You think ORBX hits your system hard now... wait till you have thousands of blades of grass blowing in the wind and a ton of leaves falling from the trees! Dont get me wrong, I think what they have done is very nice but I just dont see the point really. I guess if you like to simply look around and not fly it is great. Whats next, virtual bird poop falling from the sky? LOL. Jim

Yeah, I don't see this running on my system anytime soon. Though I think the point of the tech is to just push the boundaries of what we are currently seeing in FSX add-ons. They are putting out products that can grow as hardware grows. Right now they are letting buyers know that it will have a 5-7fps hit. The next year and after CPU power is going to keep increasing and making FSX run at a high FPS with stuff like this. :) I'm guessing they just want to give us their best and not 50%. The good thing is that it is all optional and able to turn off. Orbx is or has already become the PMDG of scenery.

You have to think about the people who made a series of bitter comments. If they were the exclusive managers of the FSX world I wonder what it would look like. The Orbx feature is an amazing advance. You see some, who do seek the romance of aviation, could easily imagine going to a quiet rural airport on a frosty morning. Before climbing in the Stearman you can pause and take in the relaxing atmosphere. Then fire its roaring engine and instantly transform your experience. I wonder if any of the embittered will now attack or hopefully will just think about how Orbx once again has added to the simulation of flying.

John, I think some of these comments need to be taken with a grain of salt. For those who made questionable comments, they are problably the ones which fly the heavies or cannot run flow due to hardware, let alone the basics like PNW.I too made a comment about just taxiing around rather than flying. The truth is that if I could run the flow objects with acceptable smoothness I would. I think most would if they could.RegardsBob

I can't wait for this to be released - another one of the little touches that makes the small FTX airfields so enjoyable. Those who haven't tried it yet really should get themselves a good quality GA airplane addon, ORBX PNW and one or two of the small airfields for that area. You may find yourself spending less time in that airliner cockpit

Thanks for the feedback guys, although I don't understand the need for sarcasm (would you prefer developers stop innovating scenery?). Forums can be such anarchic, rude and hostile places these days; people need to return to some core values and show more restraint. Yes there's a performance hit, but you can disable all or some of the animations. I am testing on an [email protected] with a GTX580 and I get between 20-35 FPS depending on direction (lower FPS when facing Seattle). But I do like the bird poop idea... Hmmmm......

I hope you didn't take my post as sarcastic, I think this is awesome, I envision someday a living world to play in, dynamic cities, traffic jams, being able to drive to the airport in my car, go through the terminal and get in the left seat. This all starts with you guys doing things like people flow and this new innovation. So please keep up the good work.

That's an important point. I've always viewed FTX as scenery that caters to the private pilot. You can hop on a car and drive to the airport. Then walk around the airport. See the sights and hear the sounds. Hop on your plane, fly around, come back and land. That's what most pilots do. It's a simulation experience that is incomparable to what we had just a few years ago and for this I say "thank you" John and the FTX team.

Really impressed with this development. The innovations of today end up being what we will all enjoy a few years down the road. Mark.

Yup, an escaped ape from the Seattle zoo comes charging out of the forrest. It really adds to the immersion factor.

Haha! Too funny, just spit my coffee out....

Aargh, come on you heavy guys! Do you never look out the cockpit windows during those endless boring minutes or even hours when being stuck in an endless taxi queue during rush hours at the major airports? Or when standing at the holding point waiting for clearance? It is nice then to see swaying grass or trees, which definitely adds lots to immersion. Wolfgang

Lago did it with Punta Cana way back when, swaying palm trees!

Ahem, I hoped someone with good memory would made this comment , since I made that scenery... However, just to be precise, it wasn't the first scenery which animated vegetation, that was my Honolulu scenery, which was also published by LAGO in 2002: it had swaying palm tress, on a big airport too. An interesting note, from a geeky point of view, that *every* single tree was slightly different, I modified the scenery compiler starting from its source code (FSC, an open source Scasm clone) to include new commands to allow this...unfortunately using the same technique in FSX would probably be very slow.

Umberto, my friend - your many unique and original contributions to this hobby are already legend. I'm glad that your same enthusiasm, technical genius and feel for customer service continues through to this day - the hobby is all the better for it. Sorry, JohnV - I forgot - in my books you're right up there with Umberto, too! pj flyin' the BirdDog in gorgeous PNW-Land...

Thanks for the feedback guys, although I don't understand the need for sarcasm (would you prefer developers stop innovating scenery?). Forums can be such anarchic, rude and hostile places these days; people need to return to some core values and show more restraint.

Unless something was deleted what came across as rude, sarcastic, or hostile? Seems the people who didn't care much for it expessed the fact that they thought it was cool but didn't really see a need for it. I thought everyone seemed "well behaved" in the discussion.It's ok that not everyone goes gaga over ORBX products, not all of us like the same thing, but the people who expressed no interest in the new Flow seemed pretty considerate imho. No body was trashing the idea, just saying they didnt see the need for it.I'd have to reserve judgement until I tried it myself but I can see how it might be viewed as a unnecessary feature unless you like to just park and watch trees sway or grass sway.Just my .02

However, just to be precise, it wasn't the first scenery which animated vegetation, that was my Honolulu scenery, which was also published by LAGO in 2002: it had swaying palm tress, on a big airport too.

Ah that brings back memories! Lago Honolulu was one of my favourite airports back in the day :) As for "Nature Flow"... It's certainly an interesting idea. A few observations from me: i) Looking at the Youtube video the motion of the trees doesn't look very natural to me. In fact the more I watch it the more noticeable it becomes. ii) Will the effect be linked to the weather conditions? In other words will the level of movement in the trees/grass be dependant on the wind strength? iii) 5-7fps hit doesn't really mean a lot to most of us, perhaps giving us a percentage frame rate hit would be more helpful? Now if there is one visual effect I would LOVE to see in FSX it's the rain water drop effect on the windshield from Flight Unlimited 2 & 3. That was simply a fantastic effect which would add hugely to FSX. I have no idea if it's possible but it would be fantastic if it was, and I'd be far more excited and interested in it than leaves falling off trees.

I really like these little touches that make small airfields feel alive - animated people, sounds, photo-realistic buildings etc. It really feels like you landed at a real airfield. OrbX have of course *almost* taken it too far. I mean, if you just fly the pattern, land your plane, taxi to the parking and shut down the plane, you'll only see maybe 20% of the detail. To see every little detail and hear every sound, you almost need to use slew mode or "walk" using something like BOB. Speaking of Flight Unlimited - now that airfields are so alive, I really miss a "virtual FBO" kind of feature. In Flight Unlimited and Flight Unlimited II, you started and ended your flight at as screen that resembled a real FBO (3D in FU, 2D in FU II) that was different for different types of airports. To set up your flight, you clicked on different items (keys to choose your plane, the sky to select your weather etc.):http://www.tok2.com/...ics/fu2/fbo.jpg In FU III the FBO was replaced by a generic menu instead, and of course that's how it has always been in FS. You start your flight not from a flying club or FBO, but from a computer interface.