Stephen Posted June 30, 2022 Report Share Posted June 30, 2022 Scenery Review : São Paulo Mega Scenery Portuguese for 'Saint Paul', São Paulo is a city in the Southeast Region of Brazil. Listed by the GaWC as an alpha global city, the municipality of São Paulo is the most populous city in Brazil, the Americas, the Western Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere, as well as the world's 4th largest city proper by population. Additionally, São Paulo is the largest Portuguese-speaking city in the world. The city serves as the capital of the surrounding state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest state in Brazil, and it exerts strong international influences in commerce, finance, arts and entertainment. The city's name honors the Apostle, Saint Paul of Tarsus. São Paulo is a cosmopolitan, melting pot of a city, home also to the largest Arab, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese diasporas, with examples including ethnic neighborhoods of Bixiga, Bom Retiro, and Liberdade. São Paulo is also home to the largest Jewish population in Brazil, with about 75,000 Jews. Overall 12,400,232 people are called paulistanos, which is more than a lot of countries. Although the title here refers to a "Mega" scenery pack, there are actually three different sceneries combined in here to create one whole São Paulo MEGA pack. First is the Mega São Paulo v4 by Paulo Ricardo. Then added are the two sceneries by GlobalArt with SBGR- São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport and SBSP - Congonhas Airport. Both airports have been adjusted to fit within the "Mega São Paulo v4" package, or if purchased separately then the Mega São Paulo v4 city scenery reverts to "Light" versions of SBGR and SBSP. As an urban area São Paulo covers a massive 11,698 km2 (4,517 sq mi), with the city CBD pretty well dead centre of the sprawl bordering the Tietê River. SBSP - Congonhas Airport is almost directly south of the city centre, were as SBGR - Guarulhos International Airport is far out (25km) to the northeast. SBGR-Guarulhos was covered earlier in X-PlaneReviews by Andrew Parish in depth here: SBGR- São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport In this review the airport is reviewed in context as part of the overall Mega São Paulo environs, and is noted in that aspect. Mega São Paulo v4 The Paulo R scenery Mega São Paulo v4 uses the computer generated system to create 3d buildings from OSM (Open Street Map Data), so what you get are buildings approximate in size, scale and shape, but without the detail of the buildings. I personally is not a big fan of this sort of autogen proliferation, mostly because there is a sameness about the buildings and the over saturation of the building colours, but here you do get a massive generation of 30,000 objects which is a significant amount of detail that covers a very wide area. The São Paulo city centre or CBD looks like this... .... and very good it is with custom iconic buildings and radio towers that are all represented in the scenery. São Paulo Corporate Towers are there, but are here one building and not the separated two?, the distinctive red São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) is there (above), Ibirapuera Park is also well represented (below right)... but there is no São Paulo Cathedral. The very iconic Ponte Octávio Frias de Oliveira bridge is excellent... Any Brazilian scenery would be nothing without the Football stadiums, so Palmerias, Pacaembu, São Paulo, Corinthians, Stadium footbal Portugesa stadiums are all well represented in here. Sadly for the diehard Formula One fans, Interlago's (Racetrack) is not represented, and some of the best races of the year are usually created here, a shame. The area coverage is also quite significant. You do get photo-based textures, but they are quite Lo-Res at city level, it is enough, but don't go looking for any high detail in the base. As the boundaries are so wide (arrowed here), you don't notice the change over from the default to the custom textures when flying into the São Paulo area. First view of this Mega scenery seems to be just the custom autogen, but dig deeper and there are quite a lot of custom buildings to fill in the more detailed icons of the city, so overall it works very well as a representation of São Paulo. ______________ Richard G Nunes scenery (GlobalArt) has been around scenery development in X-Plane since March, 2015 with the release of SBDN- Presidente Prudente Airport. The focus is of course on Brazil, which is Richard's own country, but he has also developed scenery for Canada with CYVR - Vancouver, CYUL - Montreal and CYYZ - Toronto Pearson all being excellent releases. In Brazil, GlobalArt's scenery list is comprehensive as well with the previously mentioned; SBDN Presidente Prudente Airport, there is also SBRJ Rio - Santos Dumont, SBGB Rio de Janeiro and SBSV Salvador / Bahia which are all represented, and all GlobalArt sceneries are highly, highly detailed and are excellent value. So it was only a matter of time before GlobalArt focused on São Paulo in conjunction with Paulo Ricardo to create this MEGA city portfolio of São Paulo, So here are two of the main airports in São Paulo with "SBGR- São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport" and "SBSP - Congonhas Airport", with the earliest airport SBMT - Campo de Marte Airport (General Aviation only) not represented. (well it is, but not in a high customised airfield way). SBSP - Congonhas Airport Buried in the Vila Congonhas district (hence the name) is Congonhas Airport or to give it it's full name of "São Paulo/Congonhas–Deputado Freitas Nobre Airport". It was opened in April 1936. And back then site was outside the built-up urban area, not so now as the urban sprawl has consumed and constrained the airport into submission. This were the magic starts to work... Congonhas Airport would not work, and it doesn't work at all with the original sporadic default X-Plane autogen. But when installed within the Mega São Paulo v4, it is sensational, as you get an extreme visual panorama of a cityscape within a scenery. I love both the arrival vistas here on the constrained and short runways (17R/35L-1,940m (6,365ft) - 17L/35R- 1,495m (4,905ft), it is a very tight and wide runway landing. 35L has the checkered approach, with a steep drop before it, 17R has the excellent approach lighting gantries, and both routes are exceptional arrivals. Main Terminal is a single concourse with 12 (2-13) Airbridge gates and 23 stands altogether, detail of the terminal is excellent to the extent of quality that Richard Nunes is renowned for... the clutter detail is "Off the chart" in objects presented, and significantly in Brazilian branding. Internal terminal areas are covered as well, not extreme in detail, but still highly usable. The SBSP scenery also uses the older "Autogate" system by Marginal, not the later SAM system, so that creates those parking quirks that are well known. The new control tower built for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which were held in Brazil, is also highly visible and nicely reproduced here and has great quality detailing including an extensive internal views, which is amazing. The airport's mesh of old, and the really old infrastructure is to the extreme here, and again really well done. From the airport's cargo, services and Executive Jet facilities it is all reproduced here with abundance, and you get all this huge detail for great value. Airport radar across the field is animated and well detailed... .... SBSP-Congonhas Airport is only really an regional airport, for only internal flights. But coupled with (GlobalArt's) SBRJ - Rio-Santos Dumont You have a sensational dual experience of similar airports and history. _____________________ SBGR - Guarulhos International Airport São Paulo/Guarulhos – Governor André Franco Montoro International Airport is the primary international airport serving São Paulo. It is popularly known locally as either Cumbica Airport, after the district of where it is located and for the Brazilian Air Force base that exists at the airport complex, or Guarulhos Airport, after the municipality of Guarulhos, in the São Paulo metropolitan area, where it is located. Since November 28, 2001 the airport has been named after André Franco Montoro (1916–1999), former Governor of São Paulo state. The airport was rebranded as GRU Airport in 2012. What the emphasis is here is on how another scenery package can create a different look and feel to an already established scenery. The use of the Mega São Paulo v4 in context shows that even with Guarulhos Airport in being quite a way out from the central business zone of São Paulo (25km), the centre's cityscape is highly visible and creates a very realistic skyline to the airport, the close suburbs show also on how much of the megapolis is still growing and spreading outwards beyond the central areas, in reality Guarulhos Airport is not the greenfield style airport it should be, but it is still positioned well within the confines of the megapolis. So any arrivals and departures from/to the south will get a very big visual impact of using the Mega São Paulo scenery addon. The good news is that with the two airports both being Richard G Nunes sceneries, the feel and look between them are the same with both, including the same features. Same internal pier views and airbridges, they work together as one, and not as different airports and in so create a whole. Same detail, same views, it all works so extremely well. The Guarulhos Airport Control Tower was built and opened with the airport in 1985, again like with the same Congonhas Airport a full internal detail is shown. GRU also has a large air cargo terminal with a built area of 97,000 square metres (1,040,000 sq ft) and is capable of handling any type of cargo, including refrigerated and hazardous shipments. So I do regular freight rides to Guarulhos because of this facility. American Airlines also have a large maintenance facility here as well. Night lighting When you get generated objects, then the lighting is pretty generic as well, and so it is here. Sadly the custom buildings lighting struggles against so much of the generic, but the odd Football Stadium and custom building does stand out. The lighting is not bad, not great, but not awful either, as for night-time arrivals you will be well contented with the view, as the airport lighting is very good. Over the decade I have visited São Paulo quite a lot (mostly doing Formula One flyaway freight routes), and believe me it is a long way to come from Europe or North America. So to have such a huge expanse of a scenery available here is most welcome and makes it a far more worthy long-haul routing. ____________________ Summary There are only a few really good custom city packages in X-Plane that give you a big metropolis style arrival... it is one of the really big adverse areas of the Simulator that is a big weakness. But there are a few cities that have had the treatment, New York, Warsaw, Moscow, San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle are the few available mostly by Drzewiecki Design, were as in Flight Simulator these landscape city views are treated with reverence. Here we have the merger of two Brazilian developers in creating scenery to cover the South American Brazilian city of São Paulo in a combined Mega Scenery. The basis is Paulo Ricardo's "Mega São Paulo v4", with Richard G Nunes scenery (GlobalArt) contributing SBGR- "São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport" and "SBSP - Congonhas Airport". Both airports have been adjusted to fit within the "Mega São Paulo v4" or if purchased separately then the Mega city scenery reverts to the "Light" versions of SBGR and SBSP. The main package uses computer generated 3d buildings from OSM (Open Street Map Data), so what you get are buildings approximate in size and scale, and a lot of them here at over 30,000 objects. Both the airports are however custom created. There are significant custom buildings as part of the Mega São Paulo that do separate the scenery from the ordinary, as most of the São Paulo city centre and all six stadiums are represented, as is the distinctive Ponte Octávio Frias de Oliveira bridge. But no Interlago's (Racetrack) is a big disappointment for me. The big question to ask is how often would I fly to South America. I have done so quite a lot over the years from both the North American continent and Europe (sometimes via Africa). So it is all long haul unless your operations are contained within Brazil. For me it certainly is a very worthy package to consider, all three sceneries to complete this São Paulo Mega pack together are not a cheap investment (Unless the store does a three way package deal). So you have to be committed to buy such an investment. In other words if you use it, it is well worth the investment, as overall it is very, very good... even though I'm not a big fan of 3d created generic sceneries, the custom aspects created here save it from being only average, to working well with the other much more highly quality GlobalArt airports. So I do recommend the Mega São Paulo package highly. __________________________________ Yes!... São Paulo Mega Scenery is now available from the X-Plane.Org Store here: There are three sceneries that make up the extensive São Paulo Mega Scenery; Mega Sao Paulo v4 Price is US$19.50 SBSP - Congonhas Airport, Brazil Price is US$19.95 SBGR- São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport Price is US$24.95 Requirements (Mega Sao Paulo v4) X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4GB VRAM Minimim - 8GB+ VRAM Recommended Download Size: 4GB Installation Obviously combining three different sceneries creates an order chaos in your X-Plane Custom Scenery INI folder order. But GlobalArt does provide a full install (including Mega Sao Paulo) list for your INI-Scenery Pack here; SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/BR-A-SBGR Sao Paulo Guarulhos Internl/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/BR-A-SBSP Roads/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/BR-B-SBSP Congonhas Airport/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/MegaSP_A_PR_trees/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/MegaSP_C_PR_CongonhasOverl/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/MegaSP_D_PR_Congonhas/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/MegaSP_E_PR_City/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/MegaSP_F_PR_SP1/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/MegaSP_G_PR_SP2/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/MegaSP_H_PR_SP3/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/MegaSP_I_PR_Exclude/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/MegaSP_J_PR_Ortho/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/BR-D-SBSP MESH/ Notable missing from the list is; "MegaSP_B_PR_GRU", which is the Lo-Res Guarulhos Internl airport scenery that clashes (badly) with the custom GlobalArt SBGR, so that is pulled out of the custom scenery folder and saved. Included/Documents (Mega Sao Paulo v4) Charts_SBGR Charts_SBSP MegaSaoPaulo_ XP11_ENG.pdf MegaSaoPaulo_ XP11_PORT.pdf Considering the huge amount of objects and detail within these three packages combined together, my framerate was quite good (62 fr) and the sceneries were highly usable. remember you are replacing the default Autogen, with the lighter (more basic) 3d objects, so it is a tradeoff. My guess is a loss of around 15 frames, depending on your system and the aircraft you fly. _____________________ Scenery Review by Stephen Dutton 30th July 2022 Copyright©2022: X-Plane Reviews Review System Specifications: Computer System: Windows -S1700 Core i7 12700K 12 Core 3.60 GHz CPU / 64bit -32 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8Gb - Samsung Evo M2 2TB SSD - Sound : Yamaha Speakers YST-M200SP Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane 11.55 Plugins: None Scenery or Aircraft - Default X-Plane Boeing 737-800 (free with X-Plane) (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) All Rights Reserved Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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