FTX: EU Northern Ireland Released

[mutley 4,498]

(From Orbx forum)

 

Norn Iron.

Northern Ireland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern tip of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the West and South. FTX EU NIR includes a range of custom-built landscapes including farmland, plains and rolling hills to recreate the luscious green terrain that Northern Ireland is known for. Assortments of urban landscapes are included, exemplifying the variation found between urban areas. The scenery also includes a photoreal area around the Giants Causeway which can be found on the north coast. The landclass textures are drawn from aerial and satellite photography of Northern Ireland and hand placed so as to accurately render the visual environment. When flying down low and slow, you’ll see a world full of buildings and trees. Taking the lead again in pushing the boundaries of what FSX can offer, we’ve developed new technology making custom autogen tree models and textures. We have also modelled houses, farm facilities, factories and office blocks drawn from an extensive portfolio of photos of Northern Ireland’s natural and built environments. Many of the Northern Ireland’s famous landmarks have been custom modelled and accurately hand placed. It is the Forth region in our European series as we continue to recreate magnificent places to fly!

• Perfect addition to the EU series
• Hand-placed landclass covers every sq km
• Numerous polygon landclass areas
• Accurate roads, railway, rivers, lakes
• Brand new ground textures
• Custom autogen textures and objects
• Over 30,700 sq km of scenery
• All airports upgraded

http://www.flightsim...roducts_id=2601

[Kevin Firth 114]

Got this, but will have to seriously moderate my FS purchases for a while now. With NI, Scotland, Horizon vol 7, CaptainSim C13, Alabeo PA38, Twotter Extended, Earth Simulations IOM already bought in the last couple of months, not to mention forthcoming PMDG777, treescapes, Orbx Southampton etc I will have some explaining to do to SWMBO!!!

[Christopher Low 63]

Kevin,

 

Is it true that FTX NI does not include an upgraded mesh?

[Kevin Firth 114]

Yes this is true according to JV they couldn't find any licence able data. I have the FSGenesis 10m Nextmap mesh for all Europe, and it purports to cover NI, so either FSGenesis is wrong (it is possible, they said it covered Jersey and it didn't!) or Orbx ran into some licensing probs (maybe costs of data? But pure speculation on my part there.....). I haven't had time to test it yet I'm afraid... (oh the joys of small babies and SWMBO k

[Christopher Low 63]

Despite my reservations regarding the mesh resolution, I am still tempted to purchase this. It would give me an idea of the visual quality of the FTX products without interfering with my UK photographic scenery. It would be interesting to see screenshots of some of the airfields, so that I could see how well they are blended with the terrain (particularly UK2000 Belfast Aldergrove, if anyone is using this with FTX NI).

[Kevin Firth 114]

Chris I haven't got aldergrove yet but was intending to shortly is there anywhere that you'd like screenshots of? K

[Christopher Low 63]

It's really just the blend between the airfields and the FTX scenery. UK2000 Belfast Aldergrove is the most important, since that would be the airport that I would visit more than any of the others.

 

EDIT: After thinking about it, I would like to see some screenshots of towns and villages (at maximum autogen scenery density). Screenshots of fields and the countryside in FTX products look really nice, but the key to my decision would be the urban areas. IMO, urban areas are a lot more difficult to "get right" in flightsim scenery (even photoscenery) than rural areas, and some of the screenshots of FTX England's urban areas that I have seen leave a lot to be desired (golf course fairways that end halfway, town streets that vanish into green fields etc). I also noticed one or two screenshots in the review on this site that seemed to show a scattering of houses across town textures. In other words, the town wasn't "filled up" with autogen buildings. I assume that this is because the autogen scenery density was at medium (or low) setting for those screenshots, but I need to know for sure. There is nothing worse than autogen scattered at random across base textures. It needs to be at MAXIMUM or none at all for me. No middle ground.

 

I am just hoping (based on the screenshots that I have seen so far) that FTX Northern Ireland has been improved in this department, although I am well aware that screenshots from developers are carefully selected to show products in the best possible light

[brett 2,316]

No improved mesh? Is Orbx getting lazy or cheap? I remember reading somewhere that a company/government has improved the entire planet with high resolution satellite imagery and if you do a search there are plenty of available companies with this information also. Sounds like an excuse to me and it really does not make sense. Please prove me wrong.....

[Kevin Firth 114]

It's unclear - the manual says the native resolution of NI Orbx mesh is 10m, but JV has said there isn't any included?  Have asked the q on Orbx forums....but also checked the installed files and there is NO mesh included.

 

First view of this there seems to be some water anomalies with streams being elevated somewhat above the surrounding terrain.  Have installed EGAA Aldergrove and found some terrain problems and autogen exclusion issues there - have posted on UK2000 forum about that to see if it's just me or if there is a fix to be found.

 

Cheers

k

[Christopher Low 63]

I suspect that Gary will probably need to tweak UK2000 Belfast Aldergrove to make it fully compatible with FTX Northern Ireland.

[Kevin Firth 114]

Here's a couple of screenies...this is without using any external mesh though yet.

 

  Seems to be ok blending in apart from a little terrain mesh which needs amending.

 

Overhead blend seems fine

 

k

 

[Christopher Low 63]

That's a decent enough colour and visual blend, Kevin. Now someone just needs to sort out the flatten....

[Kevin Firth 114]

I'm sure Gary and co will soon sort that out.

[Christopher Low 63]

Does anyone know if ORBx intend to create any addon airports for FTX Northern Ireland? We already have Aldergrove with the UK2000 Xtreme version, and Belfast City is due for release from another developer in the near future. However, that leaves Londonderry Eglinton, Enniskillen St Angelo, and Newtownards.....

[Kevin Firth 114]

JV said they might do a version of Belfast city if sales justified it, but I don't think you're going to get much else from Orbx.

On a separate note, what seemed to be the cause of the cliffs problem was the 10m mesh included with vol9 Ireland East photoscenery. When that was removed everything was ok. None of the other UK photoscenery appeared to cause any problems.

[Christopher Low 63]

Can you possibly post screenshots of the following three airfields in FTX Northern Ireland......

 

EGAB Enniskillen St Angelo

EGAD Newtownards

EGAE Londonderry Eglinton

 

[Christopher Low 63]

Does anyone know if FTX Northern Ireland includes all of the wind farms in the region? Sorry for asking yet another picky question, but I like my wind turbines in FSX. They make great visual landmarks! Version 4.2 of Ray's FSX Power Project seems to include around 15, but there are a total of 25 listed online.

[Christopher Low 63]

I decided it was time to purchase FTX Northern Ireland. My first ever ORBx product. I really wanted an excuse to install UK2000 Belfast Aldergrove Xtreme, so hopefully my lack of patience will be rewarded

[Kevin Firth 114]

Let us know how you go on with it Chris, sorry but family demands have impeded my ability to do any screenshots so far

[Christopher Low 63]

Screenshots will no longer be required, Kevin. Thanks for the two of Aldergrove though, and your efforts to work out the cause of the mesh issue. I will install FTX Northern Ireland when I get home from work on Friday.....just in time for the next stop on my UK tour in the Citation Mustang. I will be flying from EGEO Oban North Connel to EGPL Benbecula tonight, and that will be followed by Benbecula to EGPI Islay on Friday afternoon, and then the short hop across to EGAA Belfast Aldergrove

[mutley 4,498]

Interesting to read what's gone on so far, it looks as though Norn Iron is as good as previous UK releases and never having been there it will be fun to explore.

 

Having got ENG, SCO and WLS it only seems right to complete the UK! 

[jaydor 345]

Screenshots will no longer be required, Kevin. Thanks for the two of Aldergrove though, and your efforts to work out the cause of the mesh issue. I will install FTX Northern Ireland when I get home from work on Friday.....just in time for the next stop on my UK tour in the Citation Mustang. I will be flying from EGEO Oban North Connel to EGPL Benbecula tonight, and that will be followed by Benbecula to EGPI Islay on Friday afternoon, and then the short hop across to EGAA Belfast Aldergrove

 Christopher, don't forget some screenies for us lot that aint got NI yet.. 

[Christopher Low 63]

I will try and get some screenshots from the FS Recorder replay when I make the flight from Islay to Belfast Aldergrove.

 

On a side note, I have just thought of something. Do the FTX England airfields actually need FTX England itself installed, or do they only require the ORBx object libraries? What I mean is.....would I be able to install the FTX England airfields with FTX Northern Ireland installed?

 

On a side note part 2......is there anything I need to know when I install FTX Northern Ireland? This is my first ORBx product, and I want to be sure that it isn't going to mess up my autogen descriptions.spb file! Where should it be in the Scenery Menu with respect to my UK photographic scenery? I am assuming that UK2000 Belfast Aldergrove Xtreme will need to be above it?

[brett 2,316]

FTX England airfields require the England region installed for mesh reasons. I think ORBX is cutting back on creating individual airfields, why I am not sure but would guess they are not selling enough of'em to put the time into them, at this time. They have other things going on right now. I would think they would come out with at least one or two for Ireland  as they have in the past for other regions.

 

Not sure on your other question but would think it would need to be on top.

[Kevin Firth 114]

All I can do is tell you what I think I 'know' Chris, so, in no particular order....

The Orbx airfields are designed to work with the Orbx regions obviously. They are designed to fit with the FTX mesh as Brett says, but some of them, to a greater or lesser degree, also include high res photoreal areas which contain autogen. (Goodwood is a fine example of this.) Depending therefore on the degree of difference between the FTX mesh and whatever else you might want to use, you may find terrain anomalies when using Orbx airfields outside of their region. I have two installed right now, Goodwood and Elstree, and have encountered no problems terrain wise with them. the others I cannot guarantee! The autogen issue however I think requires you to have a copy of the region installed otherwise you cannot see their bespoke autogen, because those files are part of the region.

I have tended now to use Earth Simulations MergES utility to prevent autogen problems. I just backup the autogen files, install the Orbx product, then run MergES (dead easy) to make sure that everything is all up to date. I think that the agreement between ES and Orbx to share autogen files with each other will probably mean that files distributed by one will be workable with the other 'out of the box' so to speak, but I can't guarantee it personally.

As to location in your scenery index, Belfast should be above FTX-NI yes. There's a great utility called sceneryconfigeditor which I use to manage my sceneries, but always keep a backup of your scenery.cfg file I wouldn't worry about photo scenery too much, it will always take precedence over landclass based scenery in FSX. If you only have NI (which contains no mesh) terrain will not be an issue, but if you have other regions which contain lower quality mesh than your photoscenery you might want to ensure they are lower down in the scenery order.

Cheers k