Dont forget UK is a plain country not much to see from the air:)) but PNW, SAK with moutnains...etc not fair to compare these.

Well, hanging above FL200 it can be hard to judge that on my part, thats why I wanted a spot to go to :smile:  

 

On my departures and approaches I have not really seen anything 'unexpected', but I would guess that if you live in England and even have flown above the country it would probably stand out.

The nature of the NA and EU landscapes are very different though.

 

High flyer, eh? Well, fair enough, Michael, you wouldn't see any difference in quality at those altitudes, but surely the main appeal of the FTX regions is VFR? Low and slow?

 

And to make my original point clearer still; I'm not concerned with geographical beauty or topographic accuracy - after all, FTX IS NOT photoreal scenery as we know. My opinions (which it seems many here agree with) are purely based on the quality of the workmanship, not the real world landscapes. Dave (Q_flyer) gives a good example when he says anything can be of good quality, no matter what the subject material is.

 

And me being English is completely irrelevant. Accuracy is not relevant in this thread. Forget what building should be placed here and there and how that road should be further to the north, I don't care. As I've said, FTX is not about being accurate, it's about giving a high quality representation of an area or country, an ideal if you like. My point is that the EU regions and airports are not in keeping with this ideal and I wondered why. 

Dont forget UK is a plain country not much to see from the air:)) but PNW, SAK with moutnains...etc not fair to compare these.

 

Thank you for your input, but you are missing the point that was made very clear in my initial post. Please read my less elaborative comments above.

This is true, however landclass data can also be polygon-based, which removes the 1.2 x 1.2km limit and allows the developers to control the position and shape of towns and other features more accurately. This is often used in the North American scenery products and is very evident when the shape of a town follows the edge of a road or stream/river.

 

Also I'm not sure about the 122 classifications limit, since OrbX modify many core FSX/P3D files.

 

The FTX EU products don't seem to use this technique as much, which makes them look more haphazard. For example, a town that is supposed to be next to a road me be located 1km from the road, and the shape will not be accurate.

 

 

1) Yes, you can use individual polygons, but that is impossible without some sort of automation for large areas, and it does requires good source data. The Finland X freeware scenery did this and achieved very good results, although it is not without flaws. And as you have pointed out, the biggest problem with polygons is that they don't subscribe to the blending algorithms, making transition betwwen different types of landclass hard and unrealistic. Further more, since LC are generic graphics, it is often neccessary to use a different landclass than what real world data would suggest to make the area "look" more realistic. It is a monumental task and only a large amount of handcrafting will give desirable results.  

 

I find that landclass only lends itself to natural landscapes. To improve the scenery we really need to move away from landclass and use vector type scenery for populated areas (houses that follow roads). Even better, photoscenery with autogen for populated areas, and lanclass for wild areas.

 

2) If ORBX has achived that they've done a good job. It would require quite a bit of work. In the default engine there is a total of 147 LC slots for each region in the original terrain engine, some of which are unassigned, reducing the number of usable classes to a maximum of 122 - less for some regions. Even if you increased the number to 200 you would have way too little to avoid repetitive textures and autogen. Each LC texture is quite small.

 

What really needs to be done is to make the landclass grid finer. Tiles of 6 x 6 km would improve things a lot. Last but not least the landclass textures needs to be bigger. That will make them more difficult to create, but would decrese repetitiveness. Hopefully this is something Lockheed Martin will consider when creating the roadmap for P3D v3.

I once bought all ORBX stuff reilgiously, I really liked their work in the PNW/AUS and NZ,  and owned all of the airports there. The release of England seemed greatly over-hyped, and to me it was a huge let-down. I remember the first time I installed it and flew in area I've actually done real flying in and I noticed the following things:

 

1) Strange, misaligned textures. e.g. Half a road or half a town running of a cliff, or a crop field on the side of a cliff.

2) Completely missing towns, all in green. I reported one of them, but it was never fixed.

3) Weird purple smudges which were supposed to be trees. No idea what they are supposed to be.

4) Lots of major landmarks missing, e.g. Bridges, Power stations. 

5) It did not give me the impression of flying over the UK, and it felt rushed.

 

Wales was also disappointing, although I did buy it. It was a small region, but still had the same problems as the UK region. Scotland however is fantastic, and I noticed a big improvement in the quality and care that went into it. I haven't bothered with Northern Ireland, after reading about the missing mesh, and failing to understand why they didn't do all of Ireland in one go, I gave up. Too little, too late. I only bought one of EU airfields, and after being disappointed with the quality, and Southern-England bias, decided not to bother with anymore.

 

With regards to NZ, I absolutely loved Milford Sound and was expecting Queenstown to be of the same quality. Unforuntately it isn't, and it's sad that this will be their last airport in the region.

 

The good news is that I hear they might get the team who worked on Southern Alaska to work on some European regions. Hopefully we will then get the original, high-quality stuff again

If the ORBX team had used the UTX Alaska tech you would have gotten a brisk 2 fps anywhere near any of the even medium sized cities in England.  The vector buildings tech is extremely frame rate hungry and looks great, but is only really useful in places like Alaska where the population is sparse.  Even in alaska framerates using UTX Anchorage are well below framerates using ORBX Anchorage

 

The tech could be used selectively. The problem is less for towns and cities, but for small villages vectors are the only tech to make things look somewhat realistic. Just dumping a lanclass tile here and there with a small village just looks very odd and unrealistic.

I was talking on Teamspeak several weeks ago to some Australians who were close to the Orbx outfit in the early days. I said how disappointed I was in ENG and the consensus was...There isn't the love any more! That, for me summed it up. I used to, like many of you, snap up everything that Orbx produced but now I'm very picky. Ha! I've just bought Damyns Hall the other day and I haven't even looked at it yet!

......The release of England seemed greatly over-hyped, and to me it was a huge let-down........and I noticed the following things:

 

1) Strange, misaligned textures. e.g. Half a road or half a town running of a cliff, or a crop field on the side of a cliff.

2) Completely missing towns, all in green. I reported one of them, but it was never fixed.

3) Weird purple smudges which were supposed to be trees. No idea what they are supposed to be.

4) Lots of major landmarks missing, e.g. Bridges, Power stations. 

5) It did not give me the impression of flying over the UK, and it felt rushed.

 

Wales was also disappointing, although I did buy it. It was a small region, but still had the same problems as the UK region. Scotland however is fantastic, and I noticed a big improvement in the quality and care that went into it. I haven't bothered with Northern Ireland, after reading about the missing mesh, and failing to understand why they didn't do all of Ireland in one go, I gave up. Too little, too late. I only bought one of EU airfields, and after being disappointed with the quality, and Southern-England bias, decided not to bother with anymore.

 

With regards to NZ, I absolutely loved Milford Sound and was expecting Queenstown to be of the same quality. Unforuntately it isn't, and it's sad that this will be their last airport in the region.

 

The good news is that I hear they might get the team who worked on Southern Alaska to work on some European regions. Hopefully we will then get the original, high-quality stuff again

 

 

You've had a very similar experience to me, Tony, in regards to both purchases and views and I couldn't agree with you more. And yes, NZMF is wonderful and offers beauty, atmosphere and above all, high quality at a good price.

 

It's a shame that Orbx find it difficult to allow honest feedback in it's forums. The place is basically littered (due to extreme censorship) with how great everything FTX is, when it's clear from this thread that many customers are not happy with the direction Orbx has taken over the last year. John Venema (whose public airings are taken with a pinch of salt by myself) has spoken along the lines of the English airfields not selling because of lack of customer interest. (The initial ridiculous price for glorified fields was no doubt the actual cause of disinterest, but I digress) Surely it makes good business sense to allow honest requests and discussion about potential, forthcoming products on the Orbx forums before spending time and money only to find out that nobody wants to buy them? Retailers and manufacturers have been carrying out customer surveys for years, it's not cheap but it's far cheaper than going ahead with a product that nobody wants.

 

The reason the EU FTX regions continue to disappoint me is the huge missed opportunity by Orbx. Yes, England is virtually flat and even the beautiful Snowdonia in Wales and the Highlands in Scotland cannot compete with parts of NA and NZ. But surely (especially in EU ENG) this lack of diversity should have pushed Orbx to place an emphasis on what it does have, don't you think? This emphasis should have culminated in more natural looking trees, better quality field textures, etc. Just because England isn't as amazingly diverse and breathtaking as the PNW, it doesn't mean overall quality should suffer. If anything, the quality needed to be better in an attempt to keep EU regions looking as good as what the Orbx customers have come to expect from FTX. 

I was talking on Teamspeak several weeks ago to some Australians who were close to the Orbx outfit in the early days. I said how disappointed I was in ENG and the consensus was...There isn't the love any more! That, for me summed it up. I used to, like many of you, snap up everything that Orbx produced but now I'm very picky. Ha! I've just bought Damyns Hall the other day and I haven't even looked at it yet!

 

Love and passion doesn't go well with money, that's for sure. What's really missing is the thriwing and passionate freeware scene of the old days. FSX became to complex for most people, and with no new entertainment sim in development the casual simmers are mostly gone.

I was talking on Teamspeak several weeks ago to some Australians who were close to the Orbx outfit in the early days. I said how disappointed I was in ENG and the consensus was...There isn't the love any more! That, for me summed it up..... 

 

I reckon you've hit the nail on the head there, Ron. 

I am fairly new to FSX (was FS9 for a few  years), so when I moved over was not burdened down with a lot of older poorer quality sceneries.  I had bought all four of the France VFR regions in FS9 and thought that they were very good.  I wanted something similar for England (where I live) but nothing seemed to be available in FS9.  I read all of the good reviews on the recently released FTX England, and this was one of the reasons that I abandoned FS9, bought a more powerful rig, and moved over to FSX.  I immediately bought FTX England, and must say that having nothing else to compare it with except France VFR, was overwhelmed.  It really does capture what England looks like from the air in areas that I am familiar.  East Anglia for example, a flat rather featureless area.  But also the South Downs -- as you fly into the Downs and approach Shoreham airport this is really the way it looks. 

 

I agree that ORBX could have captured more cathedrals and other features, but generally this is a superior product for which for the region, nothing else compares.  As far as comparison with earlier ORBX regions, I decided to purchase NA Pacific Northwest.  And I wasn't disappointed, excellent.  Having also flown often in this area and in the U.S. in general, ORBX have well-caputred the urban sprawl and rectilinear street grids.  This is the way it really looks.  But better than FTX England, Scotland, Wales and NI? (I own them all now.)  I could not really say this is the case, as North America and the UK are so different in the appearance of the cities and countrysides.

 

But in comparison with France VFR (I now own thier FSX versions of NPDC and Bretagne)?   France VFR's rendering of the ports around Brest and Calais, for example are very good.  However, the overall appearance of the terrain when flying around 3000 or 5000 ft is more realistic in FTX regions I think.  Another problem with France VFR's products is that, except for Bretagne, each region is very small and they are not contiguous,  thus it is very difficult to immerse yourself in their regions as if you are at altitude you can see the "edges" and the colour contrast is very noticeable.  This is something that ORBX has been much more clever about: they start an area and build their regions contiguously (e.g., U.S/Canada Pacific NW and the U.K countries).  I also tried one of the VFR Germany regions -- huge disappointment.  Looked like illustrations from a child's storybook.  I have turned it off and am now just using FTX Global and a few of Aerosoft's airports.

 

In summary, my experience is that FTX regions are the best available for these type of products, so there is really very little choice in my opinion.

 

 

There isn't the love any more! That, for me summed it up

 

+1 That describes it perfectly for me as well.

 I also tried one of the VFR Germany regions -- huge disappointment.  Looked like illustrations from a child's storybook.  I have turned it off and am now just using FTX Global and a few of Aerosoft's airports.

 

In summary, my experience is that FTX regions are the best available for these type of products, so there is really very little choice in my opinion.

 

I did exactly the same with the VFR Germany region, it was poor quality, but then again it's also an old product. IMO, FranceVFR's Normandie and Alsace are the absolute best scenery I've ever seen in a flight-simulator. The combination of accurate autogen, mesh and photoscenery is a winner.

For those that are unhappy with FTX EU, simply disable the scenery and fly around Great Britain for awhile...you will be clammering back real quick... :lol:

High flyer, eh? Well, fair enough, Michael, you wouldn't see any difference in quality at those altitudes, but surely the main appeal of the FTX regions is VFR? Low and slow?

 

And to make my original point clearer still; I'm not concerned with geographical beauty or topographic accuracy - after all, FTX IS NOT photoreal scenery as we know. My opinions (which it seems many here agree with) are purely based on the quality of the workmanship, not the real world landscapes. Dave (Q_flyer) gives a good example when he says anything can be of good quality, no matter what the subject material is.

 

And me being English is completely irrelevant. Accuracy is not relevant in this thread. Forget what building should be placed here and there and how that road should be further to the north, I don't care. As I've said, FTX is not about being accurate, it's about giving a high quality representation of an area or country, an ideal if you like. My point is that the EU regions and airports are not in keeping with this ideal and I wondered why. 

 

Thank you for your input, but you are missing the point that was made very clear in my initial post. Please read my less elaborative comments above.

 

In EU I am a medium high flyer and in NA low flyer. On departure and approach from/to high altitude FTX still makes a lot of difference.

 

Ok lets talk airports then. What are your opinion on FTX Southampton and FTX Cardiff airports and , as these are the only ones I have.

Do you consider them of lower quality than NA airports?

 

I am still not quite sure of your viewpoint on terrain (all included). You do not focus on geograhic/topographic/landmarks/accuracy, but the lower quality of the workmanship.

What stands out for you to notice this?

 

It is not the placement and relative dimensions of Stonehenge, but the shape/colour/impression of the stones themselves?  Is that correctly understood?

Funny you ask that, and it's a fair request. I did actually have some examples to post, but there was no point. The difference in overall quality and polish between the NA and EU regions (airports included) is so significant I didn't feel a visual example was necessary. If you don't see the clear drop in quality then there is nothing more to say.   

 

Also noted this on a friends PC and didn't bother to buy Orbx UK. I already have GenerationX photo scenery and the "Trees" addon which is much more realistic. Combined with Gary Summons excellent UK2000 scenery there isn't a need for me at least.

 

Out of interest StormVR6 - do you own a Corrado?

The nature of the NA and EU landscapes are very different though.

 

As others have said, the difference in quality is not related to the type of environment being simulated.   Whether the Pacific North West of America, the windy moors of North Yorkshire, or the plains of Australia.    It's still possible to discern 'quality' in it's own right;  not just related to how the area is in real life.