I was thinking the same thing. Flying over Ha Long Bay in Vietnam and all of the stunning karst islands look like trash. If you can fix this @bijanstudio please do Ko Phi Phi and Koh Samui are also really bad as well. Hell, just like @CalUKGR said all of Southeast Asia is a mess and Asobo won’t get around to fixing it either. Another travesty is how bad Torres del Paine National Park in Chile looks. The in game version is horrible and it’s so sad because it is so stunning:
However, I’m sure that website I provided the other day will enable someone wink to download the LIDAR DEM data and render these areas how they’re truly supposed to look
I felt exactly the same disappointment at visiting Hạ Long Bay and Cát Bà Island (Vietnam). I know I set my expectations waaaaay too high, but even so. Vietnam alone has 2000 miles of stunning coastline. None of it is done any justice whatsoever. And let’s not even speak of Myanmar’s equally vast coastal range - thousands upon thousands of tropical islands and deltas… It’s an impossible task to ever get these sorted out. Maybe 10 years from now. Maybe.
There’s quite a few free terrain fixes on Flightsim.to by an uploader called Troglodytus. Not tried them yet as I’m still flying around the southwest of England very happily but they get great reviews.
In defense of Asobo there are far fewer sources of high resolution mesh data and ortho for many places outside of the developed world. China is a particular problem. The data exists but isn’t as readily available, and the sources that MS/Asobo contracted with for the initial release likely just didn’t have the best resolution data for some of these areas. Take South Korea for example. The ortho there is extremely limited if it even exists at all because there are very, very heavy restrictions there in the use of satellite data of the country. This is also an area where Asobo is a bit hamstrung by being forced to use Bing, which is missing satellite imagery for some areas, especially parts of China. I think they’ve generally done the best they can with what they had available at the time. Hell, even Google doesn’t have photogrammetry for most major cities outside of the West and a few developed Asian nations.
Exactly, well said! The basis of the whole scenery is bing satellite data. It’s basically ‘Garbage In Garbage Out’. Not something you can really blame Asobo/MS for imho (unless you feel that they should be obliged to ensure more detailed satellite data coverage around the globe ).
Wooooow I’m loving this so much! You just keep blowing my mind every single time I definitely can’t wait for this. You’re going to fix the islands and cliffs in Southeast Asia too Ha Long Bay and all the areas @CalUKGR mentioned all desperately need love and an artists’ touch, your touch lol
@bijanstudio You should do the LIDAR DEM stuff that everyone is doing to improve the terrain of the world and do California, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon or Washington first It makes the mountains and terrain look excellent and it shows the unique shapes that the mountains have instead of them being all weirdly round and smooth. The United States, Japan, so many countries need it done because although Asobo ‘updated’ those areas, they still look off and the terrain still looks off especially when it comes to unique land features.
Hey, here’s a thought. I can talk about whatever I like? @bijanstudio is adding Guilin, China scenery to the game and that has NOTHING to do with plant variations either. It’s landscape and terrain stuff. So to me, bringing up LIDAR DEM stuff with him in response to that is valid and it’s something I’m excited about as well as other modders are embracing it to further enrich the game. Don’t try to gatekeep me.
Ko Phi Phi and Koh Samui are also really bad as well. Hell, just like @CalUKGR said all of Southeast Asia is a mess and Asobo won’t get around to fixing it either. Another travesty is how bad Torres del Paine National Park in Chile looks. The in game version is horrible and it’s so sad because it is so stunning:
).
Ha Long Bay and all the areas 
Where do I sign?
It makes the mountains and terrain look excellent and it shows the unique shapes that the mountains have instead of them being all weirdly round and smooth. The United States, Japan, so many countries need it done because although Asobo ‘updated’ those areas, they still look off and the terrain still looks off especially when it comes to unique land features.