Since UTX is lacking in areas like Asia, I was curious to know if SceneryTech landclass is any good in those regions that aren't covered by UTX?

I haven't done an overseas flight in a long time (home is the USA), but as best I remember, the landclasses for Indonesia and Asia in general left much to be desired IMHO.  If you can swing the massive amount of money, go for FTXG. 

 

 

If you can swing the massive amount of money, go for FTXG.

From what I've read, FTXG is not a landclass addon. It will more or less only replace the ground textures, which are (as far as I understand it) assigned to the regarding area via landclass. Hence FTXG will of course improve one's visual experience, but it will not change the texture assignment to reflect the real world better. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, though.

I believe he has FTXG.  But FTXG isn't landclass.  FSX will still call the wrong textures in the wrong places, but they'll be FTXG textures.

I own their Europe, and USA products and both are great ; giving some fantastic improvements in some areas.

 

Should work well with FTXG;   I bet SceneryTech get a big increase in sales  :wink:

I have Scenery Tech for everything except Asia. For Asia I have Cloud9. In my opinion Scenery Tech and Cloud9 do a much better job than default and with FTXG you can't go wrong with either.

A bit off topic but did you read this blog before?

 

http://simmerhead.wordpress.com/

 

There are some very nice topics in there showing how different landclass products from different developers (ScenerTech, Cloud9, UTX, ORBX) implement in FSX.

I have Scenery Tech for Europe but stopped using it after it placed houses along the tops of mountains in Spain! I will try it again with FTXG.  BTW, as has been said, FTXG is purely textures, nothing else. However, Orbx will be releasing upgrades for specific areas that will not only include landclass but also enhanced textures pertinent to those areas.

 

 

FTXG is purely textures, nothing else.

 

It does already include some landclass improvements for Southeast Asia area  I believe.

My experience of Scenery Tech Europe is good along with Gex & UTX Europe. Does'nt cost much either.

 

It does already include some landclass improvements for Southeast Asia area I believe.

Thats the demo region for the upcoming LC packs isnt it?

 

 

This is from the manual

 

Replaces all the default landclass textures located in \Scenery\World\Texture with custom Orbx FTX
textures
• Installs FTX Central and other supporting apps into the \ORBX folder. FTX Central and these other
apps help manage all Orbx addons including FTXG, FTX Regions and FTX Airports and we’ll cover
them in more detail later (see page 6)
• Adds 3D lights to all vector main roads all over the world. These can be turned on and off using FTX
Central (see page 7)
• Makes corrections to the base landclass for some parts of the world, particularly in SE Asia (see page
13)
• Adds 3D lights to all textures all over the world. These can be turned off and on during
dawn/day/dusk using the FTX Lights Day and FTX Lights Night apps (see page 22)

I have been unimpressed with SceneryTech landclass products, especially the North America one.

 

It eliminates a lot of forest/woodland areas in the U.S and replaces much of it with inappropriate textures.  I e-mailed the developer about this several years ago and he said that he would correct it, but he never did.

 

The South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia products do, however, provide a slight landclass improvement over the default landclass, but not much.

 

Personally, I have uninstalled all of them and don't use them anymore as they just don't improve things enough and/or make things worse in some areas.

 

 

Personally, I have uninstalled all of them and don't use them anymore as they just don't improve things enough and/or make things worse in some areas.

 

Which is exactly the same conclusion that I came to.

 

 

From what I've read, FTXG is not a landclass addon. It will more or less only replace the ground textures, which are (as far as I understand it) assigned to the regarding area via landclass. Hence FTXG will of course improve one's visual experience, but it will not change the texture assignment to reflect the real world better. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, though.

 

I think Woodhick might be thinking in terms of the upcoming OpenLC enhancements to FTXG, which promise enhanced landclass data.

 

Re: Scenerytech, I picked their South America pack for a recent video.  It definitely improved things, giving small villages and towns where none were previously.  It didn't improve the shape of the coastlines or anything handled by vector data that UTX handles.

 

If you're in the same boat as me, looking for options for a good landclass foundation for FTXG's shiny new visuals, I'd wait and see what the OpenLC offerings are like.  I suspect UTX is going to remain the first choice where available, with OpenLC being the next best thing.

 

Dr V  

By the way sometimes Scenerytech landclasses can cause unexpected results with FTX Global.

 

 

Grand Canyon with default landclass & FTX Global, horrible I know:

 

 

With Scenerytech, quite okay: 

 

In this case you can see custom Landclass working well with FTX Global improving things a lot.

 

But then with Scenerytech Asia, near Kabul, just horrible (compare to actual real life colours in the lower part of the picture:

 

 

 

Then without Scenerytech, with default landclass, quite okay:

 

 

 

Conclusion: Sometimes FTX Global works just fine with custom landclasses like in the Grand Canyon case while sometimes they can actually make everything look worse like in the Kabul case.

 

So yeah seems like the only solution that will make all the areas look good enough will be the OpenLC packs.