NZFF

Hi people. I am a bit confused about all these scenery addons. i hear many different terms like: mesh, scenery, 20m mesh, 75m mesh etc. This is all very confusing. I am just a regular, sightseeing pilot who wants to enhance the New Zealand landscape a bit. Especially Fiordland, Mt Cook region and the Marlborough Sounds. I am looking at buy the scenery package from Red Baren Entertainment called "Mountains of New Zealand". I am wondering if i can just buy this, put it on my computer and away i go, or do i need to download something 1st??

ScottyB -- are you using FS2004 or FSX?
The Mountains of New Zealand scenery comes with a nice installer, which makes it real easy. In FS2004 you do have to make a small change to a config file, but this is all explained in the manual.
Mountains of NZ is mesh scenery -- there's a quick review of the Red Baron meshes here.
By the way, I deleted your double post, if you were wondering where it went.
-Robin

I think before you go and spend money, you should get the freeware stuff that is available, and see how you like that. You'll be quite happy with the free 75m mesh!! Go get that, install it, and go from there. At the moment you are jumping from a Morris Mini, and jumping straight to the Formula 1 race car. You might as well step up gently..

Go to geographx and get the 75m mesh. http://www.geographx.co.nz/downloads.html Look for 75m mesh at the bottom.
Start out free, and you might find you don't need to go spend all that money to be happy. Keep in mind you should have a pretty good computer before you go and get the 20 m mesh.

Well you just buy the combo topo and mesh and you are set ,both are together and with easy installer ,this will cover the whole of nz "that is the 20meter and topo "

The 75 meter is freeware download and does the same as the 20meter mesh but not as good as 20 but free all the same to get a feel of what you could have with 20meter ,,
topo adds roads/ coast and 3500 green runways dotted all over nz but they are just textures not flattened runways like you normal airports
like some have said topo "payware "and 75 free mesh will do pretty much the same as 20m combo just the hills and mountains arent as defined as 20m
hope this helps and good luck ...

toprob wrote:

QUOTE(toprob @ Sep 6 2007, 06:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

ScottyB -- are you using FS2004 or FSX?
The Mountains of New Zealand scenery comes with a nice installer, which makes it real easy. In FS2004 you do have to make a small change to a config file, but this is all explained in the manual.
Mountains of NZ is mesh scenery -- there's a quick review of the Red Baron meshes here.
By the way, I deleted your double post, if you were wondering where it went.
-Robin

Thanks for that. And i'm using FS2004.

here are some definitions to help you out:

Mesh: These are the files that define the 'shape' of the land and all other files sit on top of, or are draped over the mesh (excluding water bodies...these are defined separately). The higher the resolution of the mesh, the more well defined your terrain will look and it will appear more realistic....mountains will look like mountains!

So the 75m mesh is better than the default and its free...definitely a recommended upgrade

the 20m mesh is currently the best NZ wide mesh and it costs money...still a worthwhile update.

Topo: This is short for 'Topographical' and is a title used by Christian (the creator of the Red Baron products) presumably because most of the data was created from the 1:50 000 LINZ Topographical data. This defines where roads, coastlines, rivers, railroads are drawn in the sim- The default data does this already in Fs2004 but is less accurate and detailed. In FSX the default 'topo' data is also based on the 1:50 000 LINZ data.

LandClass: These are the files that define where areas of farm land, cities, bush etc are located. These files in turn load up a set of textures to represent those landclasses which in turn load up trees and buildings to match the texture.

Hi Scotty,

just some quick additional comments. Unfortunately, scenery in FS is quite complex, therefore it can be a bit confusing.

If you just want great scenery and fly, get the combo from geographx. This has everything you need to get flying, apart from airports. To add airports you can get some free ones and the RealNZ ones.

Mountains of NZ transforms the mountains in NZ, and only the mountains. The 75 m mesh is good, but the 20 m one is a lot better. If you're planning to fly a lot in the mountainous areas and VFR, there really is no way past the 20m mesh. For example, chasing Fox Glacer in a chopper with the 20 m mesh will blow you away - the 75 m mesh simply can't keep up. The performance comment is rubbish (sorry Albatross) the 20 m mesh has barely any impact. In fact the whole combo scenery is barely any impact on framerates on a 2Ghz, 1Mb system (the system specs on the website are very realistic). I don't think one customer regrets buying the 20m mesh, at least I haven't heard any complaints so far.

It is true that FSX uses the same topo data, but leave it the MS to screw a few things up. Milford Sound is completely ruined and across the counry you get rivers sitting on fake plateaus or digging into the landscape. With the FSX patch, the topo fixes this issues. BTW, if you only have the mesh, you still have the very poor default coasts and rivers. The topo fixes all of this and adds the complete road network of NZ to your sim. That's why you really need the combo (which includes Mountains, Roads & Rivers, and the landclass).

I know, I sound a bit like I'm just trying to sell my scenery, but to be honest, all I care about is that every simmer who wants great scenery gets exactly that. The combo pack from geographics delivers you just that.

http://www.geographx.co.nz/gaming.html

Let me know if that answers your questions.

Best Christian

Christian wrote:

QUOTE(Christian @ Sep 9 2007, 05:53 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The performance comment is rubbish (sorry Albatross) the 20 m mesh has barely any impact.

I wasn't refering to FPS impact, but an ability for the average computer to keep up and actually draw the extra details offered by a 20m mesh. All well and good for most computers under VFR at low level but what about a 737 up at 35000ft? I just ask and make an observation from a 35m mesh I have free from avsim (FSgenesis) for the west coast of the USA. My old computer found it particularly hard to actually draw a detailed mesh. I know you do great work Christian, perhaps better than Fsgenesis did with this particular mesh, but I was just trying to point out what I had noted on an older computer trying to run a detailed mesh.

Albatross wrote:

QUOTE(Albatross @ Sep 9 2007, 08:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wasn't refering to FPS impact, but an ability for the average computer to keep up and actually draw the extra details offered by a 20m mesh. All well and good for most computers under VFR at low level but what about a 737 up at 35000ft? I just ask and make an observation from a 35m mesh I have free from avsim (FSgenesis) for the west coast of the USA. My old computer found it particularly hard to actually draw a detailed mesh. I know you do great work Christian, perhaps better than Fsgenesis did with this particular mesh, but I was just trying to point out what I had noted on an older computer trying to run a detailed mesh.

I think that you could actually be referring to the visible jump from default to addon mesh, which makes the distant mesh tend to squirm about. Christian's mesh uses meshes of different resolutions to smooth this out, so you don't get the big changes, just a gradual change which is hardly noticeable.

toprob wrote:

QUOTE(toprob @ Sep 9 2007, 08:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think that you could actually be referring to the visible jump from default to addon mesh, which makes the distant mesh tend to squirm about. Christian's mesh uses meshes of different resolutions to smooth this out, so you don't get the big changes, just a gradual change which is hardly noticeable.

Yeah, that was what was probably it Cheers

Albatross wrote:

QUOTE(Albatross @ Sep 14 2007, 08:14 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

All well and good for most computers under VFR at low level but what about a 737 up at 35000ft?

Good point. If you exclusively fly @ 35000ft, I very much discourage buying the 20m mesh. From that altitude you're not going to see a difference between the 75m and 20m one. The 20m mesh is for VFR flyers, not for jet jocks. If you fly heavies and no VFR, indeed, save your money.

(Must have been a misunderstanding, Albatross. This isn't a performance or system power issue, even with a high end system you won't benefit from high-res meshes at high altitudes.)

Robin also has a point that my meshes are optimised for near, medium and far distances, so you don't get the abrupt changes in detail that you can get in other meshes...

Christian

All good, where would NZ be without your work! Thanks for all you've done