Screenshot Blog: Montpellier is wild

Salut! I don't speak French either!

Inspired by an Italian themed stream i had queued up i decided to fly around somewhere in Italy... until i remembered i'd just done that with my Rome adventure so i went to France instead, i even went so far as to purchase a plane that would look good gliding around Italy, but we'll make it work.

So i'm very happy to bring you my latest "ah s*** here we go again" moment, i present to you random things i saw in Montpellier.

Something a little different this time, we start at the airport checking out the Beechcraft Staggerwing 17 which first flew in 1932.

It's called the Staggerwing because the wings are staggered...

The easiest part of doing this is that i just post the pictures in the order i took them, this suburb is right next to the airport, if you want a swimming pool move to France.

I'm starting to notice an increasing number of small race tracks located near airports, i guess a noisy airport is a good location to put noisy racecars.

Moving away from the airport and past the suburb i came across this... i don't know what "this" is, i mean it looks like a resort but i'm not really getting a resort vibe from the surrounding area.

Aaand i'm already taking pictures of infrastructure, some curly wurly roads leading to a water treatment facility which is now on my flight sim bingo card.

Don't worry Montpellier has an IKEA, among some other very interesting buildings.

Here's the view from the other side, and you might be thinking hey that rollercoaster in the middle looks strange.

That's because it's a car park, at least i'm pretty sure it is, either that or i'm being pranked.

Just a suave looking building, but more importantly what's that i see to the left...

The first car yard of our trip, i give this one an 8/10, i really appreciate how tightly packed those cars are, good stuff.

I really couldn't guess what this is, something that big you have to assume it's government related, maybe the blue "M" stands for the city?

This is one of the first locations i saw heading into the city proper, this whole area feels like it's under construction which surprised me.

This place is huuuuge, apparently it's a casino.

Learning to fly the Staggerwing i stalled and crashed, leaving the airport again i came across millions of Geoffrey's all under one roof.

I don't know what Castorama does, but my Age of Empires brain really wants their materials.

That's enough of businesses have some more infrastructure, i just kinda like the layout of this area, they probably planned to curve the train tracks just to make it interesting.

This feels like somewhere you might like to visit, kinda reminds me of Assassin's Creed, minus the car park, note the church/syncronise point at the top of the hill.

From another angle, those kind of look like market stalls down there.

This building is imposing, i tend to associate helipads with hospitals but i don't know, i just noticed all the tram lines on the ground.

Someone had an idea and someone let them do it, wonder where the elevators are located.

So like... the only people that can see your really cool roof are in low flying airplanes.

Found an aqueduct, wonder where it leads.

And here's your supply of clean water.

Insert hexagon related joke here.

I could not work out what this stadium is for, it's not football, maybe rugby? I'm afraid i didn't get a close up of the pitch but you can still kind of see the lines, it's very... liney.

I wanted to take a shot of the tower, but i also wanted to take a shot of this weird van cult.

Getting closer to the tower, this is such a weird place to live, imagine having that outside your house.

Saw these camper vans, wanted to make the joke that they have little swimming pools too.

Yeah i could have taken a shot of the stadium over there, but there's an empty construction site right here, the choice was obvious.

This building reminds me of a gun in Red Faction 2, so in my mind they definitely make futuristic laser guns here.

Car yard number 2, this guy puts in a fair effort i respect his car yard but it's the least impressive so far, 4/10.

What is with this city and large towers near people's homes.

I think i was about 2 hours into my trip at this point and i was starting to lose my mind, this building is clearly smiling at me, right?

Random guess... this is where they make blimps.

Heading back to the airport i was zipping around looking for anything else and i came across this humongous facility, it's got to be all one place right? There's a tunnel/bridge connecting them in the middle, here it is from a slightly different angle, also that guy in the bottom right's swimming pool is massive.

This place is next door, reminds me of a new age transformer.

Heading back now, going up for a higher shot of the city but you can't see much through the sim's exaggerated trees. (It turns out a previous patch had increased the size of trees in various cities and will be fixed in a future patch)

But before we go my hawk-like vision spots something remarkable, look at this beauty, car yard number 3 does not disappoint, it might not be the most tightly packed yard but it makes up for it in chaos and scale, imagine what the view is like from the buildings next door, wonderful, 10/10.

So... that was a lot, and that's only half the screenshots i took, every time i moved the camera in Montpellier there was something else i wanted to see, i had a few hours of streams to watch that kept me going otherwise this would have probably been shorter, and i don't intend on any future adventures being this long there was just so much to see here. I bet i missed loads of awesome historically significant places but i don't go in with a tourism guide, what i see is what i see, and the wonder of these photogrammetry cities for me is all the other stuff that gets rendered in the process.

After doing 3 cities i'm thinking of looking for some more natural locations next, we'll see.

Those pictures are fantastic, really well done. As someone living in France (because I'm french ^^) let me tell you that Casino is not a casino, it's a supermarket brand like Walmart for example. Castorama is a brand for DIY supermarkets (I don't know an equivalent in the US).

@tatsuyarr: You know... i even searched "Geant" on Google, i just assumed after seeing "casino casino casino" without reading further :P, thanks for pointing that out.

We don't really have supermarkets of that scale in the UK, at least where i am, so i figured it had to be something else.

@cikame: Sorry, I assumed you were from the US. We have a lot of hypermarchés (hypermarket > supermarket) in France. I've traveled to the UK several times and, indeed, your supermarkets are much smaller. From an environmental standpoint, it's better at least.

Now I really want to try Flight Simulator. I didn't expect it to be so detailed.

@tatsuyarr: I don't want to misrepresent the game with these screenshots as not everywhere is this detailed, it uses data from Bing maps and only certain locations use photogrammetry, the devs provided a list of those cities at launch which is what i'm using and more have been added over time, but the automated solution fills out the world brilliantly, just took some examples.

I went back to France and took a couple shots of Beauvais which is AI generated, this is the altitude they expect you to see it from :P.

If we get closer you'll notice things start to get a bit more wonky, buildings get smushed together to form mega buildings etc... But i'm not complaining i love it, i tried to line up the same shot in Google Earth and it's done pretty well for itself, however that mega structure is actually a cathedral.

Here's where i grew up, it's very recognisable to me.

My computer generated family home is a little... optimistic though, everyone gets a bigger house in flight sim.