Addon scenery is old hat, we need streaming scenery.

[munnst]

Hi,

Is the concept of addon scenery old hat?
Having to find, install and then remember that you have installed an area is very time consuming. How about linking Flightsim into the same graphics engine as Google earth. Even for a small subscription that would give me high detailed scenery for the entire planet.
I think this has to be the way to go?

Ted.

[kiwikat]

I believe google earth looks terrible in comparison to FSX. It would also perform much slower. Until ALL photorealistic scenery includes autogen, other buildings, roads w/ cars, and bodies of water, I believe FSX's graphics and scenery to be superior. If flight simulator looked like Google Earth, it wouldn't be on my computer.

[Captain America]

... If flight simulator looked like Google Earth, it wouldn't be on my computer.

Same here!!!

I wonder if these people who want Flight Simulator tied to Google Earth have ever tried
Ground Enviornment X, Ultimate Terrain X, Megascenery and a bunch of other scenery
add-ons?

[Flying Officer Jevans]

But if you do want it linked to google earth, try tileproxy!

[Captain America]

...Having to find, install and then remember that you have installed an area is very time consuming....

How so?

Most add-on sceneries are install and forget.
Once you've installed GEX or UTX, I don't think you'll forget that they're there.
More likely you would immediately notice if they were not there.

[kiwikat]

GEX and UTX completely transform the experience in FSX. Their developers deserve a HUGE thanks. I would have paid double what I did for them, and they would still be more than worth it. I can't wait for GEX Europe

[JSkorna]

Hi Ted,

Google Maps and the rest are not graphics engines.

How does Google look at night?

How about in Spring, Fall, and Winter?

How about the areas that are in black and white?

What happens if you are not flying low and slow?

Great ideas, TP and Maps2bgl, but the payware stuff for both FS04 and FSX have the upper hand for now!

[NMLW]

Google Earth does have a very rudimentary flight simulator within. on the 'Tools' menu go to 'Enter Flight Simulator'. There is a help file that provides the control options. I believe that you can currently 'fly' two types of aircraft - a jet and a prop.

[Tim_A]

There are large areas in Google Earth not too far away from me that are very poor satellite pictures (not aerial photographs), covered by cloud, badly coloured, and otherwise low quality. I'd be disappointed if that's how FS was presented.

There are vast swathes of the planet that simply do not have high quality aerial coverage. There has to have been a survey for Google (or MS Virtual Earth) to buy the images. My ex flying instructor worked for one of the two UK survey companies (they supply MS). It takes 3 years to survey an area the size of the UK. Strangely enough, a new survey is released every three years. Extrapolate this up to a global level, and you have a massive (and very expensive) undertaking.

That's just the photo aspect of things. As a low-and-slow flier, three-D-ness is very important, and that's completely lacking from something like TileProxy. Then there's water. Have you seen some of the stunning water mask effects that companies like Horizon and Aerosoft are producing in their scenery? Landable lakes, rivers, detailed coastlines and water masks; all these need to be hand crafted, and would simply disappear from a tile server.

No. Hand made scenery, by people that know and care about the places they are producing, wins every time. Hands down.

[ladamson]

Depending where, Google can be quite realistic. And sometimes not. But I'd never dismiss it in favor of other methods as some replies have stated.

L.Adamson