HD Mesh Scenery v4 for X-Plane 11 Freeware USB Backup

Look for the new ULTRA High Definition (UHD). Available Now!

Important Notes

• This product is a USB Flash Drive Backup of a freeware download.
• This product will come on two (2) USB drives, including one 128GB drive with most of the files and 1 smaller 1GB or 2GB USB drive with the remaining files.
• You will NOT have direct access to the download version through this purchase
• While we typically can produce these much faster, please allow 7 business days for this to ship, simply because it takes several hours to copy files to the USB drives and to verify the backup
• Be certain to note all warnings and requirements on using this product below as returns and refunds are not available.

Covered Regions (see coverage on the download map below)

• Europe (from the Canries and Icealnd in the west up to Moskow an and most parts of Israel in the East)
• North America (USA, Alaska, Canada)
• South / Central America
• Australia
• Japan
• Hawaii and most of the tiny Pacific Islands
• Australia
• Himalaya

IMPORTANT: Coverage to the north ends at 73N!!

Features

HD Mesh Scenery v4 can be seen as a vastly improved version of the default scenery shipping with XP11. It is using/referencing the exact same set of artwork files (textures, object, autogens, forests) which ship with XP11, so you do not need other art assets to be installed while HD Mesh Scenery v4 will also benefitt from any artwork improvements (autogen, texture) coming with future XP11 versions.

The most important advantages of HD Mesh Scenery v4 are:

• The triangle mesh resolution is far higher than in the default mesh and even a bit above the level of the previous HD Mesh Scenery v3:
• this obviously gives a better DEM (elevation data) representation (slopes, mountains etc.)
• BUT this also vastly(!) improves the landclass data representation (which in X-Plane is very closely coupled with the triangle size in the mesh). This is most obvious with forest detail.
• The vector data simplfication is less aggressive than in the default mesh (where Laminar needed to do that to limit the overall size of the global scenery). Thus road / railroad bends are more accurate and the same is true for rivers, shorelines (but where the OSM raw data is bad, this can't help much either)
• HD Mesh Scenery v4 also has the new "high buildings" feature included, which I introduced with Laminar in XP11. This puts all (well, with some filtering of not reasonable stuff from OSM) buildings over 20m in height or greater than 5 "building:levels" as some "high building" objects (with a more or less correct height, as defined in OSM) in the scenery ("building:levels" are simply multiplied by 4m to get an approximate height). This usually gives most cities a much better look (New York is a great example, where in OSM almost all buildings already have a height defined). This same approach also "imports" antennas / masts from OSM (as antenna obstacles)
• OSM data is updated (its "date stamp" is 1st October 2017) . Which makes it newer than current XP11 default mesh data and of course much, much newer than the data in HD Mesh Scenery v3.
• Most of the Landclass data has seen an update (which already happened with this authors work for the XP11 default scenery, but HD Mesh Scenery v4 can represent the high-resolution landclass data much better)

Warnings / Requirements

• The scenery requires at least X-Plane 11! IT WILL NOT WORK WITH X-Plane 10.xx!
• Your X-Plane 11 FPS might become very low (if you already have FPS problems, this will NOT improve your situation!)
• 16GB of RAM are highly recommended! Although many areas might work with 8GB of RAM
• 4-6GB of VRAM (on you graphics card) are recommended, especially if you use other add-ons too. But by lowering rendering settings, you might get away with less VRAM too.
• HD Mesh Scenery v4 is OS independent. It runs on a Mac, Windows and Linux!
• PLEASE READ AND FOLLOW THE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY, as most of the problems result from an incorrect installation!

Have a lot of fun!

Installation
Please follow these few steps as closely as possible (otherwise you can easily end up with a hosed installation – and might not even notice):

• (only once) Create a Subfolder called "zzz_hd_global_scenery4" in your Custom Scenery folder (using the zzz_ prefix should highlight, that this package should load at the "bottom" of your scenery list!)
• (only once) Create a Subfolder called "Earth nav data" in your "zz_hd_global_scenery4" folder. It is very important to name it EXACTLY – without the quotes: "Earth nav data" and don’t make any typos (it is case sensitive)!
• (for each ZIP file) Uncompressed the ZIP file(s), put the resulting scenery folders (they should have names like +50-130,+30-120,+40+010 etc.) in the previously created (sub)folder "zzz_hd_global_scenery4/Earth nav data/"!
• If you are still not sure, how your folder structure should look, it should resemble something like this (this is an example with only some of the packages/regions visible):

Aircraft
Airfoils
Custom Data
Custom Scenery
  zzz_hd_global_scenery4
    Earth nav data
      -10-40
      -10-50
      -10-60
      -10-70
        -01-061.dsf
        -01-061.dsf
        -01-061.dsf
        -01-061.dsf
        -01-061.dsf
...

SCENERY_PACKS.INI
This part is very important! If you do not do this, you will very likely NOT see any of your other add-ons (airports etc.) in a given region anymore!
The reason is, that a "base mesh scenery" (which the HD Mesh Scenery v4 is) forms the base of your landscape and only layers above it will be rendered! Anything below the base mesh layer will not even be loaded.

(You only need to do this once, when you install your first HD Mesh Scenery v4 package … All other packages are going in the same Custom Scenery folder, so they don't need extra attention)

• For HD Mesh Scenery to work well with other Scenery Packages, it's best to put it at the bottom(!) of scenery_packs.ini! Simply use any text editor that comes with your OS
• If you start X-Plane 11 the first time OR deleted(!) the scenery_packs.ini, it will create a new scenery_packs.ini and populate it in the exact alphabetic order of your current folder names in "Custom Scenery". This is where the "zzz_" prefix helps!
• If you already have a scenery_packs.ini (you have already run X-Plane 11 at least once), any new folder in "Custom Scenery" will automatically be put on the TOP (beginning) of scenery_packs.ini file, which puts your new scenery folder at the highest level
• You can (and should) always manually sort / organize the scenery_packs.ini because X-Plane only rewrites it when you delete it.

Reminder
This is a freeware title that is provided on USB for your convenience. Any issues with installing the scenery or configuring X-Plane 11 to use the new scenery need to be directed to support forums at FlightSim.com or AVSim.com. FSPilotShop.com cannot and will not be able to assist with installing the software or with any problems encountered with it being installed. Should you have a problem with the order or the USB drive itself, you will then need to contact us (FSPilotShop.com) using the Contact Us link at the bottom of the website.
X-Plane 10, X-Plane 11, XP10, XP11, xplane 10, xplane 11