Tour Around Isle of Man

**Bomber_12th** · July 11th, 2013, 10:45

I took the Edgley Optica out for my first general tour of the latest Earth Simulations scenery addon, the Isle of Man, available currently as an early release. I have a lot more details to take a closer look at now throughout the scenery. For as small a company as Earth Simulations is, and the amount of work involved in this production, I personally feel that it is more than worth the $44 (U.S.) I spent on it. Just absolutely gorgeous, and everything I have come to love about Earth Simulations' addons. The only downside is that, like Guernsey, my computer can't really keep up very well with all of the max detail that this scenery provides, and thus I have to lower a few of my scenery sliders to enjoy it more.

For this flight, I started out at Ronaldsway and then cut across the island, following the coast to Jurby, where I made a quick stop (changing direction parts of the way to take in more of the sights). Taking off again, I overflew Andreas airport and looped around the coast of the island back up to Ronaldsway once more.

I hope you enjoy the screenshots!

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**Bomber_12th** · July 11th, 2013, 10:46

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**Bomber_12th** · July 11th, 2013, 10:47

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**MCDesigns** · July 11th, 2013, 11:02

Stunning images! I love their rocky coastlines.
Interesting, yet unattractive aircraft, LOL.

**Bomber_12th** · July 11th, 2013, 11:19

Thanks, Michael! Regarding the aircraft, I figured it would be good for observing. ; )

I also brought out a couple of warbirds too, and took some snaps:

**Mach3DS** · July 11th, 2013, 11:55

John, those are striking! Are you using ENB now, or is that stock lighting?

**Bomber_12th** · July 11th, 2013, 12:29

Thanks, Rick! For the Optica shots, I added just a slight lighting enhancement to them in 'post production', and of course played around with some more dramatic contrast adjustments and color adjusting with the warbird shots, to experiment with some different looks.

***Mr.Mugel*** · July 11th, 2013, 13:20

Nice shots there!

I guess my machine (Laptop, G540M, I5 2.4, 8GB), wouldn´t like it too much, otherwise it looks like the dream place to fly some warbirds from!

**Naismith** · July 11th, 2013, 14:42

Very nice scenery! It was just like being there, in fact I checked my pocket change and sure enough was full of Irish coins.

No? Well I guess you had to have been there.

**Obie311** · July 11th, 2013, 14:54

Did they include any AI motorcycle traffic in the scenery?

Obie

**Bomber_12th** · July 11th, 2013, 16:29

I haven't spotted any motorcycles, though I have seen tons of cows and plenty of tractors. : )

Regarding performance, the only killer is the cities, which if the autogen is put at full, has every last building and just about every tree presented as true to the photo imagery (which, itself, is of extremely high quality). My system is an I5 (3.3 ghz), 8-gigs RAM, and a GTX 560 (1024 mb) - good at one point, definitely not of today's standards - and I've had to bring the autogen slider down a notch, lower the scenery detail radius to the halfway setting, and turn off water reflections in order to have okay performance (it still looks amazing - same settings as in all of the screenshots I've shown above). It would probably be optimal if I were to bring the autogen setting down another notch, but I like to have it turned up especially outside of the cities. I expected this however, so it wasn't a surprise.

**Bomber_12th** · July 11th, 2013, 16:35

One of the airports is a neat little two-runway grass field (seen in the first screenshot below), with all of the same slopes as the real thing - only suited for light aircraft, like this Moth, however, as the runways are quite narrow and the terrain of the field isn't all too forgiving. Nothing done to these shots, just cropped/re-sized.

**Bomber_12th** · July 11th, 2013, 18:10

Okay, one more set for the night and I'm done. : )

**Mithrin** · July 11th, 2013, 20:14

Truly grand scenery. Thanks for posting these beautiful shots!

**Dain Arns** · July 11th, 2013, 21:45

Originally Posted by Obie311

Did they include any AI motorcycle traffic in the scenery?

Obie

I was wondering the same thing, but I would think that would only be about one week a year.

**IanHenry** · July 11th, 2013, 22:21

Originally Posted by Naismith

Very nice scenery! It was just like being there, in fact I checked my pocket change and sure enough was full of Irish coins.

No? Well I guess you had to have been there.

Hi Naismith,
they don't use Irish coins on the Isle of Man, they have their own currency. The Isle of Man is an fiercely independent territory with their own government.

Ian.

**Naismith** · July 11th, 2013, 22:50

Originally Posted by IanHenry

Hi Naismith,
they don't use Irish coins on the Isle of Man, they have their own currency. The Isle of Man is an fiercely independent territory with their own government.

Ian.

Not when I was there, or at least they accepted Irish. Let me see what year was that..... Oh yes I seem to recall watching England win a certain football tournament against West Germany

**Javis** · July 12th, 2013, 00:27

As always super screenshots, John ! As far as i'm concerned the first shot of the Moth is a real photo.

Thanks a lot for this excellent photo report of the Isle of Man. Looks breathtaking ! Apart from FranceVFR photoreal scenery with autogen is rather sparse, isn't it. Hopefully this may become a trent. Interesting to see how it will compare to FTX Scotland ( which looks absolutely wonderful too if you ask me )

Why don't you take your camera with you on a cross country flight over FTX Scotland too if you have it ?....

Thanks again! :salute:

cheers,
jan

**AussieMan** · July 12th, 2013, 01:17

Great shots there John. The main airport and some of the other airstrips look like something straight out of WWII with their outlines.

**dvj** · July 12th, 2013, 07:03

Originally Posted by Bomber_12th

Okay, one more set for the night and I'm done. : )

Fantastic screen shots! The scenery in the previous sets looks over saturated in color and less than realistic. Is that typical of the scenery? When I've watched the motorcycle race on TV, there are no bright greens or yellows. Oh well, it is FSX.

**Bomber_12th** · July 12th, 2013, 08:23

The scenery colors are very saturated, but this becomes less so when you lower the visibility (add haze) - this really actually can make for a very striking visual experience, as the haze will desaturate the colors of the terrain farther into the distance, and leave the terrain nearest to you still brilliant in color. The colors of the terrain of course become less saturated the closer you get to dawn and dusk. Fortunately for me, I like color. ; )

Another of the great things about ES sceneries, is that they make sure to provide different ground textures for all four seasons, which is quite unusual for photo scenery.

On my own personal setup, I've had the Horizon England VFR photo scenery for FSX for quite some time now, complete with the trees addons from Earth Simulations and the airport addons from UK2000, which I have been extremely happy with - no need to replace that. I also have all of the ES sceneries (Alderney, Scilly Isles, Guernsey, Shawburry Fields), so I haven't seen any need to ditch all of that, for which I really love - able to fly all amongst this region with superb scenery that is authentic in every detail, and that all of which blends together so nicely. Each of the ES sceneries themselves provide for a unique nugget/area to fly around or fly to, with many unique and individual sights at each location.

Here are a few more screens that didn't make the cut the first time around. As mentioned earlier, these screenshots were taken without the scenery and autogen sliders set all the way up - with the autogen density at full, I don't think there is a structure on the island that isn't reproduced. When you pay attention to all of the various buildings (of so many different shapes, sizes, colors), there is a tremendous amount of different buildings throughout the cities and over the span of the island. There are some streets of houses where each house appears to be a different color (likely matching exactly the way they are in reality).

**dvj** · July 12th, 2013, 13:28

Originally Posted by Bomber_12th

The scenery colors are very saturated, but this becomes less so when you lower the visibility (add haze) - this really actually can make for a very striking visual experience, as the haze will desaturate the colors of the terrain farther into the distance, and leave the terrain nearest to you still brilliant in color. The colors of the terrain of course become less saturated the closer you get to dawn and dusk. Fortunately for me, I like color. ; )

Another of the great things about ES sceneries, is that they make sure to provide different ground textures for all four seasons, which is quite unusual for photo scenery.

On my own personal setup, I've had the Horizon England VFR photo scenery for FSX for quite some time now, complete with the trees addons from Earth Simulations and the airport addons from UK2000, which I have been extremely happy with - no need to replace that. I also have all of the ES sceneries (Alderney, Scilly Isles, Guernsey, Shawburry Fields), so I haven't seen any need to ditch all of that, for which I really love - able to fly all amongst this region with superb scenery that is authentic in every detail, and that all of which blends together so nicely. Each of the ES sceneries themselves provide for a unique nugget/area to fly around or fly to, with many unique and individual sights at each location.

Here are a few more screens that didn't make the cut the first time around. As mentioned earlier, these screenshots were taken without the scenery and autogen sliders set all the way up - with the autogen density at full, I don't think there is a structure on the island that isn't reproduced. When you pay attention to all of the various buildings (of so many different shapes, sizes, colors), there is a tremendous amount of different buildings throughout the cities and over the span of the island. There are some streets of houses where each house appears to be a different color (likely matching exactly the way they are in reality).

John, your screen shots totally blow me away. So sharp and clear. Your work has totally sold me on this scenery (and it thought it was not my tea cup). Just stunning. I'll give it a download and try a few shots myself.