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XMAN

Xplane 11 scenery

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Any scenery being made similair to a GEX or FTX for America with seasons on the horizon?  or a freeware replacement thats better than default ,, i tried the demo and want to buy it, but  in its default condition im not gaining much over my current FSX  install

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Simple answer is NO. But as you fly outside of the PNW the scenery does change with different regions !


AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, 6800XT, Ram - 32GB, 32" 4K Monitor, WIN 11, XP-12 !

Eric Escobar

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You want to go with Ortho4xp... it's free but takes some time and a LOT of hard drive space.  It's basically photoscenery with autogen and vector stuff added automatically by the software.


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I find scenery to be one of the best things about X-Plane in comparison to FSX/P3D (I use all three platforms), but it largely depends on where you're flying and what you expect to find below you. For the VFR flying that I spend 90% of my time in X-Plane doing, I find it preferable to FSX/P3D, even when FSX/P3D is upgraded with FTX textures.

As Ryan pointed out, full photoscenery with complete OSM based autogen is the best you can achieve (in any sim, really), but it takes dedication and resources to make that happen. However, it is more feasible to make it happen over larger areas in X-Plane than in FSX/P3D.


Jim Stewart

Milviz Person.

 

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One thing I found with X-Plane is that nothing is spoon fed to you.  You have to take the time to build your simulator how you want it.  When I started out, I thought the same thing, that default didn't look all that great, but I stuck with it, reading up on it, checking out freeware, learning a lot of behind the scenes, and now, I have a great simulator.  Ryan mentioned Ortho4xp, and if you haven't checked it out yet, he did forget to mention that you have to create your ortho, not like scenery packages you purchased with FSX (such as ORBX with premade scenery).  He's right though that it will take up a lot of HDD space, not to mention that if you go for very hi-res ortho, it'll tax your sim.  There are, however, a lot of options of various aspects of environmental add-ons, you just have to know where to look. What I suggest, above all else, is to check out some YouTube videos from users who showcase a lot of these add-ons.  They are often gracious enough to provide links in their descriptions on how to obtain what they are demonstrating and a lot of what I have seen is very informative, so you can often learn at your own pace.


Engage, research, inform and make your posts count! -Jim Morvay

Origin EON-17SLX - Under the hood: Intel Core i7 7700K at 4.2GHz (Base) 4.6GHz (overclock), nVidia GeForce GTX-1080 Pascal w/8gb vram, 32gb (2x16) Crucial 2400mhz RAM, 3840 x 2160 17.3" IPS w/G-SYNC, Samsung 950 EVO 256GB PCIe m.2 SSD (Primary), Samsung 850 EVO 500gb M.2 (Sim Drive), MS Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit

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1 hour ago, Jimm said:

One thing I found with X-Plane is that nothing is spoon fed to you.

I hear this comment made occasionally, and I don't think it's fully comprehended by many as to WHY things are that way. People come away saying, "Well, it's so much easier in FSX/P3D to do ____ ".

There is indeed a glaring difference. In FSX or P3D, things aren't necessarily 'spoon fed' to you, they are sold to you. It is in the best interest of those who are doing the selling, and therefore the profiting, to make the entire process as easy as possible. Make it look good, customers will come. Make it easy to install and use, customers will come back. Indeed, I would argue that one of the contributing factors to the success of Orbx/FTX has been that they succeeded wildly in making the whole process of finding / installing / using addon scenery in FSX incredibly easy.

If you stick with pure freeware scenery in FSX, the learning curve becomes much more evident. Texture replacements, airport mesh adjustments, mesh and scenery library adjustments, these are skills that still need to be learned. Try delving into custom creating AI from the ground up, compiling AI route files and manually finding & installing all of the required models and repaints. It's a serious chore, and a lot of learning is required!

Payware is as much a service as it is a product!

In X-Plane, people coming on board from FSX/P3D are finding that there are all these great freeware scenery addons. But the simple fact that they are freeware means that there is no-one trying to convince you to use anything, no-one to walk you through the learning curve of using or installing anything... in essence, no-one is trying to make you a customer.

Which, to be honest, is one of the things abut X-Plane that I rather enjoy. :happy:

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Jim Stewart

Milviz Person.

 

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If given the choice, I'd much rather have the ala carte, versus getting a package that has something I don't care for but am stuck with it because it's part of the package, but that's just my own preference.  With regards to the other business's and their relevant practices, they made it their job to make things "click and go" and as such, they charge the premium for it too.

I like to think of it like this: "an informed consumer is a happy one".  If you take the time to assess what you really want in your sim, then you have conquered half the battle.  In X-Plane, you can create just about everything from scratch, on your own, if you so desire.  Ah, it's all Apples vs. Androids, but worth a separate discussion for another time.


Engage, research, inform and make your posts count! -Jim Morvay

Origin EON-17SLX - Under the hood: Intel Core i7 7700K at 4.2GHz (Base) 4.6GHz (overclock), nVidia GeForce GTX-1080 Pascal w/8gb vram, 32gb (2x16) Crucial 2400mhz RAM, 3840 x 2160 17.3" IPS w/G-SYNC, Samsung 950 EVO 256GB PCIe m.2 SSD (Primary), Samsung 850 EVO 500gb M.2 (Sim Drive), MS Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit

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Just one thing to add, the learning curve may be scary at first look, but actually all anyone needs to know is how to copy new scenery or new aircraft in the correct folder, and then order the scenery.ini (which is not as different from FSX, and everybody who works with MS office on a regular basis should be able to do this). 

The caveats are:

- often scenery relies on scenery libraries, which must be installed seperately. (joking, but RTFM, it should be documented in the instructions)

- creating (airport) scenery or orthophotos yourself needs some skills and deeper understanding of the inner workings. But what rewarding once you master it (and addictive).

- if you found ortho4XP difficult, try creating your own W2XP (OSM based scenery). But then, this is already done for you and available.

And much of this is for free!

Bottom line: if you rely on others work, there is a lot available, and easy enough to install. The biggest investment when getting into XP should be the sim itself, and time. A lot of the free stuff is on par with payware quality in FSX (but maybe not PMGD, don't expect too much. Some payware comes very close tough).

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20 hours ago, XMAN said:

Any scenery being made similair to a GEX or FTX for America with seasons on the horizon?  or a freeware replacement thats better than default ,, i tried the demo and want to buy it, but  in its default condition im not gaining much over my current FSX  install

Unfortunately there isn't a big FTX Global style package to replace the default textures available or in development for XP, either payware or freeware. This is one of the big things XP needs- currently the default ground textures are OK, and they change based on region (i.e. you'll see desert in Desert regions, irrigation circles in the US west, dense Forrest in the north, farmland in Germany and the US Midwest, etc), but they definitely need some work to look better. We can only dream at this point.

As for seasons, there's two options. The first is the 'simple season' script which applies snowy textures based on region and time of year. However, I don't recommend it because it's an absolute pain to set up. Instead, I use CheAG_Slava's winter textures http://forum.simrussia.com/index.php?/topic/208-сезонные-текстуры-xp-10/. The post is in Ukrainian, but the instructions translate good enough with google translate. Basically, it's a drag-and-drop deal like any other custom scenery for XP. It applies snowy textures and autogen based on region (via a simple png file you can change yourself), but it doesn't change based on time of year so you need to remove it if you're flying during the spring, summer, or fall. A fall textures package is included as well. Neither option is an ideal solution, but Slava's package is by far the least difficult to use. 

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