This is what Black Marble means to me

[warbirds 555]

Night lighting that blows me away. Pics taken from the "Duke" over P3Dv4 default starting airport area. BM Vector and Base, Orbx Global, Vector and North American LC all active at default settings. 

Click on pics for larger image please:

[Mike_CFII_MEL 788]

Hi,

Nice pics, I couldn't agree more this is an excellent addition to P3Dv4!

[anden145 2,273]

This looks absolutely amazing at night. How does the vector roads/graphics look in daytime? Reason I don't install vector scenery, it's just because I think it looks absolutely awful in daytime. Grey roads, just smashed on top of textures, without any considerations of what's underneath... 

[Mike_CFII_MEL 788]

Hi Anders,

I had the same concerns so I decided to have a look myself, are grey roads there... yep, but they don't look that bad, they actually look impressive in grid formation. Here is my video in kmia and kfll at 12:00 noon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg7mXZcI34k

[warbirds 555]

Daytime over the same area:

[macpilot 22]

Warbirds,

Sorry this question is off topic. But I had to ask. Does the Realair Duke work in P3DV4 with the GTN750? I have it for P3Dv3.

Thanks!

Bill McCracken

[warbirds 555]

Yes it does, just install pointed to v4 location. The GTN 750 is a bit of a hassle but can be done. Do a search here for Duke GTN 750 to find out how. 

[macpilot 22]

Thanks for quick reply. Any of the other Realair work?

 

Bill McCracken

[signmanbob 592]

So basically, Black Marble is a global version of the night envirement products that have been released by Aerosoft (and Taburet).

• What is the purpose for the two year subscription?

• What exactly is "Blue Marble"?

 

Thank you,

Bob

[costamesa 88]

24 minutes ago, FSXtreme said:

So basically, Black Marble is a global version of the night envirement products that have been released by Aerosoft (and Taburet).

• What is the purpose for the two year subscription?

Adding to above questions, I find it hard to understand the product page in chrisbelldesigns shop website. What is "Base"? Is it required for night black marble to work? and what is black marble? is it the base, or the combination of base+vector? (hopefully not 3D bridges and traffic pack which are sold seperately for 29.99 USD each?) What do I need to buy to have that night lighting??

To be honest screenshots in the first and second post here are advertising the product a lot better than the photos in the developers own website. There, autogen and vector data is quite a mix..   

[Manny 1,293]

IS there any way to modify those P3D textures for those roads. particularly those small roads.. ? MAke it a lot thinner or invisible? :) 

Those are standard P3D textures.

Is it just one bmp file? :)

[warbirds 555]

35 minutes ago, costamesa said:

Adding to above questions, I find it hard to understand the product page in chrisbelldesigns shop website. What is "Base"? Is it required for night black marble to work? and what is black marble? is it the base, or the combination of base+vector? (hopefully not 3D bridges and traffic pack which are sold seperately for 29.99 USD each?) What do I need to buy to have that night lighting??

To be honest screenshots in the first and second post here are advertising the product a lot better than the photos in the developers own website. There, autogen and vector data is quite a mix..   

Base will give you the lights, Vector (you need base to get Vector) will give you more road and lights, traffic will add traffic to most roads, bridges will add 3d bridges as far as I understand. ( I have not tested traffic or bridges just yet) - so if you do not want more exact placed roads and more lights just use Base. I use both in my screenshots and videos and, as an Xplane fan, I find that Black Marble comes very, very close to what I see in Xplane 11 at night. 

[turnandbank 243]

Those vector roads criss-crossing over houses, buildings and everything else during the day are pretty hard to take for a GA flyer. I have Orbx Vector and Global and all the NA  and AUS regions. In the full regions Orbx strikes a good balance between the number of vector roads and the roads built into the textures.  In areas with vector and global, I just enable highways and primary roads, as I can't stand seeing all those fuzzy grey roads criss crossing the textures.  At night, vector and BM looks pretty good, judging by the pictures and videos. Certainly closer to X-plane, but with X-Plane all of the street lighting is dynamic when HDR is enabled which, IMO, still can't be beat. Since I have both sims, I would use X-plane for night flying, but if I only had Prepar3d, I would consider BM for enhancing the night environment, but I don't think the Orbx enviroment does a bad job either.

[Mike_CFII_MEL 788]

Hi Martin,

Black Marble is giving X-Plane a run for its money with their volumetric lighting. I've been working with Black Marble for less than a couple of weeks and haven't even hit on all the features yet, this looks very good.

 

[Gregg_Seipp 565]

8 minutes ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

Black Marble is giving X-Plane a run for its money with their volumetric lighting. I've been working with Black Marble for less than a couple of weeks and haven't even hit on all the features yet, this looks very good.

Is that with or without the BM vector roads?  Looks like the lights themselves are illuminating the roads.  I'm wondering if it takes a mighty system to do that with volumetric lighting.