ORBX England

[speedbird591]

Btw.. I flew over St Michaels Mount on Sunday and it had gone out of GenXv3 I hope Ian didn't nick it

Hmmm

Could have been collateral damage, I suppose. Since Chris said I could carry 51 500lbers in my B52 I've made that the default load and been causing untold devastation over vast swathes of the countryside.

Sorry



Getting back to Paul's serious question about FTX England for a moment. From reports on the ORBX support forum, apart from a few grumbles about scenery inaccuracy, which they hope to address in the first SP, most issues involve just one customer and have been quickly resolved. There is, however, one issue which has affected a few people and is as yet unresolved so I'd better just tell you about it.

When you install an FTX product, it will place an icon on your desktop called FTX Control Panel and this gives you access to manuals and subsidiary control panels for add-on airports. It also allows you a preference over certain airport textures. There are also buttons for selecting which region you intend to fly in e.g. Europe, North America, Australia and Default (this switches off all FTX sceneries so FSX reverts to either default or whatever else you may have installed). Despite that, flying out of an FTX region into a default region shouldn't require you to actually close the game and change the region, you just fly out of FTX scenery into default with no action required.

What some people are reporting is that when the Europe area is selected and you are flying in a default area (anywhere in the world) the scenery is blurry - even if you haven't flown in England. Switching England off in the Control Panel brings back the sharpness in default. Only a few people are reporting this and the FTX guys are unable to replicate it so progress on a fix is slow. So far they haven't found a common denominator. I just thought I'd mention that there's an outside chance that you could buy the scenery and be one of the unlucky ones. It wouldn't be a problem if you were flying within England but it would ruin an international flight (such as Wales or Scotland or even Europe). I'll keep an eye on the thread and see if they can crack it. It only happens with England and not their other world regions.

Ian

[PaulC]

Right. Thanks for that. I gather most of you are VFR stalwarts. What's the scenery below your B52?

By "things not being in the right place" do you mean that it's grassy where Leeds should be or just the M6 is a few metres to one side?

[speedbird591]

Hi Paul. Yes, I think it's the VFR thing that's bothering people. Because they know England so well and are used to flying over it in accurate VFR scenery the fact that ORBX is a general likeness of the area means that it can't be used for navigation. The scenery under the B52 is FTX Northern Rocky Mountain region and is probably the same standard as FTX England. It's close to Fairchild AFB near Spokane, where my 52s are stationed (fully armed and at rapid response standby, I might add, in case anybody's listening ). As you can see, the scenery looks pretty good but as none of us know what that area really looks like, I can't say how accurate it is Having said that, when flying over my North American FTX scenery using my moving map with google earth, whenever I do fly over a town or POI it's always there on the ground and relates to the map. So it ain't far out.

I'd guess you could say it's like an impressionist painting compared to a photograph. Think of Monet's water lilies compared to a photograph of the same pond. One is accurate but the other might not be accurate but gives an artistic representation of it. Think of it as getting a work of art for £26

Apparently they've got the roads and railways and some of the rivers in roughly the right place and then put textured tiles in the areas where towns, villages, cities, fields, woods etc should be. But the scale of the tiling hasn't allowed a perfect match and a village might be missing completely or a town might be the wrong side of a motorway, for instance. Although if you weren't familiar with the area it would feel right.

Or you could do what I do and only fly in FTX North American regions. Haven't the foggiest what most of it looks like in real life but I love what I've got

Ian

[T6flyer]

Apparently they've got the roads and railways and some of the rivers in roughly the right place and then put textured tiles in the areas where towns, villages, cities, fields, woods etc should be. But the scale of the tiling hasn't allowed a perfect match and a village might be missing completely or a town might be the wrong side of a motorway, for instance. Although if you weren't familiar with the area it would feel right.

Or you could do what I do and only fly in FTX North American regions. Haven't the foggiest what most of it looks like in real life but I love what I've got

Ian

My thoughts entirely. In my local area, I was expecting at least the towns and villages to be in the correct places to aid my navigation. My village is cut in half by the A38 in real life and on the Orbx scenery its about a mile to the East of the main road. The positioning of the roads and railways together with bridges etc is spot on, cept for a few omissions including the Tamar Bridges for example.

Other local towns such as Looe or Fowey are not even shown. Perhaps I was expecting too much for such a large project, but think like Ian says will stick to my other Orbx titles which I adore.

Best wishes,

Martin

[PaulC]

Right;

I'm off to Tasmania to see what this is all about!

[Jetstreamsky]

.............Other local towns such as Looe or Fowey are not even shown. ...............

I think that's a big part of the problem, unrealistic placement or just omission of conurbations, this is something that the landclass normally controls, perhaps that's the issue that needs to be addressed most.

[PaulC]

Well;

I did a few circuits in the Chipmunk then beetled off to have a look around. I then came back to land and swapped for the Lightning to see what happened at speed and altitude.

I have to say...

I think it's great! From a trawl around various posts I see that the roads, rivers and bridges etc are in the right place and the rest is mostly right.

I obviously have a good imagination. In the default FSX I can come out of Leeds, pick up the Keighley VRP and follow the trunk road to Skipton and then toddle off up to the lakes via Kendal. Granted, I couldn't give you a great look around Grassington village green, but then, hey ho!

I may well be purchasing. If you really have any strong views on the England ORBX pack, let me know. I realise I may be looking through rose-tinted glasses!

Paul

[T6flyer]

I think I've said what I wish to say on the package. I've removed it from my PC and am on the verge of selling it on to someone else.

I'm finding this difficult to write - I was expecting it to be a lot better as to towns and villages etc and am just shall we say a little disappointed. Its a bit like Marmite I suppose, some people like it and some don't.

Martin

[PaulC]

You may have a buyer...

[DaveB]

I'm selling mine to Ian though he doesn't realise it yet

ATB
DaveB