ftx global base for x-plane ?

[MindYerBeak 73]

is there such a thing as "ftx global base" for x-plane ? I find the default textures boring and too repetitive .

 

Thx

 

[WR269 367]

is there such a thing as "ftx global base" for x-plane ? I find the default textures boring and too repetitive .

 

Thx

There certainly is, and it is freeware. 

 

World2Xplane was developed by Tony, the Avsim X-Plane Forums moderator..you can create your own sceneries yourself...link here

 

http://world2xplane.com/

 

 

And there is also SimHeaven, which has scenery ready to download, and they used the latest world2xplane versions:

http://simheaven.com/

[jozeff 92]

Hello, take a look at alpilot hd mesh v3. Your web browser might say alpilots website is unsafe but it's 100% ok. The mesh is the most used Xplane addon in the world and it's free (you can make a donation for this wonderfull stuff)

Good luck!

[MindYerBeak 73]

Hello, take a look at alpilot hd mesh v3. Your web browser might say alpilots website is unsafe but it's 100% ok. The mesh is the most used Xplane addon in the world and it's free (you can make a donation for this wonderfull stuff)

Good luck!

 

Will do thanks !

 

 

There certainly is, and it is freeware. 

 

World2Xplane was developed by Tony, the Avsim X-Plane Forums moderator..you can create your own sceneries yourself...link here

 

http://world2xplane.com/

 

 

And there is also SimHeaven, which has scenery ready to download, and they used the latest world2xplane versions:

http://simheaven.com/

 

 

Thanks Will, I was actually after  texture replacement like  ftx global base. 

[WR269 367]

 

 

Thanks Will, I was actually after  texture replacement like  ftx global base. 

 

Basically with X-Plane you can download the mesh for flying over any area you wish. If you wish to have higher resolution Mesh, you have the choice of the very good HD Mesh v3 which jozeff pointed out, but make sure you remove any default mesh first.

 

The mesh will not alter textures, it is just that, terrain mesh. world2xplane changes the landscape to show better placement of towns, rivers etc and better placement of the terrain textures...it does not change the texture tiles but by placing them better actually looks like it provides a new landclass and definitely looks better. 

 

Be aware though, if using this in Europe, you will need plenty of RAM as it can get very heavy.

[GamerNurd 7]

Basically with X-Plane you can download the mesh for flying over any area you wish. If you wish to have higher resolution Mesh, you have the choice of the very good HD Mesh v3 which jozeff pointed out, but make sure you remove any default mesh first.

 

The mesh will not alter textures, it is just that, terrain mesh. world2xplane changes the landscape to show better placement of towns, rivers etc and better placement of the terrain textures...it does not change the texture tiles but by placing them better actually looks like it provides a new landclass and definitely looks better. 

 

Be aware though, if using this in Europe, you will need plenty of RAM as it can get very heavy.

 

How do you remove the default mesh? I don't think I have done that

[WR269 367]

How do you remove the default mesh? I don't think I have done that

 

Just run the X-Plane installer, when you get to mesh install, just click on the mesh tiles you wish to uninstall so the tile is "empty"....that is it.

[Jimmy RFR 406]

 

 

Thanks Will, I was actually after texture replacement like ftx global base.

 

 

 

Basically with X-Plane you can download the mesh for flying over any area you wish. If you wish to have higher resolution Mesh, you have the choice of the very good HD Mesh v3 which jozeff pointed out, but make sure you remove any default mesh first.

The mesh will not alter textures, it is just that, terrain mesh. world2xplane changes the landscape to show better placement of towns, rivers etc and better placement of the terrain textures...it does not change the texture tiles but by placing them better actually looks like it provides a new landclass and definitely looks better.

 

I was going to respond earlier, but I got interrupted by real life.  :wink: 

 

A couple of things, as I understand them (and I could be wrong!):

 

1)

 

The OP mentioned the default textures as being repetitive. One of the reasons why the default textures seem 'boring' is that they aren't annotated textures the same that FSX has. This means that other than trees being visible on forest textures, there's no other obvious signs of life, like rural buildings or 'fake' roads.

 

The upside to this is that with the World2XPlane created scenery (like the w2xp scenery found on SimHeaven), which places OSM derived buildings and forests into the world, you can potentially end up with a 1:1 replication of the real world. This dependence on OSM means that it's only ever going to be as good as the OSM data, however...

 

But also helping things, especially in rural areas where the unbroken expanse of lifeless textures are more noticeable , is another key free addon from alpilotx - Treelines and Farms V2.  This makes a huge difference, in that it adds a bit of variety to the countryside.

 

2)

 

I've always understood that the HD Mesh scenery is responsible for accurate mesh, vector data (roads, water, etc) and landclass placement, while World2XPlane (or the w2xp scenery that I use from SimHeaven) is responsible for accurate, OSM derived autogen placement.

 

3)

 

I'm pretty sure that you don't have to remove the default mesh to use the HD Mesh; the installation instructions make no mention of this. However, it's very clear that you have to have your scenery.ini file setup correctly in order to see the scenery properly.  From aipilotx's website:

 

 

If you have more than one of them (and the default Global Scenery counts too) installed in the same place, then X-Plane 10 will only show you the one with the highest priority in the scenery_packs.ini! The other one(s) will just sit on your disk and take up place (but there are no other problems to be encountered)!

 

The reason why I personally leave the default mesh installed is mainly to be able to switch between the two while developing airports, and I've seen no ill effects from it being there.

[tonywob 4,768]

In short, no, there isn't anything like FTX Global for X-Plane.  The textures remain the same no matter whether you are using World2XPlane and HD Mesh etc. Here are some clarifications:

 

- HD Mesh still uses the same textures, it just uses them better, e.g. The shapes of woodland, towns, mountains and coastlines are more defined. It does not add new art assets. 

 

- World2XPlane does not change the ground textures. It's an overlay/vector scenery which means it places objects, roads, houses, forests on top of the mesh. It does this using mapping data, so as others have mentioned, if the mapping data is good you will get a very real representation of the objects. 

 

However, when using both together, if the textures placed by HD Mesh don't match the objects placed by World2Plane and vice versa then it can look bad, e.g. villages in the middle of a field etc.. Generally towns and cities work, but it depends on how good the data sources where and how detailed they are when used together.

 

I did start work on trying to duplicate the FSX tiled landclass approach inside XP (So we could have stuff like FTX Global), and I had a proof of concept working (http://www.avsim.com/topic/482409-bringing-fsxorbx-landclass-to-x-plane/), however it also requires a huge amount of artwork creating and annotating for it to work, something I don't have the time to do on my own (Think of how long it takes a team of people and ORBX to do it).

 

A lot of people (including myself), use ortho imagery and W2XP. With this you'll get an almost perfect 1->1 match between objects and photo imagery and the effect can be very nice, but it also uses more disk space.

[GamerNurd 7]

A lot of people (including myself), use ortho imagery and W2XP. With this you'll get an almost perfect 1->1 match between objects and photo imagery and the effect can be very nice, but it also uses more disk space.

 

It would be nice to know how to install ortho4xp. It seems like a very complicated process

[tonywob 4,768]

Ortho4XP is a very powerful application, it will generate a complete mesh/photoimagery out of the data it's given, but it's an involved process requiring patience. Once you've created one or two tiles, it becomes easier. As a programmer who has worked with Python (The language Ortho4XP was written in), it was fairly easy for me to install and hack away at, but for a non-programmer I can imagine it would be difficult to setup (especially on Windows), especially without step-by-step instructions and then things will go wrong and you'll need to understand what's happening. The included manual/tutorial should be enough to get it up and running, but you'll need to be happy using the command-line, etc..

 

A simpler solution is G2XPL which is fairly easy to use and I recommend it for people who are happy just to let it do its thing. Here are some differences:

 

- G2XPL requires an existing mesh. It takes an existing mesh (such as the default scenery of HD Mesh) and replaces the textures with photoreal ones. This simplifies the entire process as it means users don't need to hunt down DEM data or fix/edit the coastline in OSM.

- It mostly works out of the box. You drop it into your plugins folder, run X-Plane and then tell it to generate a tile. There are some options you can tweak such as the zoom-level, imagery used etc, but these are nowhere near as powerful as Ortho4XP

- It isn't opensource or freely available. If you want to use this application, you'll need to send a donation to the developer who will then send you the full version. This won't bother most people unless you want to tweak at the source-code or extend it.

 

Ortho4XP on the other hand allows a huge amount of customisation. e.g. You can choose and add new imagery sources, how detailed the mesh will be, how to flatten airports and it also does water masking on the coastlines which looks incredible. It requires more effort, but the results are worth the investment in the long-run. The results of Ortho4XP will easily rival and beat anything you can buy commercially for both FSX and X-Plane (depending on how good the imagery is). Combining the results with World2XPlane will give you scenery "as real as it gets"

[Pugilist2 878]

They both seem to complicated for me.  I wish we could just purchase high resolution quality photoscenery for the US such as Mega Scenery.

[bonchie 2,305]

Coming from an avid P3D user, I find HD mesh + W2XP to be as good as anything I have for P3D (except a full blown Orbx region) as far as representation and being easy on the eyes.

 

But that's in the USA. It may be worse in other countries.

 

If you don't like the ground texture colors, use RTH to adjust the tones of the sim. A lot of people get killer results from that plugin. I personally just use it to brighten lights mostly.