mutley 4,498 Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Quote from John Venema CEO Orbx Simulation Systems Yesterday I sneaked in a "soft" announcement hidden inside a topic to gauge reaction. Needless to say it has been overwhelmingly positive. This project has been top secret and only a few people inside Orbx itself knew of its existence. This has been a product I have wanted to release for quite some time but only now do we have the depth of textures to cover the globe in a semi-realistic manner. In 2013 we will be releasing a FTX product for FSX and Prepar3D that covers the entire world with FTX textures combined from the twelve different regions we have developed since 2008 including England. It won't be a perfect solution like a "full-fat" FTX region because it is predominately textures only. However, it will cover the whole globe with Orbx so you never have to experience FSX default textures again. What does FTX Global include? Complete replacement of FSX ground textures Custom autogen houses and objects 3D lights with FTX Day/Night Mode support Selection of custom trees Replaces default FSX so you can run with FTX Central set to EU, NA etc Can be uninstalled so you can revert to default FSX Some custom landclass in sample areas initially (can be disabled if desired) Perpetual free updates (textures, landclass tweaks, POI objects, upgraded default airports) Dedicated staff working on upgrades full-time Dual installer for FSX and P3D What does FTX Global NOT include? Geographical and vector data (roads, rivers, coastlines, elevation mesh) Full hand-crafted landclass and polygon landclass Unique ground textures native to the area you're flying in Upgraded airports everywhere Traffic on all major roads (only default FSX traffic) Extensive custom modelled POIs like power stations, windfarms, stadiums, photoreal areas etc What does it look like? Spectacular! I am testing a pre-alpha build at the moment and I can promise you most of the places I randomly pick to visit around the world look beautiful covered in Orbx textures. I did a dusk flight over the south of France last week and to see all the 3D lights twinkling over villages and towns was magical. I have included a selection of screenshots below. However, beware of the limitations of FTX Global. It is first and foremost a texture replacement and it uses the current 'pool' of textures Orbx has created since 2008. This means that in many places the cityscapes and rural crops and fields won't look right at all. The initial release will have a whole bunch of warts because of the restrictions of the FSX landclass texture system. (This is the very reason we make full-featured FTX regions). We will have a team to deal with obvious landclass back spots first and then slowly begin to add POIs, airports and new content. Think of FTX Global as an upfront investment in an evolving ecosystem which improves over time. We will also invest in code that allows you to auto-update FTX Global or as a mimum alert you to new content and patches. How does it perform? The performance is fantastic - I am running FSX inside a virtual machine using Parallels Desktop 8.0 on my humble Macbook Air 2.0Ghz and it runs quite smoothly (the Windows 7 VM was allocated 4GB of RAM, 512MB of VRAM, 1x CPU). On a decent PC configured for FSX properly it should scream. I'm in the process of setting a proper quad-core i7 testing PC at 3.2Ghz with a GTX650m GPU and I'll update you on the performance side of things again. The Switzerland and Ireland screenshots were taken from this VM running on my Mac. What will it cost? The price of this product is AU$195 and will include free perpetual upgrades including a constant flow of upgraded airports at key locations around the world, for example Helsinki in Finland or Manila in the Phillipines. We are building a dedicated team of people who will do nothing but work on continual improvements, POIs and airports and key areas of custom landclass around the world. Additionally, as Orbx releases the much more detailed and sophisticated regions around the world, we will dip into the expanding texture pool to finesse the global product, all at no charge. Will it affect the "regular" Orbx regions being worked on? Not at all. There will be zero impact on regular regions since we're hiring new staff to make this product and we're using existing texture assets. If anything in 2013 we will release more regular FTX regions than any year of our short history; South Alaska, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and Northern California as well. Our average release rate has been 1.75 regions per year; in 2013 it will be 5+ We also hope to move into Europe next year, with Holland confirmed and then perhaps Norway, Belgium, Germany etc. FTX Global simply does not have the depth and scale of detail of our regular FTX regions, there's no comparison and those upcoming regions are made with unique textures licensed from aerial imagery over those particular countries. What is FTX Global Compatible with? Ultimate Terrain X (UTX) SceneryTech LC or any other LC addon Any FSX scenery addon - but be aware Orbx textures are richer and darker than FSX default so many airports may not blend in at the edges of their photoreal coverage area REX/AS2012/Other weather texture/WX engine addons FSGenesis and other elevation mesh addons FSWC Enbseries Shade What is it not compatible with? GEX - it does the same thing (replaces FSX default textures) so you decide if you want GEX or FTX Global FScene4X - as above Orbx payware airports - those are designed and matched to our dedicated full FTX regions for AU/NA/NZ/EU because of mesh elevation and other landscape mods How big will the installer be? The installer will be download-only for the first six months or so until we can bundle all the monthly Downloadable Content (DLCs) into a DVD release. This installer will weigh in at less than 5GB and will need about 8GB of disk space. We would recommend about 10GB of free space for FTX Global. When will it be released? We don't give release dates at Orbx (and when I have broken this rule in the past invariably releases have been delayed for various reasons, so I won't again). It will be in the first half of 2013, that much is sure. If you can imagine your whole world covered in Orbx, you won't have to wait too much longer. Here are some screenshots taken from random locations. We'll be posting lots more over the coming month and I am sure Emmsie will be using his magic eye to find amazing locations. After all, it's a big planet! The original post is here so head over to Orbx if you need to ask John a question. Link to post Share on other sites
SEATAC 400 Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 It sounds interesting. It sounds expensive. It looks great. Link to post Share on other sites
needles 1,013 Posted December 29, 2012 Report Share Posted December 29, 2012 Looks very interesting. I don't envy the reviewer on this one though. It's going to take all year I reckon. Can't wait to see the price tag. But knowing ORBX, it will be pretty much affordable.........he says hopefully. Thanks for th HU Joe EDIT: Having re-read Joes post, I found the AUD195 price tag, which equates to £125 - ish. Can't afford it. That will teach me to read the post thoroughly. Apologies Joe. Link to post Share on other sites
rob16584 42 Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 Looks great, but wonder how many people will buy it at that price. Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,498 Posted December 30, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 Looking at their forums people are falling over themselves to buy it. Approx £130 (AUD 200) is way outside my budget. I know these are pre-alpha shots quickly compiled by JV, but the different regions do look very much the same side by side. There looks to be up to 6 months development ahead, I am sure they will improve, anything is better than the default textures. Link to post Share on other sites
ddavid 149 Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 Ciao - Dai. Link to post Share on other sites
needles 1,013 Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 You crack me up Dai. Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 Looks great, but wonder how many people will buy it at that price. my thoughts as well! plus there are lots of really good regional scenery that will be more accurate than the ftx stuff. Link to post Share on other sites
Visual_Purple 0 Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 My first reaction is also that the price is too high. However....... Although I completely accept that some people literally cannot afford to stump up that amount of cash in one go, for those of us lucky enough to be able to afford it, it's a matter of priorities. I am seriously considering upgrading my cpu, mobo and RAM, which are all nearly four years old. That's going to cost about £300 or more to be worth doing. What will I get for that outlay? A faster-loading, smoother FSX experience. Fine. But for less than half that I could transform my flights anywhere in the world from the frankly-awful default textures to the gorgeous-looking Orbx experience. Hmmm - maybe not so expensive after all? Obviously we all have different priorities when it comes to flightsimming (and life in general). For those of us who only usually fly in a few favourite areas, where we have probably already bought either photo-real or Orbx scenery, FTX Global won't appeal much. Neither will it to those who are happy with FSX default. But for people who like to globe-trot, I reckon it's actually a very good investment. Just my two penn'orth... Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted December 30, 2012 Report Share Posted December 30, 2012 personally I have quite a bit of ftx aussie and pnw and enjoyed it however I find more and more that I dont use these regions at all and mostly use europe (inc uk and scandinavia) and the med so now have no real need for a worldwide scenery. I wonder will they supply it on a hard drive like an american scenery company? or whether it will replace GEX? It seems their plans for world domination are going to step on more than just a few toes, it will be interesting to watch. Link to post Share on other sites
GHAO 0 Posted January 3, 2013 Report Share Posted January 3, 2013 I see one problem - they're going to run out of places to make soon! FSX: Moon Edition, anyone? Seriously, that's a huge improvement in some places. Having just got REX working on my machine, the one thing I want now is good normal textures - freeware sorts me for planes and airports (some real beauties out there!), and the skies are covered. Mind you, at £125, that's not going to be a Christmas present, that's going to be THE Christmas present. Link to post Share on other sites
Christopher Low 63 Posted January 4, 2013 Report Share Posted January 4, 2013 Looking at their forums people are falling over themselves to buy it. What did you expect from the die hard ORBx cult followers? Link to post Share on other sites
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