Review: SceneryTech's Landclass scenery for FSX

Giving an opinion about Scenery Tech’s landclass, there is one thing I want to emphasis in the first place. Wether it be scenery, landclass-scenery or texture-improved-scenery, there is a noticeable smaller amount of developers that offer addons for practically all the world. SceneryTech made the choice to provide also the porer area’s in our world.. Only that already deserves a compliment.  And ofcourse in these areas MAF is flying.

Some explanation about various types of scenery

Beforegoing on to the actual product, I want to explane in general what type of scenery landclass scenery is. Those who are allready familiair with that, can skip this part and go on to the actual review.

Those who are unsure about it, go on reading this paragraph. The world of flightsimulator is build up in several kinds of data.

The things you actually see, are:

• The buildings, trees and other 3D objects. The highest level of the scenery you see.

• The polygon and line textures. These determine the way you see the roads, rivers and by example the background-polygons for airports.

• The landclass textures. These are several kinds of grassland, various types of forest, city-textures, village-textures, and so on, desert. These textures are actual pictures that are displayed on places they should be seen.

To display the textures on the right places, there is a need for data that set the right texture on the right place.

Downhere: Very nice impression with SceneryTech Landclass Africa

• The polygons and lines. Examples of these are the several types of roads and rivers you see and small water-areas and the background of airfields and airports. There are several types of this kind of scenery available as payware for the US, Canada and Europe. I know one freeware version for South Africa.

• To cover the world with the right kind of landtype textures on the right place, enter the kind of data that Scenery Tech provides: landclass data. So landclass scenery contains data, that tell flightsimulator were to show what kind of texture.

• The last kind of scenery that lays ‘under the skin of textures’ is mesh-scenery. These data provide information about the elevation of the earthsurface. The result is mountains and canyons and ofcourse also plains regions.

 

Back to what this review is about: SceneryTech landsclass scenery

The products I have flown with to see how they look, are: Indo-Pacific Landclass, South America Landclass, and their latest product Africa Landclass.

Beside the several comparing screenshots, here is my opinion about these products. SceneryTech Landclass products provide

• An absolute improvement of the precision of areas.

• In most cases it results in an expansion of the city-area sizes. First thought after comparing FSX default and Scenery Tech Landclass is: SceneryTech Landclass is a reflection from twentyfive years later, when every city and village has grown.

• It also provides an expansion of the amount of city or village-areas. Compared to the default scenery, the SceneryTech Landclass shows the more smaller cities and villages too. Some smaller airports which - accoording to Google Earth - do have a city or village area in the neighbourhood, have nothing but sand or woods around them in FSX default. With the Scenery Tech landclass, more villages and small cities will be present. An absolute improvement.

Right: SceneryTech Landclass Africa

• Though SceneryTech Landclass does not provide new textures, the change of division of textures, causes a surprising new ‘look’ for many airports and areas. It most situations I experienced the change as an improment. There were also airports on which I preferred the default landclass. A very nice quality of SceneryTech’s add ons, is that it is an improvement in the variaty of the landscape around you. There are also some dis-advantages of the use of Scenery Tech Landclass.

• The improvement of reality, is probably only noticable by people who actually live in the concerning area or by simmers who like to compare the areas they're flying above with Google Earth. In general you really have to knów it is a closer to reality situation to notice it is. • In some places, because there is a greater contrast between the airportbackground texture and the Scenery Tech landclass, the airport looks more like a silly rectange in the landclass then it does in the default landclass situation. Though SceneryTech Landclass causes adaption of the airportbackground texture, is does not always result in the best looking kind. It is practical ofcourse if you can see the airport clearly from the sky, but in my opinion the contrast is too high sometimes.

• Because of the improved variety in landclass, with the SceneryTech landclass it happens more often, there is a border between two landclasstypes laying under an airportbackground. This causes two kind of backgroundtextures to appear under the runway. This is visible in the semi transparent runway. I personally thinks this looks rather strange.

 

 

Conclusion: The Landclass products of SceneryTech provide much more variety in the landscape. You can expect a complete new look of the area you fly above. There are some places were the product causes some strange effects due to the way FSX handles things.

However, since the prices of these add ons are not so high, it’s not such a risk buying one to see if you like the total result. Good chance you will.

Technical support

A serious and quick technical support is given by SceneryTech. I had several questions and received a clear answer and explanation back within 24 hours.

 

Comparing screenshots Africa

  Adelaide, South Africa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Adelaide, South Africa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Juba, Sudan, Africa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Juba, Sudan, Africa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Juba, Sudan, Africa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Rand Airport Johannisburg, South Africa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comparing screenshots Indo-Pacific

   Malang, Indo-Pacific

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Malang, Indo-Pacific 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Just a few miles away from Malang, Indonesia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Semarang, Indonesia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Semarang, Indonesia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comparing screenshots South America

  Central Matilde, Venezuela

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Central Matilde, Venezuela

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Central Matilde, Venezuela

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Monte Santo, Brazil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Santa Ana, Bolivia. One way or another more noticable contrast between several small texture area's.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swamps at Santa Ana, Bolivia. Here jou see a now and than seen effect, a separation of two kinds of landclass under the runway, causing two runwaytextures on one runway. Besides that you see textures shining through the runway with more contrast than with the default FSX landclass. The swamps at itself is very beautifull.