snippedI am a XP-10 convert due to the flight model abilities, night beauty, and graphics potential. Out of the gait graphically, it is not Orbx visually, but that can soon change. XP-10 is a pearl to be made into jewelry. Austin cannot do it all by himself. Without Orbx, I would have never bothered with FSX. FSX is a three dressed up like a nine. It came out buggy, still is buggy, but a beauty to fly around in.snipped some more

For starters.........I've always liked FSX from day one. Not only were the graphics much better than it's predecessor, but I like the "flight model" possibilities too. This gives it much more than a three rating in my book. I've never been smitten by X-Planes flight models as being superior. If version 10 creates a drastic change, then I may change my mind. In other words..........I'm not one of those FSX users..........simply because of "eye candy". I'm still waiting for my X-Plane day, in which I say... wow, that's just like real..L.Adamson

X Plane 10 is a ripe apple ready for the pickings. It may end up being Orbx's greatest lost potential money maker. X Plane sales is not to be dismissed, it has enough of a client base a developer could make serious coin with add on's. No one like Orbx stepped up to the plate for XP-9. The turn off for me with XP-9 was graphics, except the water. I love XP's water. XP-10's potential, with it new overhaul is endless. Just needs a company with Orbx like qualities to pump out the add on's and people will not only buy the stuff, but convert from FSX. All being equal, if XP-10 looked like FSX alot of serious FSX'ers would be jumping aboard. I am a XP-10 convert due to the flight model abilities, night beauty, and graphics potential. Out of the gait graphically, it is not Orbx visually, but that can soon change. XP-10 is a pearl to be made into jewelry. Austin cannot do it all by himself. Without Orbx, I would have never bothered with FSX. FSX is a three dressed up like a nine. It came out buggy, still is buggy, but a beauty to fly around in. I am really stoked about XP-10, especially with it's helicopters, flight models and 3d type renderings of buildings. If I could take areas and create bush camps, small air ports and add objects and jazz what's already there, that will satisfy me. Get 100 or so guys doing the same thing in focused areas in an organized way, the community could make some excellent modifications very quickly. Couple that with a company adding sceneries, you have some major mojo happening for XP-10. I think XP-10 will have a lot more synergy that XP-9 ever had. XP-9 did not get the recognition it truly deserves. Why? IMHO ... graphics. I find it ugly. Sorry if I offended anyone using XP-9, I am shallow. That's why I prefer FSX with Orbx, despite XP-9 being a far better flight sim operationally. If XP-9 looked like FSX, FSX would be a coaster on my desk. But... XP-10 is the stepping stone from FSX for me. Flying bush in a wooded wonderland is all I want to do, with as much realism a sim has to offer. I say in 1-2 years the awesomeness of XP-10 will not be able to be overlooked. It's core "engine" with a beautiful graphical facial cannot be dismissed. If Orbx, or any company for that matter was smart, they should assign a qualified graphics artist and start a work up for XP-10 ASAP. XP-10 is a diamond waiting to be placed on a ring. Time to step off my soap box.

Worth requoting! Totally agree, and yes, xp9's global scenery was ugly. It is hard re. The economics. If things take off, many including myself might be tempted to go full time in scenery. Right now, very few can make a 'living' without having other day jobs. I hope To do a payware scenery, but it might take me 2yrs on weekends!Frankly I suspect xp10's global terrain makes the larger orbx packs redundant- there, I said it!Larger landmarks, localised autogen are all that are needed, then the airports. Ive said it before- it's like the Wild West during the gold rushes! Sort of before the big conglomerates took over.As the real pros soak it all in, I'm sure announcements will start flowing. Patience Grasshopper..

Speaking of sloped runways ... haven't heard people talking about how exaggerated the slope is on the sloped runways ..

It is quite exaggerated...especially at KSEA.... but it is what it is...

Worth requoting! Totally agree, and yes, xp9's global scenery was ugly.Frankly I suspect xp10's global terrain makes the larger orbx packs redundant- there, I said it!

Tell you what Simon, if the rest of the global scenery is as enchanting as what they have shown us, third party devs had better be very good at what they do. I doubt Orbx are the only ones capable, there are some bright young developers lurking and they may be ready to take over.

It is quite exaggerated...especially at KSEA.... but it is what it is...

Yes, I agree. However, it probably is easy to fix, compared to adding a sloped runway in FSX. I hope WED has that ability...

Tell you what Simon, if the rest of the global scenery is as enchanting as what they have shown us, third party devs had better be very good at what they do. I doubt Orbx are the only ones capable, there are some bright young developers lurking and they may be ready to take over.Yes, I agree. However, it probably is easy to fix, compared to adding a sloped runway in FSX. I hope WED has that ability...

That is my question from another thread-is the rest of the global scenery as enchanting? Because from xp9 all I can say is my area of town looked like a nuclear meltdown had happened!As for sloped runways-I'll take em even if overdone. You would be surprised how much of a factor that can be. Just earlier this year I was flying with my ex flying partner-a cfii in his plane and he said let's stop in Grand Ledge, Mi. for fuel. Never been there-and hadn't looked at the info as this was not a planned landing. Landed-then started hard braking-he asked me why-I said cause the end of the runway is right there-let up he said-runway sloped in the middle-sure enough twice as much runway as appeared. It is a factor-land at Catalina Island or talk to some who have!

Tell you what Simon, if the rest of the global scenery is as enchanting as what they have shown us, third party devs had better be very good at what they do. I doubt Orbx are the only ones capable, there are some bright young developers lurking and they may be ready to take over.

Aerosoft might be very well positioned to transform this simulator. I don't know the facts around this, but it seems like XPX is much more flexible to work with than FS9/10 so Aerosoft or any other quality development house should have an easier go at it. To add, Laminar seems to be quite willing to partner with third party developers. I don't believe MS has the same level of partnership that it can offer to third parties.

It is quite exaggerated...especially at KSEA.... but it is what it is...

I love the exaggerated sloped runway !!!

As for sloped runways-I'll take em even if overdone. You would be surprised how much of a factor that can be. Just earlier this year I was flying with my ex flying partner-a cfii in his plane and he said let's stop in Grand Ledge, Mi. for fuel. Never been there-and hadn't looked at the info as this was not a planned landing. Landed-then started hard braking-he asked me why-I said cause the end of the runway is right there-let up he said-runway sloped in the middle-sure enough twice as much runway as appeared. It is a factor-land at Catalina Island or talk to some who have!

Geof, that sounds like a ton of fun. I will take what XPX has in terms of sloped runways and know this, at least XPX has the technology for sloped runways which I am assuming could be tweaked somehow to make the slope more accurate to real world situations.

Sloped runways can be turned off in the renderring and settings tab. There is a check box for "Runway follows terrain". Simply uncheck this and you have flat runways.

I agree .. XPX is getting tons of attention becuase its new .. but if the 3rd party development doesnt improve for XPX it will go the way to XP9.XPX is missing tons stillairports scenerypushbacksReal like AIquality cockpitsATCetcXPX needs 3rd party developers .. period!

XPX looks pretty amazing already !

Sloped runways can be turned off in the renderring and settings tab. There is a check box for "Runway follows terrain". Simply uncheck this and you have flat runways.

Where is the button for sloped ... none exaggerated kind?

Orbx loss....Tom Curtis & others gain :shrugs:I really enjoy the Orbx sceneries in FSX myself and its a shame they won't bring their skills to bear within the XP world but its a business decision for them. Fair enough.Just as a side note I sort of think the Orbx 300lb gorilla overshadows the other excellent developers out there like UK2000. In fact...everybody run over to the UK2000 site and bug Gary to develop similar airfield packages for X-Plane . Seriously though XP flyers would really enjoy the value of the multi-airfield upgrades but its a ton of work.I would imagine that within the next year or so we will see loads of payware options from Aerosoft, Tom Curtis, X-Aviation, and others. Hey nothing is forever and Orbx may change their mind as XP10 matures (not to mention the XP9 users that will still be flying in that venue).p.s. I turned off the sloped runways (XP9). Sometimes the "slopes" on certain smaller strips turn into steps that rip the wheels off the plane! Its not something I fuss about.

That is my question from another thread-is the rest of the global scenery as enchanting? Because from xp9 all I can say is my area of town looked like a nuclear meltdown had happened!

Well, theoretically yes, practically - of course - it will not always be "perfect". Let me tell you a bit more about this, as there are a few factors influencing this.The global scenery is built from quite some different data sources (GIS data, of you understand what I mean), and essentially those sources have been improved (in many aspects vastly improved) over XP9.We have new landuse data for all of the planet. Though there are also different quality levels (depending on what was available). For the Europe, the USA (including Alaska/Hawaii) and New Zealand we could use 100m res data ... and for the rest of the planet, 300m res data (mind it, XP9 had only quite coarse, 1km data for all of the planet). And this new landuse data is a big improvement, as it makes the landscape usually look much closer to reality (as there will be forests, where you would expect them, and meadows, where you would expect them etc.). We also have new climate data (oh yes, we use annual mean precipitation and temperature, to make the terines fir - approximately - to their climate). We have new elevation data (which fixed many of the extremely strange errors seen in XP9 - just look to the Andes for example). And we have the all new vector data - trough OpenStreetmap (compared to the quite bad VMAP0 + Tiger data in XP9) - which makes a big differenc as you all have seen. BUT,OSM is not equally detailed all over the planet, so you will find quite some remote locations, where we have no roads at all (or only very few).So, this defines the basis more or less, on which we built the scenery. And as long as our source data was good (detailed enough), the scenery has good chances (all over the planet) to look good too. But there are many places, where even the high quality data (or at least where we believe it should be high quality), can be dull ... to little variations in the landuse, to o few roads in OSM ... etc. So, you see, when you are working with big datasets and big algorithms to generate the planet (and you have no other chance to do it at this level), you always have to accept some uncertainties.At least we have a good basis, and hope, that at least a lot of places over the planet will look quite nice (comparable to the KSEA area). But we also know - at least I do - that there are also quite some places, which are maybe less interesting (hey, even in reality, there are many places, where you wouldn't go on vacation :) )There is also another factor. Namely the texturing. The texturing is - technically - decoupled from the DSFs themselves. A few of you might know - but I think the most don't - how the DSF format works. It uses kind of an abstraction. The scenery only knows about terrain names which are assigned to each triangle (often more than one, when we have transitions which overlap). Then, the definition how that terrain type should look, is defined via the terrain definitions, so called TER files (you will find them in you resources/world terrain folder). Those TER files then specify a lot of parameters (shading technique etc.) and which texture(s) to use for that part.And here we still have a few shortcomings. We still didn't exchange all textures from XP9 for new ones in XP10. Yes, they are almost completely done for temperate and colder climates, but especially in the warmer ones, there are still many textures used from the XP9 set (which are also still there in you resources folder). They often look nice (as those textures weren't bad on their own), but they are sometimes not up to the level of our newer creations. BUT, the good thing is, that changing a few (or even many) TER files and shipping new textures is not a big problem, and can easily be done trough the usual update process. So, yes, we will continue on refining the textures and TER files ... especially for the hotter climates. But rest assured, that even now, that doesn't mean that those places are just homogeneous, grey patches :) (to the contrary).That said, I think, I can say with confidence, that the new global scenery should surpass (in some place vastly, in others just a bit) the old global scenery in all places on the globe.PS: by the way, what is your town Geofa?

".......The turn off for me with XP-9 was graphics, except the water. I love XP's water........... XP-9 did not get the recognition it truly deserves. Why? IMHO ... graphics. I find it ugly. Sorry if I offended anyone using XP-9, ....... "

shrugs ... dont understand the comment "XP-9 did not get the recognition it truly deserves" .. but then you call it ugly, what?

Tierborn,Why don't you take your "Negative Attitude" back to FSX, I'm getting tired of your crying!