PATCHES OF WATER IN PHOTOREAL SCENERIES IN FSX

Hello,

Your query is quite a common one in the world of flight simulators and can often arise due to a variety of factors. Let's dissect this issue to understand its possible causes and then move on to the solutions.

To start off, the symptoms you are experiencing - squares of ground displaying as water or plain blue patches - are typically indicative of a conflict between various scenery elements in your Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition (or FSX:SE for short).

• In flight simulators, the environment is often composed of multiple layers of scenery (similar to layers in Photoshop, if that analogy helps). Each layer corresponds to different types of geographical features, including terrain, bodies of water, artificial structures, etc.
• Issues arise when these layers do not align properly, or when a higher priority layer (such as custom photoreal sceneries) does not have complete data coverage, thus revealing lower priority, default layers underneath.

Solutions

Luckily, there are a few ways to rectify this problem, though it may require some tinkering. Remember, it's important to backup your current settings before you make any changes, just in case.

1. Adjusting Scenery Priorities: The first step would be to examine your scenery library within FSX:SE and check the priority of your photoreal scenery compared to the default scenery. You might want to move the photoreal scenery higher up the list, which gives it priority over the default ones.
2. Checking Scenery Coverage: As previously mentioned, sometimes photoreal sceneries do not provide full coverage of the area they're supposed to depict. It's worth verifying whether your scenery addon covers the entire region you're flying over. If not, you might need to seek out additional or updated scenery packs.
3. Enhancing Terrain Mesh: A more comprehensive solution would be to implement a high-quality, global terrain mesh, which provides a more detailed underlying structure for your sceneries to lay upon. The FreeMeshX scenery you can find over at Fly Away Simulation is a great example, and it's compatible with both FSX and P3D. If you're mainly flying in the USA, the LOD12 version provides even more detailed mesh for that region.

In conclusion, while these scenery glitches can be annoying, with a bit of patience and the right tools, they can be resolved. Feel free to ask if you have any more questions or if you need further clarification on any of the points above.