AVSIM Commercial FSX Scenery Review. San Francisco Bay. Product Information

Transcription

1 AVSIM Commercial FSX Scenery Review San Francisco Bay Publishers: Vero FS Product Information Description: Seasonal orthophoto aerial terrain of San Francisco Bay with autogen. Download Size: 75 GB (1 GB at a time) Format: Download Simulation Type: FSX Reviewed by: Allen Lavigne AVSIM Staff Reviewer - November 2, 2010 INTRODUCTION: FLY THE REAL WORLD What is this product? An exciting new development in the optimization of ortho-photo imaging for photographic terrain textures in FSX. Ortho-photo aerial imaging: This rather highly technical sounding term refers to aerial photography that has been corrected for variations such as topography, distortion, camera tilt, and other distortion effects. Since the digital processing of these photos requires differential rectification and such things, I will spare you the rest. Wikipedia is my source for concise layman explanations about unknown terms, which has a nice short article on orthophoto aerial photography if you wish to know more. VERO-FS Flight Simulation Environment Lab:The essential of what VERO-FS offers here is not only geo-referenced photo terrain textures. These aerial photos are rendered by a complicated digitizing process which is not new to flight simulation called orthophoto rendering. What VERO-FS then does is achieve higher level of refinement and clarity. Let me explain. (1 of 11)02/11/2010 5:16:07 PM

2 VERO-FS reveals some of the best scenery available in FSX with added digitization to balance the luminosity, color, and contrast. Further enhancements to this product include seasonal variations for fall, light winter, and heavy winter. Night lighting has been implemented and six airports so far have higher resolution photo underlain. There is some autogen near almost every airport in the area covered. The imagery is usually of 1m/pixel resolution but there are at time of writing six airports underlain with 30 cm/pixel aerial imagery. In the body of this review, whenever I refer to VERO I simply mean the package of scenery I am reviewing, which was known as San Francisco Bay_001. There will soon be a combination of these available to cover for the whole state of CALIFORNIA. These products include all the seasonal variations, diurnal, and some autogen as you are used to having in FSX but have not usually been able to get with photographic scenery. Aerosoft has some similar products but the color optimizations are not as good as these. Coverage and nav map With every advent of plastic surgery there are the mandatory before and after pictures To show the improvement, VERO-FS is able to bring to regular orthophoto scenery using their own optimization techniques. I show here a few "before and after snapshots from their websites for regular ortho versus optimized ortho. (2 of 11)02/11/2010 5:16:07 PM

3 Examples of imagery optimization Preview of next generation textures VERO vs. competition The area covered for this review is shown above with a navigational map alongside to show the number of airports and airfields inside the area. I did have access to more northern latitudes not shown in the picture. There are a lot more exciting pictures and explanations on their website. INSTALLATION: (3 of 11)02/11/2010 5:16:07 PM

4 The only difficult part of this installation is managing the large files. Plan ahead for the volumes required, which depends on what you want to get. For review purposes I was supplied with 75 GB which I downloaded via my broadband connection took me a few days, one file at a time as there is no concurrency, before I amassed the data needed just for the area as depicted in the box above. Most such files are about one gig in size. If you decide to download these files keep in mind that your OS partition requires enough space to store the compressed file, then to unwrap it. So if you do this for many files you will have to plan ahead in order to have enough space. This is usually not a problem with today's TB-sized drives. Also Vero-FS now supports concurrent downloading and it should work with a download manager. Format is of the "rar" type so you will need an unwrapper for that (Google winrar ). Simply clicking on any part unwraps all subsequent parts for that bunch into its prefixed-named folder. Follow the installation tree as shown below and in the manual for installations. I suspect the hard drive purchases will be unwrapped and ready to use and activate. If you are early enough to get into the club membership (explained later under questions and answers) you get updates as shown below. If you have any trouble with downloading the support staff is always there to give a hand. At the time of writing this review, Vero-FS was in the process of switching from these downloadable packages to much larger entire blocks as their main sales feature. Most likely any future purchase will be as entire blocks which run up to 400 Gigs: In this case you either send in a hard drive for them to transfer over the files or you can buy one, cheaply I might add, direct from Vero-FS. Their website will have the correct updated information. Reviewer s Note: Please check the Questions and Answers section of this review for more up to date details. Installation itself then is a manual scenery library activation according to a hierarchy as shown in the picture (follow their instructions). NB: If you are using Windows-7, there is a slight roundabout need to actually do this correctly. Without getting involved in this, I direct your inquiries to the AVSIM forum post called "How to Add Add-on Scenery in Windows 7". SOME SNAPSHOTS: SEASONAL TEXTURES: Here are some snapshots of summer, light and heavy winter textures. I had to enable each (light and heavy) in the scenery library because FSX only activates a winter. The differences are very well done and useful for the winter backwoods bush pilot. (4 of 11)02/11/2010 5:16:07 PM

5 Summer Light winter Heavy winter REGULAR AIRPORTS: Most airports are not underlain with high resolution photos. But quite a few do have autogen added to the local area. These are some snapshots I took with and without the annotated autogen. There are 40 airports and airfields in the area covered for this review. KLHM compared Over Sacramento KSTS runways misplaced by FSX As seen in the last snapshot above, some runways are not aligned properly with some of the underlain photo scenery. This is a shortcoming of FSX itself as the picture is perfect. These can be straightened out using some enhancement software, but for commercial use this becomes a bit tricky. VERO leaves this to the user to remedy if they so chose, but are attempting to fix these themselves within their capabilities in future updates. HIGH-RES AIRPORTS: It is only the underlying terrain photo scenery textures that are high resolution here, not the airport buildings. Nevertheless, the effect is noticeable especially on a slow approach as you can see in the pictures. At time of writing the following high res airports were available: San Jose, San Francisco, San Carlos, Livermore, Buchanan, Napa, and Oakland. (5 of 11)02/11/2010 5:16:07 PM

6 KCCR Napa San Jose KSQL Livermore departing KSFO NIGHT TEXTURES: The enhancement for night lighting is fairly good. (6 of 11)02/11/2010 5:16:07 PM

7 Enhanced night effects are a real plus San Francisco city lights PERFORMANCE: FPS:This is where VERO's combination of ideas shine. By limiting annotated autogen to areas bordering selected airports they have reduced draw calls while allowing for some autogen. This does cause some areas to be very sparse, but the gains of higher frame rates and a brilliantly detailed view from altitude must interest most simmers. There are quite a few airports and airfields with annotated autogen, not just the high resolution areas. As a result, my fps counts as shown by the freeware FRAPS was always higher than would be expected with all scenery sliders fully to the right. High LOD_RADIUS values of 12.5 did not bring the frame rates to its knees, but did lower them somewhat. The amount of AI you have active will adversely affect the frame rates, but at least there are fewer objects to draw. I found that I could use higher AI setting while maintaining reasonable performances. (note that some fraps values are for when I was in pause mode, especially when above 40) MEMORY: LOD_RADIUS: This tweak is made inside the FSX configuration file. It sets a value for the level of detail (LOD) in terms of a radius from the observer. Default values are between 2.5 and 4.5, but these are way too low for the multi-processors out there now. If you do not have a multi-processor, don t bother with this tweak as it will still bring your system to its knees. Test System Windows 7, 64-bit // VISTA64 WC 6G RAM 800MHz BFG GTX MB max res = 1920x1200x32 UTX, FEX, ASE, FSGenesis Flying Time: 14 hours For information on how to tweak this value, you should search the AVSIM forum or ask someone there for assistance. Just remember that the higher the LOD_RADIUS, the more physical memory you are going to need. One thing about photo scenery, you can increase the value for your LOD_RADIUS without suffering the same drastic performance loss as when you have a lot of autogen to draw. This setting is something you have to manually reset quite often, whenever FSX reloads the scenery it reverts to its default values. The amount of RAM called for will be a function of the LOD_RADIUS value. By default, FSX always reverts to, at most, a 4.5 value. To get higher ones you have to know how to edit your FSX configuration file. I will not detail that editing procedure here, but you can ask/search for assistance and information in the AVSIM forums. Having only 6 Gigs of RAM in my system I found myself limited to less than 10.5 for comfortable headroom. Approaching the physical memory limit can cause Windows to close FSX. In conclusion, I found a value of 8.5 a good compromise between quality and performance on my system. Memory vs. LOD_RADIUS (7 of 11)02/11/2010 5:16:07 PM

8 Memory loads at different LOD_RADIUS Different Levels Of Detail USING OTHER ADD-ONS: UTX: I also have UTX USA installed which will load road traffic in the exact places for roads, no mismatching at all. It adds a lot to the otherwise at times barren looking roads. The road traffic is not included in the regular VERO product. The picture below also shows the border between VERO with UTX to show the continuity between the two. The two options for UTX-USA that you can use are Roads and USA Lighting. The first gives you the road traffic which is a perfect match with VERO-FS and the second gives you the street lamps and intersection red lights which again are a perfect match with this product. The other entries for UTX-USA could be deactivated but it is not necessary. I leave them all active. UTX-USA activated with VERO Bordering with UTX-USA Example of Aerosoft add-on As is evident in the snapshot of a VERO/UTX border, there is some abrupt changes, but overall the roads and cities match up well such that the transition is not unpleasant. I use UTX and GEX_NorthAmerica, so in most photos you may not get the same effect if you do not have these additional add-ons. This is almost inconsequential as the coverage area is being expanded daily. They tell me they are rendering an addition 10,000 square km every two days. With the entire USA being just less than 10 million sq.km it will still take a while to cover every airport, but that is their ambition. Aerosoft's City of San Francisco Scenery: This scenery add-on, at the best of times, is a frame rate eater. Even though it is beautiful, I rarely leave it active for that reason. The same can be said when it is used on top of the VERO- FS terrain, but not more, the load is the same and I do not recommend using the two together if you like fluidity. (8 of 11)02/11/2010 5:16:07 PM

9 NOTE: this city scenery is NOT included in the VERO product. It is shown here to suggest compatibility and performance issues. It is an interesting supplement to the VERO terrain if you have it already or are willing to pay for it at Aerosoft's store. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: With Gabriele Cripezzi; CEO-Founder VERO Flight Simulation Environment Question #1: As I understand it, VERO-FS will be changing their purchase formats to hard drive only. When will this occur and is their still time for AVSIM readers to join the club membership? 1 month after the review is published - after that, we will void the coupon (for new access to club memberships) that will allow your readers to access the bundles like CA01, CA02 and CA03 (that all together make CA-NORTH). Question #2: If I buy the hard drive version what do I get on it and are they still going to have regular free updates? You'll get all the seasons + HW + Night + Autogen (basically everything). Yes of course, the upgrades will be free of charge for our customers. Question #3: What makes Vero-FS a good choice compared to their competitors offering similar products? We are the only photo-realistic scenery producers that ADD VALUE to FSX taking NOTHING away from it. This means: 1) seasons 2) night 3) hard winter (although it must be activated manually through the Scenery Library) - 2 versions (light and heavy snow ground coverage) 4) optimized (luminosity/contrast/color) ortho-imagery before compiling Others DO NOT optimize, DO NOT make seasons, DO NOT make Hard Winter (snow ground), make very poor quality night variation (by the way, I just improved it so we will make a new night variation for CA-NORTH which will be released for free to our existing customers. We will use this new improved technique from now on for CA-SOUTH and for the rest of the USA) You may want to read for details: Question #4: I've noticed little annotated autogen except while near most airports. Is this a permanent limitation or are things evolving, developing further? We will add autogen to all the airports and airfields, of course. If you mean adding more autogen where it has been added already, the answer is "yes if it needs it". Who decides if it's needed? Me and the customers. You need to know that I am not the one adding autogen (Bas is doing it). I believe some airports need to be fine tuned, autogen wise. I will personally add where I see it's needed. Question #5: Have you considered adjusting the airport aprons that are noticeably out of sync with the underlain photos with enhancers such as Flight1's "Airport Facilitator X"? Yes I have. I am talking to some guys in the US who expressed the interest in helping in that part. We will fix the original FSX aprons but of course we can't make changes to other producer s add-ons. They will have to do it if they feel their product should match with our textures, which are by the way perfectly geo referenced (accurate). The problem is in the FSX aprons, not in the textures. Question #6: What about file size? That will be about 2 TB for the entire state of California ( sq.km.), which includes all seasonal variations and night lighting as well as a number of high-res areas. Question #7: (9 of 11)02/11/2010 5:16:07 PM

10 At what LOD are you developing? From 0 to 15 (auto) and from 13 to 17 for the High-res areas of 30cm/pixel. I also refer you to their F.A.Q. page. Display settings UT2 settings SUMMARY/CONCLUSION: Be aware that at the time of writing this review that VERO-FS was in the process of advancing the purchase formats to entire blocks comprising about 400 Gigs of data on a hard drive, and consequently the small area for San Francisco Bay covered in this review may not be available much longer as a separate small package at a proportionately smaller price. I preferred flying around with a rather high LOD_RADIUS as this increased my detail without adversely affecting the frame rates all that much. The sparse use of autogen helped in this matter, although at lower approach altitudes, the lack of thick autogen was missed. There is some, but not that much. The high quality of the underlain orthophoto scenery at some airports made them still an enjoyable approach. Airports and airfields with less underlain detail seemed to be compensated with more autogen. In either case, there were loads of airports and airfields to enjoy and I am far from visiting them all. The type of product this is calls for VFR flights, not because it needs a slow moving aircraft but because you will want to look out the window and admire the passing scenery. Also it is not a huge coverage area, so a long IFR flight would be mostly FSX default which could lessen the sense of realistic immersion. The value added to this product in terms of well matched packets of scenery, seasonal variations, high resolution airports, annotated airfields, night lighting, and some autogen make it a good deal in my opinion. This add-on was a joy to work through for a review. I would also like to mention that the support staff at VERO-FS has been the most cooperative I've ever had the pleasure to deal with. If you want the best of photo terrain scenery, VERO-FS may be your best bet. At the time of finishing up this review, VERO was in the process of changing their product format. For more information, check out their website. What I Like About VERO's San Francisco Bay (10 of 11)02/11/2010 5:16:07 PM

11 Simply outstanding scenery. Autogen only near airports allows performance and quality to coexist. Ever expanding coverage area. The optimization techniques used make a world of difference Unlike other photo scenery, has seasonal variations. Realistic night lighting What I Don't Like About VERO's San Francisco Bay Not too much, small details not worth mentioning as it is a product in expansion. Printing If you wish to print this review or read it offline at your leisure, right click on the link below, and select "save as" San Francisco Bay (adobe acrobat required) Comments? Standard Disclaimer The review above is a subjective assessment of the product by the author. There is no connection between the product producer and the reviewer, and we feel this review is unbiased and truly reflects the performance of the product in the simming environment as experienced by the reviewer. This disclaimer is posted here in order to provide you with background information on the reviewer and any presumed connections that may exist between him/her and the contributing party. Tell A Friend About this Review! AVSIM Online All Rights Reserved (11 of 11)02/11/2010 5:16:07 PM