Shhh! Don't tell anyone... MSE 2.0 England/Wales

[PCAviator 30]

Dean,

 

Can you have a look at this link to the MSE England & Wales product? The figures don't make sense.....

 

http://www.megasceneryearth.com/store/cart.php?target=product&product_id=861&category_id=171

 

Yep looks like the product template didn;t get updated from the last item it was borrowed from. Coverage area is 53,000+ square miles as per the box image

[PCAviator 30]

i have to say Dean is shockingly straight up with his answers; as difficult as they may be

as a dev i have to highlight his words; seasonal files are simply the same image

with enhanced or reduced color tone; there is no such thing as seasonal imagery

no one can take clean shoots with overcast sky or pollution; season files has to be manipulated manually

i think not charging for such simple feature is very considerate of MSC

that’s just plain fair business to me

 

Thanks Chris. That is all I am trying to do. I understand some will hate photoscenery for certain reasons. That is fine. We are likely not going to sell many copies to those low and slow tree and building-loving pilots But on the flip-side, photoscenery has just as many merits for realism too. We try and set a price that is fair for the product being delivered, and to cover the costs associated with delivering that product. 

[Kevin Firth 114]

Kevin,

 

You may be able to do that (re seasonal algorithm) if all the source imagery was the same colour with no variation etc across the whole country, but think of it as more of a collage where you would need lots of different algorithms to create a consistent end result, and even then, some of those algorithms would have to be constantly adjusted against each other to get more consistency because of the collage of sources. And even then, you still have the data size problem. That is the biggest issue really. Even if you can get a good colour match across all sources for all seasons, each season still needs it own full set of imagery, so England and Wales alone would be more like 120+Gb download for 4 seasons, then more if you wanted to do a "night season" too.

 

Thanks Dean, I think Chris and I would go and buy an entire server farm if we could populate our sims with photoscenery like that   Still, you'd likely as not have fewer customers so I understand   But 120Gb is peanuts these days when I can get a 3 or 4 Gb drive for well under £100...  Cheers K

[Christopher Low 63]

I think you mean 3 or 4 TB drive, Kevin

[Christopher Low 63]

 

Yep looks like the product template didn;t get updated from the last item it was borrowed from. Coverage area is 53,000+ square miles as per the box image

 

So is that figure of 30GB correct? It sounds rather small for 58300 sq.miles.....

 

[rob16584 42]

30gb was the download size. Not checked to see what the installation size is

[PCAviator 30]

Yes 30Gb is the approx extracted size of the product as well. Why too small? Its fairly consistent with other states with similar coverage area, although you have to remember that the compression algorithm can give vastly different results depending on the source imagery. Bit hard to explain briefly but if you google search something like "how image compression works" or "JPG compression theory" you will see why some images can be compressed to a smaller filesize than others (using the same compression/quality factor). It depends on sharpness and detail in an image, as well as abrupt colour changes in the image from pixel-to-pixel. For example, a photo tile of say 1 sq km which is all green farm land will compress down much further in file size than a tile showing a city or residential precinct with more detail and more colour change across the entire tile.