Present Thoughts on ORBX

[GSalden 4,656]

17 minutes ago, tymk said:

I've never had any need to do that, but that's really an advanced scenario that requires a third-party tool in any case, doesn't it? I suppose it can be done by writing a separate add-on.xml for each country (and layering airports above base scenery within that file), then disabling/enabling such addons as needed (within P3D or via Lorby's Addon Organizer). Of course, the problem is that with Orbx scenery, that would get overwritten/duplicated by Central. But wouldn't it be the same when using the old approach (scenery.cfg)?

At any rate, to me the real problem is the inability to move (i.e. manually layer) the sceneries added using the new method within the sim, and that really isn't an issue limited to Orbx Central...

EDIT: I absolutely get your point about not being able to layer scenery the way you want, I'm just not sure how Orbx Central plays into that (which is the complaint made in this Orbx-specific thread).

Here I use Lorby Si Addon Organizer.

I have layered all cfg and xml files per country ( country first and airports on top of it )

Before opening FTX C I first make a Backup with AO. After shutting down FTX C I put it back ..

Simple and efficiënt ...

[Christopher Low 5,353]

I wonder how they are going to significantly optimise TrueEarth GB South? I would have thought that the only solution would be to remove the massive number of custom buildings, and replace them with autogen.....but the autogen in P3D is very limited, which is why the problem appeared in the first place. What we really need is for LM to massively overhaul the autogen system, so that a much larger range of building shapes/house types/sizes etc. are available for developers to use.

[tymk 105]

 

10 minutes ago, GSalden said:

Here I use Lorby Si Addon Organizer. 

I have layered all cfg and xml files per country ( country first and airports on top of it ) 

Before opening FTX C I first make a Backup with AO. After shutting down FTX C I put it back .. 

Simple and efficiënt ... 

Hehe, that's how I'd probably go about it, but my installation (in terms of the number of scenery addons) is quite small compared to the more hardcore simmers... 😀

[Farlis 2,287]

3 hours ago, OzWhitey said:

The future for flight simulation is ortho with high-quality overlays.

There are several factors against that:

a) Diskspace: Just look at the current sceneries available, what they depict and how much diskspace they take up. Now imagine the complete U.S., the complete northern america, the complete Americas and finally the complete globe like this. Then multiply that amount by 4 for all seasons. You'd end up with hundreds of terrabyte.

b) Price: The source data is expensive, especially at resolutions you need for low flying.

c) Availability: Many places are simply not available in sufficient quality. And local regulations make it difficult to use. Take Greece for example and just look at google maps: All military and civil aviation facilities are blurred out for national security reasons. So you can't even see what the correct airport layout looks like.

[Clutch Cargo 384]

Ah... fun read.  As many different viewpoints as there are simmers.

[cannow 61]

3 hours ago, tymk said:

I fully agree that TE GBS is a performance nightmare in terms of scenery loading and building shadows (there must be some issue in that area because I get negligible performance hit with autogen building shadows even in the middle of places like Portland or LA, but they absolutely murder my GPU even in smaller towns in TE GB). According to JV, the new lead developer for P3D versions of TE is going to:

So maybe there's still hope...

The problem is that the size of their portfolio has way outgrown their original (forum-based) support approach. I mean, Nick Cooper is a great guy who tries to help whenever he can, but he can't really be expected do all support on his own...

Can I agree Nick Cooper tries really hard no slight on him at all .

[joby33y 152]

2 hours ago, Clutch Cargo said:

Ah... fun read.  As many different viewpoints as there are simmers.

Agreed !  Good thread...but what really floors me is the over-abundance of faith in the upcoming MSFS product and how the 'announcement' of a product from them actually disrupts this ecosystem.  (yeah, I dislike MS).  

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

3 hours ago, joby33y said:

Agreed !  Good thread...but what really floors me is the over-abundance of faith in the upcoming MSFS product and how the 'announcement' of a product from them actually disrupts this ecosystem.  (yeah, I dislike MS).  

If it was just an announcement from a random flightsim developer, people would have shrugged their collective shoulders and moved on. But MS is not just anyone. Even MS wouldn't have elicited a big positive reaction with just an announcement. What did cause the big disruption (your words) was the quality of the sim as evidenced in the promotional videos. I suppose that the videos could be enhanced to make the product look much better than it is. Even with all the fakery extant on the internet, though I tend to doubt that. When one takes all the outstanding visual features of every existing flight sim and then exceeds that standard in a promotional video, you know that people are going to be impressed. 

[MikeT707 1,181]

11 hours ago, Farlis said:

There are several factors against that:

a) Diskspace: Just look at the current sceneries available, what they depict and how much diskspace they take up. Now imagine the complete U.S., the complete northern america, the complete Americas and finally the complete globe like this. Then multiply that amount by 4 for all seasons. You'd end up with hundreds of terrabyte.

b) Price: The source data is expensive, especially at resolutions you need for low flying.

c) Availability: Many places are simply not available in sufficient quality. And local regulations make it difficult to use. Take Greece for example and just look at google maps: All military and civil aviation facilities are blurred out for national security reasons. So you can't even see what the correct airport layout looks like.

The upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator should address and resolve all of those issues. 

[wizzards 99]

From what I can see is JV is covering most options in the flight sim world to sell his products, which makes good business sense to me as long as he maintains the quality in the product, I'm surprised he hasn't had a go at producing scenery for the train sims, bus sims, farming sims etc "LOL", and as for MS well I remember reading many times on the forums that they didn't exactly finish FSX and their next go at a flightsim if my memory serves me well did they not produce an add on without a cockpit I might be wrong! so in my book, MS is doing the same as Orbx  trying to generate new markets, fun times fellas if it doesn't send you crackers 

[G-RFRY 1,712]

1 hour ago, MikeT707 said:

The upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator should address and resolve all of those issues. 

I would not bank on that most Devs do on the ground research and photos, don't go to Greece and start photographing military bases you will be arrested as some UK plane enthusiast found out.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

12 hours ago, Farlis said:

There are several factors against that:

a) Diskspace: Just look at the current sceneries available, what they depict and how much diskspace they take up. Now imagine the complete U.S., the complete northern america, the complete Americas and finally the complete globe like this. Then multiply that amount by 4 for all seasons. You'd end up with hundreds of terrabyte.

b) Price: The source data is expensive, especially at resolutions you need for low flying.

c) Availability: Many places are simply not available in sufficient quality. And local regulations make it difficult to use. Take Greece for example and just look at google maps: All military and civil aviation facilities are blurred out for national security reasons. So you can't even see what the correct airport layout looks like.

a) I have all of US covered with hi-res ortho for P3D. I have most of the world covered for X-plane. It’s achievable with currently technology, but it’s not for everyone right now. It’s certainly not 100’s of terabytes, though (if you’re willing to drop the res for more remote areas of the world). Disk space is only going to get cheaper from here.

b) Orbx have already shown that they can do it for 2 countries and 2 US states. Cost is an issue in some locations, which is why homebrew ortho is not going away. I’d actually be happy if Orbx just sold me the object overlay.

c) Availability is a consideration, though this is improving. You can easily get full global coverage (minus the polar regions) at ZL 14. You either use that - which is OK, sort of, at high altitude - or default back to a landclass/plausible world type solution for places where ortho does not work. 

I am not suggesting that Orbx covers the whole world with ortho in 2019, but for selected areas its a great idea. Unfortunately P3D does not cope with the objects that sit on top of the ortho layer as well as X-plane does. I hope that LM manage to improve the engine in the next iteration so that products like TrueEarth UK work as we would all like them to.

[Dominique_K 10,144]

1 hour ago, MikeT707 said:

The upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator should address and resolve all of those issues. 

MS has not yet addressed publicly the central issue of the necessary bandwidth and how they will channel sceneries to poorly connected users without dumbing down their sim experience.  I would  say "wait and see".

[lownslo 592]

6 hours ago, domkle said:

I would  say "wait and see".

This! 

While it's exciting that MS might be getting back into the flight sim business, I'm certainly not planning on dumping my current config to go running back to a producer who has proven to be more than a little unreliable and not so easy to work with.  I wish them the best in their endeavor, but I'm far from "excited" about what amounts to nothing more than rumors at this time (no industry does "rumors" better than the tech industry ).

Greg

[dave2013 1,130]

6 hours ago, domkle said:

MS has not yet addressed publicly the central issue of the necessary bandwidth and how they will channel sceneries to poorly connected users without dumbing down their sim experience.  I would  say "wait and see".

I don't know how this translates to high-res photoscenery, but you only need 5-7 MB/sec to watch streaming HD movies, so I'm guessing this will be enough.

There will likely be a buffering process as well that will download and locally store a certain amount of anticipated, i.e. not yet rendered but upcoming, scenery data as the flight progresses.

Dave