to occupy the same space. I didn't encounter this in my flights, though. Mind you, I enjoyed flying with autogen off because of the increased performance and besides, I think it looks better that way.
Now let's go the opposite way and head off over the ocean. One of the great parts of Hawaii X is that the developers decided to include water masks (that is, photoreal textures extended over the water) a good thirty feet out into the ocean on the shores, and all over all of the island's rivers, bays, and inland water. This is really quite a neat thing to see, and it smooths the transition between ground and water very well (read post script!). Also, since the scenery is on an island, you don't have any awkward areas where the photoreal scenery meets default.
FS Dreamscapes NEXTMap® ProMesh™ Hawaii
If you understand what terrain mesh is, that being the underlying shape of the scenery you are flying over, this product is rather self explanatory, and all of the relevant information is detailed on the product page. However, for reference, the product boasts a mesh which is sixty-four times more detailed than default, and I believe it. It also comes with some higher resolution textures, but since I'm using photoreal scenery these aren't being reviewed here. The mesh really is quite beautiful, and it's surprising how much seeing every nook and cranny of Hawaii's jagged mountains adds to your flying experience. The photoreal scenery and the mesh seem to work beautifully together, and I really have no major complaints toward either product.
Final Word
I know this review has been rather brief, and I'm sure I'll be criticized accordingly, but there's just very little to write about here as it is, more or less, just textures and the mesh since it uses default autogen and such. The two products are fairly close to dirt cheap, however, so one really can't complain. You get above-average textures and an intricate mesh for thirty dollars, (which you can get in better quality from Aerosoft's Madeira X, by the way) so this is probably one of Hawaii's best representations. This review relies on all of the images which show the scenery when blurry, when dark, when light, with clouds, without clouds, so as you can see it's becoming something of a pictorial review. Nevertheless, it's a fine product, and for anyone who likes photoreal scenery or Hawaii, it's a keeper.
Post Script
Well after the completion of this review, the author was informed of a Megascenery service pack. This service pack was released in February of 2008, but the author procured this software in December of 2008. Thus, one would think that the service pack would have been incorporated into the version which he downloaded, but the author couldn't find a definitive answer what version he originally had, as some issues this service pack was supposed to address did not appear in the simulator to him. In any case, after installing the service pack, a number of things were discovered.
1. Environment sounds were added, most noticeably the sound of the ocean.
2. Some instances of the water textures overlapping the terrain were fixed, although this was not something encountered by the author.
3. Full compatibility with Acceleration/SP1/SP2, most noticeably the odd platforms which the airports were built on have disappeared, and now they are on solid ground.
4. After installing the service pack, the author noted that now there were some areas in which the photoreal water textures and the default water met, there transition was just going from a block of this texture to a block of the other texture, with no transition.
5. The issues with the clouds on the terrain were not addressed.
6. This service pack also included a 10 m mesh, which obviously could not be reviewed here.
We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. It is the sincere hope of the author that the reader has not become as confused whilst reading this as the author was while figuring out which version he had installed.
Link:
http://www.megascenery.com/files/megaSceneryX-Hawaii-ServicePack-February2008.exe
Tested On
Intel Q6600 at 2.4 GHz
Windows Vista Home Edition 64 bit
MSI P35 Neo II
ATI 4850 512MB
2GB Corsair Dominator
Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Acceleration
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Kevin Glover |
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