X-Plane 11 My Verdict

[Vancouver]

I don't XP at the moment but in the spirit of wonderfulness I came across this video for newcomers which I thought might be found useful. It is made by a renowned XP user,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQr4uuRJKiU&t=396s

[Nigel H-J]

Blimey, I didn't see that coming!

Sorry Chris I mean't to answer that but got carried away typing that I forgot! It may sound drastic but when you think that although I have a 1TB Hard Disc 65.2Gb is taken up by FSX, now just think of what I could add in the way of Ortho-Scenery to match that without compromising precious disc space (until I can afford an external hard drive).

Apart from that as stated earlier, my interest in FSX has gone completely, cannot justify keeping it on the drive just in case I decide to have a five minute flight.

ChrisHunt, from reading your post again regarding photoscenery at 1.2m. Does this place objects such as you would see from the air? i.e. Houses, railways, etc. and do they match that of actually seeing from the air in real life? I know that I have stated that I am eagerly awaiting True Earth UK to come onto the market but something inside me is telling me that Ortho-Photoscenery may even prove to be slightly better than True Earth.

Having watched a brilliant video of Netherlands True Earth by a True Dutchman there is one point he raised in that he lives in Rotterdam and although the scenery is great he did not recognise Rotterdam as being Rotterdam due to the buildings. If you watch the video go to 9 mins 24 secs and this is where he talks about the autogen buildings. An excellent review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuHIvZm_gVs

What I would like to know is Chris, do you also have Mesh installed before applying Ortho-Photoscenery or do you just have it as it is without Mesh?

Any help or advice regarding this from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

Regards
Nigel.

[ChrisHunt]

Hi Nigel, re ortho scenery and object placement - using Europe X object placement is accurate with appropriate objects for each location but they are generic. I have yet to travel out of Europe to check other continental scenery. Mesh is provided with the Ortho scenery and it is surprisingly good - certainly better than I expected. Re whether or not Ortho is better than TrueEarth; TrueEarth has the advantage of better 3D suited models and colour balancing of the photo scenery. The one shortfall of Ortho is the variability of colours and shading of the photo scenery - it all depends on when the images for each slice or segment were taken.

Using Ortho is easy and has a batch build facility. To get 1.2m select a focus level of 17. I tried 16 but felt that was too much of a compromise. As for image sourcing - I used Bling as Google sourced images were unreliable with too many instances of Blue squares instead of photos. There are good tutorials on the net just don't forget to select "build masks" if using the batch build facility.

Hope this helps.

[Airspeed]

It's perhaps a little too flat on the top lip of the intake. Does that match your thoughts?

Hi CB, I thought that the intakes were too flat right across the bottom.
I expected round.
Not feeling so lazy tonight, I'll check out some real photos.
On this page, there's a 737"MAX" with round intakes:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boei ... SKCN0V7253
BUT here, there's one similar to the sim picture:
https://en.ellinair.com/article/gr_b737
Just shows what I don't know.

[alemaobaiano]

The X-plane.org store is having a Memorial Day sale until Monday, and there are some interesting titles on sale. I think my card is in for a hammering, the 727 Study Series is reduced, as are the 757 and 767. World Traffic is also slightly reduced, which is something I've been looking to add since I started with X-Plane.

I have to echo Nigel's feelings about going back to FSX, it just doesn't seem very good any longer. I started a flight and quit halfway through to run the same flight in XP. I can't actually put my finger on the reason, the scenery is obviously better even with free options, the curved runways are great, but perhaps the biggest difference is the way the aircraft react to the weather conditions. Approaches in crappy weather make you work hard in XP in a way they never did in FSX.

One thing they do need to sort out is the clouds, they totally kill frames on my PC, and none of the solutions I've tried really work. I usually fly with real weather, but the FPS drop is so bad I now set up a simple weather system to be able to run the more complex add-ons.

TTFN

[Charlie Bravo]

Hi Mike,

Forgive me if you already know but the 737 series has different CFM-56 engines fitted throughout. The IXEG is a 737-300 with CFM-56-3 engines which are flatter on the bottom.
This Wiki page shows and describes it well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_Inter ... 6-3_series

[Nigel H-J]

Hi Nigel, re ortho scenery and object placement - using Europe X object placement is accurate with appropriate objects for each location but they are generic.

Many thanks for the reply Chris, just wondering also whether it gives the opportunity to see the road and place of residence where you live! May try it out doing Lincolnshire first and see how it works out then maybe I can make a decision to go Ortho-Scenery or True Earth.

Regards
Nigel.

[Charlie Bravo]

IXEG 737...

It's taken me several hours, a lot of reading, some Youtube, several Google searches and 6 flights, but I've finally cracked the FMC and I must say, I've really enjoyed it.
I know it's a lot of money but it's a worthwhile purchase for XP.

A few more shots taken during my steep learning curve...



Turning at Brookmans Park. STN and Bishops Stortford on the left.

[Nigel H-J]

OK Chaps desperately needing some help here.

I downloaded a tile to try out in Ortho 4XP, followed the instructions given on YouTube and placed the folders into Custom Scenery 2 folders namely yOrthop4XP_Overlays and zOrtho4XP_=53-001 I then started X-Plane 11 and came out after the main screen so as to put the following in:
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/yOrtho4XP_Overlays/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+53-001/

Went to start a flight but during loading got this message.

Error could not locate image file for terrain
Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+53-001/terrain/42688_65168_B117.ter
Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+53-001/terrain
.../textures/42688_65168_B117.dds

On completion of the conversion process and the tiles have been processed and even though I had selected the folder for Custom overlay directory there was nothing in there, do you have to click on (BuildOverlay) which is the clickable icon on the right of the Buildsoverlay?

Have tried three times re-downloading and following the steps to install but getting nowhere. Any help appreciated.

BTW, I tried to download the tile that I wanted for Lincoln using OSM but the files were not all found and kept getting error messages so downloaded them as B1. This is really driving me nuts!!

It's taken me several hours, a lot of reading, some Youtube, several Google searches and 6 flights, but I've finally cracked the FMC and I must say, I've really enjoyed it.

Cracking screenshots Chris, though it seems that I will have to at some point spend as much time on learning the FMC as you did. Gawd, what am I doing to myself?

Regards
Nigel.

[ChrisHunt]

A bit short on time for a fuller reply Nigel but ignore the overlays you don't need them. All you need is the tile you built. This should have the photo scenery, open source mapping and mesh. If you have Europe X the n this should be above your new scenery tile.