Being a violation of terms of service, Tileproxy has long been blocked by Google Earth but still supports Bing Maps and Yahoo. Anything lower and the 2D buildings look conspicuous and increasingly ridiculous too much higher and you're asking too much of the streamed textures, if not the online map service itself.

So yes, Tileproxy is an interactive postcard from, if you want it to look 'right', about 8,000 feet. I'm also using the old (and most compatible) San Andreas version of the ENB series mod, and a labyrinthine 'tone mod' for FSX called Shade. The 'live' weather and 4K cloud textures (courtesy of payware 'mod' Real Environment Xtreme), together with a high fidelity landscape mesh (in this case FS Global) complete the optical illusion. (Granted, this is more a question of attendance than syllabus.) In principle it's the same as GEFS and Google Earth's own 'flight simulator' but having FSX as a vehicle sets it a world apart. Tileproxy is great in an 'I learned more from Civilization than I did from university' kind of way. Not pictured: the mesh issue that sits the runway on a plateau some 50ft high. What I love about it is this: Flying over the Mesa just out from Escalante airfield in Utah. What I like about it is that there's a certain stagecraft involved in using it, as I'll explain. Invented by Christian Buchner in 2007, Tileproxy streams satellite imagery into Flight Simulators X and 2009 and wraps it over whatever terrain mesh you have installed, creating a world that is literally photorealistic.

Not in the case of Tileproxy, anyway, which is so special and problematic a thing that I just had to remind you it exists. You get used to this kind of logic when playing with Flight Simulator X mods, where the mods aren't quite mods and the playing isn't quite playing.

I promised myself I wouldn't do how-to guides because there's seldom much to say, but this one doesn't count: I don't actually suggest you do this at all. This is the latest in a series of articles about the art technology of games, in collaboration with the particularly handsome Dead End Thrills.

Fs global real weather vs opus