Scenery purchase/direction

[Sabre 28]

I'm just throwing out some various thoughts I'm having about my scenery, the direction I should go and whether items are worth the investment (especially since there's an ORBX sale on  )

 

In some respects I think Joe has given me a pointer in another topic and whilst I appreciate that all things FSX are very subjective I really would value input.

 

To set the scene I'm much more interetsed in GA flying - low level admiring the countryside and just looking up to see them big tube things blasting about. To that end I have all of the US ORBX scenery and a large amount of their airfields. At this point you're probably thinking well this is a pre-determined outcome so what's he asking about? The thing is I like to fly pretty much two areas, the US especially with the scenery but also the UK for which I have pretty much every one of the Horizon Photo-scenery packages, the UK 2000 VFR Airfields and Treescapes. Now I know never say never and things may change but in reality there is a limit to time and I've barely scratched the surface with these areas never mind the rest of the world.

 

Please pardon my ignorance if these are dumb questions but working on the above outline my questions are:

 

1. Should I purchase ORBX Trees?
2. Is FTX Global Base worth purchasing?
3. Is FTX Global Vector worth purchasing?
4. Is FTX Global openLC Europe worth purchasing?

Also I have read that FS Global 2010 Mesh works well with ORBX scenery but I've also read some less than favourable comments about mesh in general. It seems an expensive product if it's not worth the money.

 

Sorry for the long post I just don't know if the above purchases are worth the investment now - in the future - ever? In a very very non-flash way money isn't a major factor (hell if it was none of us would be flying  ) it's more about value for money and the benefits had from any investment.

 

One last consideration would be, would the answers be different if I made the swap to ORBX UK and dropped Horizon scenery?

[J G 927]

Hi Graeme.

 

I now use nothing but Orbx scenery and I love it.  

 

I started with photoreal scenery, which was fine if I was flying high but was disappointingly flat when at low level.  By this I don't mean there were no mountains etc. because the terrain shape was there, but rather that there were details such as buildings that were obviously flat when you were flying over them low.

 

I ditched my photoreal and tried Orbx and have never regretted it. I have the whole nine yards with my Orbx stuff.  From the 2010 global mesh right up to Orbx trees. As a collection it works very well at 50 feet and at 35,000 feet.

 

In order to add the detail such as Orbx Vectors and trees you must have the base products to build them on.  Both Vectors and Trees are great products that put the icing on the cake. Vectors is great if you like to fly VFR as it allows you to get out a real world map and follow the main roads to your destination. Trees is harder to quantify.  Having said that it makes such a difference to the terrain and is well worth having. Trees seem more narural and are found where you would expect them to be, along the edges of fields as well as in woods and forests.

 

All these things are not cheap. Where should you start? I started with FTX England, Scotland, Wales and the two Irish packs. I then bought FTX Global and then Vectors and then the 2010 mesh, Trees and lastly LC Europe.  Things just got better as I went along. This order ensured I had some early wow factors but if i was doing it again I would start from the ground up. Start with the 2010 mesh and work up the layers and finish up with Trees.  Doing it this way would require a modicum  patience as the real eye candy is at the higher levels but it might make for an easier build. Trees anf LC Europe are new additions and I have to say are well worth the money.

 

Having said the above, the amount of detail that you can squeeze out of these products is dependent on your system spec.  Mine has some grunt with an i7 chip and a fast graphics card and so I can have the sliders to the max and still get 40 FPS. so that helps a lot.   

 

What ever you do good luck, and I hope that you feel that you have got value for money on any spend.

 

JG

[britfrog 180]

Graeme I will give the opposite view to John,

i used to have shed loads of orbx stuff , all of australia and a good packet of pnw, their airports and airfields are excellent there is no question of that, however they are all set in an imaginary world that very loosely resembles reality. Personally I either fly IFR with big a/c or vfr with smaller a/c on 2 separate drives and each fsx entity is set up differently, I also to keep costs down chose 2 regions where i want to fly so europe is one and the caribbean is the other

in both cases though I prefer to see the real world beneath my wings so that if i fly vfr  I can follow it on a real flying map and if I fly IFR i like to see real looking cities around me that I recognise.

the other major consideration is that orbx/ftx stuff is horrendously heavy on the computers systems with the result , especially if you are not using dx10 , is that you either ctd or have very low fps, this is not the case with photoscenery.

there is no doubt that some photoscenery does blurr below certain heights but this is why mike and i and a few others have started making our own scenery with exceptional results

eg. this pic was taken at 500feet and you can see the shadows of the palm trees on the roads below, no blurries here!

 

In some  cases i use ftx airports with photoscenery and this gives the best of both worlds

 

another advantage to making your own photoscenery is that you can either create something that no-one else has made such as my take on the Bahamas

or you may wish to create your own region which is poorly represented elsewhere.

 

 each member on mutleys will have a different take on what is best to use because no two people on this forum do things the same way, and i am sure everyone here believes their way is the best way, so it is really down to you to decide how and where you want to fly .

 

[donnybalonny 46]

 Ok, I´m now ready to be shot   : 

 

In my most humble opinion, I find the UK and Ireland (except Scotland) a bit dull to fly. If I lived in the UK or Ireland, I might have another idea about it, but I live in Spain and I find Spain dull as well. On the other hand, I really like flying Denmark, where I´m from. So, where we fly is something very personal.

 

If you want to fly the UK, then dont get Orbx Global/Vector/OpenLC. Get Orbx european regions or get some good photoscenery. Whatever your preference.

 

On the other hand, if you get ORBX global/vector/OpenLC, you have the rest of Europe to fly in. I personally like to fly Greece a lot even though I hardly know grece. Its just nice flying area, the same goes for the alps, Italy etc, and even though a place like Central and south America lacks a good Landclass, its a very nice flying area as well. And there are many other places as well.

ORBX global/vector/OpenLC has opened the flightsim world a lot. Now we just have to wait untill ORBX gets their act together and finish all the OpenLC areas that they promised to finished in 2014. So far they have only released 1.

 

[J G 927]

I think I should give some clarity on Orbx products.

 

The 2010 Global mesh provides an improved and more accurate global mesh to build on. 

 

Orbx Global gives you a base scenery set for the world onto which you may build up other Orbx or Orbx compatible software. Where you don't install more detail this is what you will get as your scenary.

 

Orbx England etc. provides more detailed mesh, scenery and custom landmarks for the region provided. That is, its a local large improvement on Global.

 

Orbx Vectors provide improved and accurate main transport infrastructure. Very good for VFR - Follow that road!

 

Orbx Trees provides improved trees and more realistic tree placement.

 

Orbx Open LC Europe provides better land classes for Europe so that the country side below you looks better for the region.

Note. Orbx Open LC is actually four products in one in as much as there are four sets of textures that can be deployed together or separately.  These are labeled North, South, East, and West and apply different textures to parts of Europe according to the geographical location of that area.  So for example: UK fields will look different to those found in Greece which will look different to those found in Spain and so on. Looking at the full install of Open LC, I can see no less than ten sets of EU data, so these probably represent subdivisions of the compass point individual installs.

 

I hope this makes it all less muddy.

 

J

 

[jaydor 345]

From your initial post, the 5 items you have listed will give you a dream machine, with very good frame rates.

 

So bite the bullet and buy the 5..  You will not regret it..

[J G 927]

As James says - Go for it.  If you can afford it get the underlying mesh as well (FS Global 2010 )

 

I have all of the five above and 2010 mesh and Orbx England and I realy like the scenery I get from it

 

look behind the aircraft here :http://forum.mutleyshangar.com/index.php/topic/16511-red-arrows-2015-paint/?p=132725 to see what I fly over.

[adrians69 159]

I'll jump on and say that ORBX scenery IMHO has no equal when combined with FS Global mesh and DX10, but it can be a bit hefty if the host PC is in anyway mid range! Just my 2 penn'orth. However, as stated above it is a very personal choice, I would not use any other scenery but that doesn't mean other scenery is bad just different.

[mutley 4,498]

JG nailed it in post 2. 

 

Forget photoscenery, it's had its day. I live in a 3D world where the surface of the Earth is not covered in flat textures on a base terrain mesh, it has pointy bits, vegetation, man-made objects and other buildings. As for accuracy, a lot of my vfr navigation is done following main road routes and GPS, programs like FTX Vectors give you that accuracy and those features are far easier recognised, especially at distance, in a 3D environment.

 

As a comparison to BF's post above, consider this http://forum.mutleyshangar.com/index.php/topic/16488-fairoaks-to-goodwood-the-long-way-around/ I just could not have had so much fun in a 2D world.

 

That's my two penneth!

 

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

The ONLY place i miss the accuracy (but not the *low level appearance*) of photoreal scenery, is within a 50 mile radius of where I grew up and live.

Everywhere else, I can't spot the inaccuracies in ORBx except that I assume that the edges of the clumps of trees in RL would be less square.

 

*clarification, by "low level appearance" above i did not mean Blurry. It looked pretty sharp at low level. The problem I had with it was even at 3,000 feet, as I moved across the landscape especially in anything slower than a learjet or fast turboprop, the buildings still looked painted onto the ground because I didn't see the effect of seeing first one side of the buildings, then the other sides...they all looked kinda oddly squished from any angle.

 

When I started flying helicopters it was the death of photoreal for me...could not abide hovering over what looked like essentially great Sidewalk Chalk artwork...some of it Michelangelo quality chalk work, but still flat looking.

 

Having to dodge trees on short approaches it the Best...in my 'wannabee stunt/tundra/test virtual pilot' opinion.

[dogtrack 346]

Have to say I fly both Orbx & PR scenery. They both have there place but that said, LC scenery for areas that are very familiar does fall short on expectation. Have all the Orbx regions but removed the British Isles after an initial looksee. Some you win, some you lose as they say. Norway, Oceana and the N. American scenery however are real jewels, I have to say, but then I have never been.

 

Sure, MSE2 has its faults but it works well for educational sightseeing. As for the Horizon products, well, I have been an avid fan since John Farrie first introduced it for FS8.

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

i can't just sit on the fence while you guys bashing PR, I’m with you Nigel
and very soon you all will join our notion
(cannot elaborate much further at this point )










the following is demonstrated in a no vector data availability zone

[J G 927]

There is  one more thing that nobody has mentioned here.  Steves DX10 fixer.

 

I use this and it is an invaluable tool. Read about it here:- http://www.mutleyshangar.com/reviews/bc/dx10/dx10.htm

[Sabre 28]

Thank you very much for the input everyone, it really is appreciated. As I suspected each seems to have its plus points and as with most things in life opinions and preferences differ. I guess there isn't a right answer so it's a case of making the choice as to what you wish to invest in and how much you are prepared to spend for your Flight Sim experience.

 

As I mentioned in my first post I do have a lot of the Horizon Photo-Scenery installed anyway. Would it be possible to leave this scenery installed and simply unchceck it from the FSX library if I did decide to invest in the FSX products? I'm not sure if this would cause me any problems? Also does anyone with the ORBX England set-up know if you can run the UK2000 VFR airfields and/or the Extreme airport? Again not sure if this would cause problems or conflicts.

 

@JG thanks for the product explanations - very helpful. Also I'm trying the DX10 route this evening - did all the preparation and reading last night

 

Sorry for all the questions

Really wish I hadn't stayed away from FSX so long!

[jaydor 345]

Yes you can use UK2000 and all addons except photoscenery with ORBX 

[Sabre 28]

Yes you can use UK2000 and all addons except photoscenery with ORBX 

 

Thanks James that's good to know - I do like my home at EGNT.

[Kevin Firth 114]

im with Mr Bell, I'm loving all that building autogen! lets just say he knows what hes talking about! K

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

as soon as y'all place convincing AutoGen on top of real photo scenery I will hop right on board.

[Kevin Firth 114]

I Think Chris may have been intimating that the hopping manual is in the process of being written (If I understood the combo of those screenshots and his ninja secrecy correctly? )

Please put us out of our misery as and when you're able Chris, NE proves you're a capable operator, so if you have other products up your sleeve I'm sure we'd love to get an exclusive heads up . Cheers K

[ddavid 149]

as soon as y'all place convincing AutoGen on top of real photo scenery I will hop right on board.

Have a look here, Matt!

http://www.mutleyshangar.com/reviews/dai/esnws/esnws.htm

Cheers - Dai.

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

Thank you very much Kevin,

we do have 2 additional projects going on (they are classified at the moment; i am not in liberty to disclose any further details),

the few pics i posted should provide some clues as for what’s to expect from our group in the future (which is still little ahead for us)

I can say about one of the projects; it is a joint venture with an existing commercial entity

We will disclose further details about this; possibly in two months’ time we will be close to start showcasing this first of few future project

(a hint, Dai’s last post points to a very similar concept )

[Kevin Firth 114]

A joint venture with an existing commercial entity along the lines of Earth Simulations Autogenesis?? I'm interested... More details please, remember I actually do know where you live

Seriously, ES proved that kind of scenery can be done, lets hope you can prove it can be done commercially sustainably...

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

it is a first priority to make sure the model will be sustainable

it’s the least we can do to not let Darren and Vikki's attempt go to waist

[Kevin Firth 114]

please do proper watermasking and basic colour correction on the PR imagery though Chris! Other products eg MSE is quite lacking in those areas in some places

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

i am not invloved in the PR production portion (too much for me atm);

i will see what i can do to help,