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So why is it ... (Read 239 times)
Dec 5th, 2010 at 2:09pm

Sir Puma   Offline
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that everyone else's screen shots look kick butt, including the straight up freeware type but mine look like poor cartoons. For example this shot.

...

Is it just a difference between FS2004 and FSX? Are their special settings that should be tweaked? I might be getting FSX after the holidays but till then I'm stuck with ugly crap. I have the SRTM installed for all of the US and Western Europe and was hoping that would help make the backgrounds look better, but it all looks like a bad cartoon image. Is it that the image is .jpg? Is there a better format?

I would like to be able to create awesome screen shots like everyone else.

Edit*
Here are my graphics settings.
...
(High Res)
http://i561.photobucket.com/albums/ss56/celticarmory/General/FSGraphicsHiRes.jpg
 
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Reply #1 - Dec 5th, 2010 at 2:29pm

skoker   Offline
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Wee all how hundreds of addons... Grin
 

...
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Reply #2 - Dec 5th, 2010 at 2:37pm

Sir Puma   Offline
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As an example, here is the default 747-400 at KBFI during a beautiful sunny summer winter day and summer day.
Winter
...

Summer
...
 
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Reply #3 - Dec 5th, 2010 at 3:11pm

Sir Puma   Offline
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...

This is the same summer image with a little help from PSP7.
 
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Reply #4 - Dec 5th, 2010 at 9:10pm

olderndirt   Offline
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The common problem, regardless of equipment and/or technique, is what happens when you compress your 3MB .bmp shot down to 155kb.jpg to meet forum requirements.
 
... 

                            
THIS IS NOT A PANAM CLIPPER

                                                            
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Reply #5 - Dec 5th, 2010 at 10:29pm

BrandonF   Offline
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It would probably help if you didn't use the default 747 in your screenshot, as it is modeled extremely poorly. Grin
 
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Reply #6 - Dec 5th, 2010 at 10:59pm

Sir Puma   Offline
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That's one of the reasons I want to get FSX, way better graphics.
 
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Reply #7 - Dec 6th, 2010 at 4:54am

Hagar   Offline
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olderndirt wrote on Dec 5th, 2010 at 9:10pm:
The common problem, regardless of equipment and/or technique, is what happens when you compress your 3MB .bmp shot down to 155kb.jpg to meet forum requirements.

Precisely. Your shots include graphics intensive scenery which requires a lot of compression to meet the forum limit. Try a few shots in different locations to compare the amount of compression you need. Perhaps try zooming out a little. Some colours are more graphics intensive than others. Shots of the aircraft against the sky are generally the least intensive.

Quote:
Is it just a difference between FS2004 and FSX? Are their special settings that should be tweaked? I might be getting FSX after the holidays but till then I'm stuck with ugly crap. I have the SRTM installed for all of the US and Western Europe and was hoping that would help make the backgrounds look better, but it all looks like a bad cartoon image. Is it that the image is .jpg? Is there a better format?

I can't advise on your FS9 settings as this will depend on your system. Does FS9 look better on your monitor or do your shots show what you see? Compression affects all images whether they're FS screenshots or photos. The more compression the worse the image quality.

The forum rules are the same for everyone. Check out the various forums in the graphics gallery to see what can be done within the limits. Some of the entries in the screenshots comps are quite stunning. They are all in JPEG (.jpg) format so that's not the problem.

PS. Sir Puma wrote on Dec 5th, 2010 at 2:09pm:
Edit*
Here are my graphics settings.
[img]
(High Res)
http://i561.photobucket.com/albums/ss56/celticarmory/General/FSGraphicsHiRes.jpg

I can't see the difference between the image you posted & the "Hi Res" version. The file size is exactly the same.
 
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Reply #8 - Dec 6th, 2010 at 7:11am

Souichiro   Offline
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ADDONS ADDONS AND ADDONS!

Holger Sandmann's stuff
Fsskyworld
Many other things
http://205.252.250.26/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=COF;action=display;num=1116250...

have a look there! and Good luck
 
...
&&
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Reply #9 - Dec 6th, 2010 at 8:35am

jnc1   Offline
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In a word - Atmosphere

Add some - Add some Cloud layers,Try different times of day, reduce the visibility settings.

All these will add to a screenshot without a single addon in site.

Treat a screenshot as you would if you were taking a photograph.
 
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Reply #10 - Dec 6th, 2010 at 10:11am

olderndirt   Offline
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As someone else said, the sky's your friend.  Try to use more of that in your backgrounds.  Terrain as background is a killer on .jpeg quality.
 
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THIS IS NOT A PANAM CLIPPER

                                                            
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Reply #11 - Dec 6th, 2010 at 11:35am

Sir Puma   Offline
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Hagar wrote on Dec 6th, 2010 at 4:54am:
Precisely. Your shots include graphics intensive scenery which requires a lot of compression to meet the forum limit. Try a few shots in different locations to compare the amount of compression you need. Perhaps try zooming out a little. Some colours are more graphics intensive than others. Shots of the aircraft against the sky are generally the least intensive.

I can't advise on your FS9 settings as this will depend on your system. Does FS9 look better on your monitor or do your shots show what you see? Compression affects all images whether they're FS screenshots or photos. The more compression the worse the image quality.

The forum rules are the same for everyone. Check out the various forums in the graphics gallery to see what can be done within the limits. Some of the entries in the screenshots comps are quite stunning. They are all in JPEG (.jpg) format so that's not the problem.

I can't see the difference between the image you posted & the "Hi Res" version. The file size is exactly the same.


The difference in those two images is that one is larger so you can actually read all the settings. Hardware isn't an issue. I'm running with a Intel Core 2 Quad 2.5GHz Q9300, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA 9800GTX 512MB PCI-E x16 and I run at a resolution of 1280x1024. I'm able to use the SRTM terrain and full on system settings and it never even pauses when crossing map grids.

As far as the screen appearance, the unedited screen shot is a bit darker than the game.

I've looked through the various pages of screen shots and I'm blown away at the quality of the images. Shocked I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong to get something like those out of the basic image. Seeing the crappy cartoon like image I get makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong. I know the quality of the model has a lot to do with it so I probably won't ever get those awesome screen shots as I can't afford the cool pay ware aircraft.

I download all my aircraft from the free files and I get ones that I find fun to fly. I've toyed a bit with doing my own paint jobs, but sometimes that just looks worse. Embarrassed
 
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Reply #12 - Dec 6th, 2010 at 12:52pm

Hagar   Offline
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Sir Puma wrote on Dec 6th, 2010 at 11:35am:
The difference in those two images is that one is larger so you can actually read all the settings.

As I said earlier,  both images are exactly the same size. Right-click on the two images & select Properties.
...
...

Quote:
I know the quality of the model has a lot to do with it so I probably won't ever get those awesome screen shots as I can't afford the cool pay ware aircraft.

I think you have the wrong idea about this. There's plenty of excellent quality Freeware aircraft around. A lot of screenshots posted in the old Payware forum were of Freeware aircraft. The Payware was often a minor enhancement which gave a lot of people the wrong impression. That's why the rules were recently changed.
 
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Reply #13 - Dec 6th, 2010 at 1:16pm
Crash   Ex Member

 
Sir Puma wrote on Dec 5th, 2010 at 10:59pm:
That's one of the reasons I want to get FSX, way better graphics.


Excuse me? I think I can put up a FS9 screenshot better than the average FSX user. It has nothing to do with using FS9 or FSX (besides some water effects), it's all in the tweaking and the use of the right add-ons.

Carlo Smiley (hardcore FS9 user)
 
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Reply #14 - Dec 6th, 2010 at 2:10pm

Sir Puma   Offline
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I am discovering the add ons.  Cheesy wholly moley. I got a deal for better clouds, light bloom and runway lights as well as a kick butt KPWT where I usually fly out of. I also got but haven't installed yet the FSX texture package for FS2004

I'm not sure what happened, perhaps photobucket messed with the picture, but on my system it's 2050x1036 Undecided after downloading it I see it's 1024. Very annoying.

Now that I have some kick butt effects and scenery, I need to find some kick butt models to work with. Grin
 
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