From a short time on market we can buy Taburet Night 3D series, from some time Aerosoft Night Environment series and of course ORBX FTX Global/Vector/LC products. Anyone test all of them? If I'm not wrong all producers until now cover Norway (ORBX by default, Taburet and Aerosoft by dedicated editions) and this is a battlefield where someone could compare this products. Any owners-volunteers?

One thing must be mentioned about ORBX. Although I don't want to "be a hater"- ORBXs lights show through the fog, regardless of visibility, and thus you won't be able to experience IMC. This does not occur in DX10 mode, as the use of Steve's wonderful DX10 fixer takes care of this problem. For a majority of users, this is not a problem since most approaches are visual. But I use my sim for IFR stuff primarily, minimums approaches, and need everything to be gone!

Aerosoft Night environments are too orange and unnaturally evenly spaced.

Poke-a-dot look to towns

Aerosoft Night Environment British Isles independent review

http://www.iflysimx.com/topic/996-aerosoft-night-environment-british-isles/

 

Aerosoft Night Environment vs. Taburet Night 3D

http://www.simflight.de/2014/10/23/review-aerosoft-night-environment-germany-fsxp3dv1p3dv2-und-erster-eindruck-taburet-night-3d-iberia/

I compared Taburet's Night 3D Iberia to my editions of Chris' NE and to the ORBX regions' night lighting (I do not own ORBX Global stuff):

• ORBX and Taburet night lighting are pretty similar to each other - 3D light poles, no dedicated light splash underneath. The Taburet's night lights have been characterized in the simflight review as not being fully aligned with the street and road vectors - I haven't specifically checked that myself.
• The NE editions provide the light splash, different light colo(u)rs and the alignment to vector data, so IMHO an improvement when compared to the other products.

I have bought NE editions for frequently used photoscenery areas (NE Germany for VFR Germany, for example) and selected landclass-based addon scenery (e.g. NE Greece offering night lighting for the Greek mainland as well as for the Greek isles), but not for the areas covered by ORBX regions, as the existence of the ORBX light poles seems sufficient to me.

 

Taburet's Night 3D Iberia is an improvement well worth the price, IMO, but at the same time I think the NE editions are superior.

 

Close-up and distant screenshots for the light poles are available from each of the developers; it's probably best if you'd compare them one to another by yourselves.

Just wow!   I fly with a lot of MegaSceneryEarth2.0 products and one of the biggest down sides is night looking like a global apocalypse.  I was wondering if there was a product out there that would overlay on Photoreal scenery and give night time it's splendor and behold Taburet's Night 3D.   Since it's all on sale right now I grabbed a copy of my native city of Dallas/Fort Worth and I am impressed by how it 'looks' on top of photoreal scenery.   I am not impressed by the 38 FPS drop in my frame rate.   Usually in the ERJ 145XR in the external view I get 60FPS locked while flying over MSE Ultra-Res CIty DFW.    In the amazing screen shot below showing the lights it bounces around 28-32 and goes to 18 in the virtual cockpit when I usually get 45 FPS in the cirtual cockpit.    I am sad by this performance hit and don't know WHY I am getting it.    My performance doesn't suffer that much when I fly at night with FTX Global on Autogen at Normal.   Did I do something wrong or is Taburet's product really that much of a murderer on FPS?

 

 

 

And Taburet said 'Let There Be Light' and there was and it was good.

I also get a huge frame rate hit using the Taburet lighting. It is beautiful, but it really effects my frame rates. It can literally fall to 1 fps around NYC at dusk. 

I also get a huge frame rate hit using the Taburet lighting. It is beautiful, but it really effects my frame rates. It can literally fall to 1 fps around NYC at dusk. 

 

Soooooo.. it's good for screen caps but not flying.  That is what I feared.   I did some tweaking and poking around under the hood and could not get it to have good FPS even in an undemanding aircraft like the ERJ-145 from FeelThere.    *sigh*  Back to ORBX FTX for night flying.

Well, that is the way it is for us. Others may have a different experience.

I compared Taburet's Night 3D Iberia to my editions of Chris' NE and to the ORBX regions' night lighting (I do not own ORBX Global stuff):

 

• ORBX and Taburet night lighting are pretty similar to each other - 3D light poles, no dedicated light splash underneath. The Taburet's night lights have been characterized in the simflight review as not being fully aligned with the street and road vectors - I haven't specifically checked that myself.
• The NE editions provide the light splash, different light colo(u)rs and the alignment to vector data, so IMHO an improvement when compared to the other products.

I have bought NE editions for frequently used photoscenery areas (NE Germany for VFR Germany, for example) and selected landclass-based addon scenery (e.g. NE Greece offering night lighting for the Greek mainland as well as for the Greek isles), but not for the areas covered by ORBX regions, as the existence of the ORBX light poles seems sufficient to me.

 

Taburet's Night 3D Iberia is an improvement well worth the price, IMO, but at the same time I think the NE editions are superior.

 

Close-up and distant screenshots for the light poles are available from each of the developers; it's probably best if you'd compare them one to another by yourselves.

Incorrect. Orbx has updated all its 3D lighting to the autogen based lights which don't have 3D light pole objects attached and do have correct light splashes underneath. We also offer a control panel to change the colour pallette and sizes of lights. Additionally we also have intersection brake/red/green lights and neon lights near shopping centres.

 

Since our lights are autogen there is zero FPS impact if you use your same slider setting for autogen density.

This is a subjective thing.  There may be no universal correct answer.  I think is a matter of personal taste.

 

I would make a big vote for Chris Bell's Night Environment series.  From reading some of the threads on the AVSIM Night Environment forum, it looks like Chris's team is working on a release of France in which it appears they will introduce new features and enhancements that they are excited about.

 

Speaking just for myself, the present set of Night Environment software is superb, and I can't wait to see what Chris and team have in store for us.

I'm using Night Enviroment for Sweden together with ORBX FTX Global and I must say it improves the nightlfeeling a lot. You will be able to see citylights more distant away and from higher altitudes. 

 

Regards

Johnny

The Night Enviroment products look great there is only one problem with them; the are catering pretty much only to Euro flyers.  Are they ever going to start making progress in the US?

Thank's for the positive feedback guys

Brian, i assure you NA regions are high priority for our team
we will be rendering North America regions throughout 2015
if you check our region list on our support page(see legend for details)
you will notice we already started covering NA; we completed few regions that should become available shortly

There is also another product called Experience X night lights from beetleprint. I really liked it compared to the ORBX lighting because there are actually the light poles and textures lighting up the ground instead of floating orbs of light...and it's worldwide coverage so no need to buy regions

 

http://secure.simmarket.com/beetle-print-experience-x.phtml