14 hours ago, birdguy said:

Just went over and read the comments on TE-Northern California on the Orbx forum.  Nothing but high praise so I may be all wet on my criticisms.

Noel

You know the situation on the ORBx forums, Noel. High praise is the defacto standard, whether it is true or not. The fact remains that the Bay bridge model in TE Northern California (the western section at least) is not a true representation of the real world bridge.

3 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

You know the situation on the ORBx forums, Noel. High praise is the defacto standard, whether it is true or not. The fact remains that the Bay bridge model in TE Northern California (the western section at least) is not a true representation of the real world bridge.

OK, but that's one small factor in half of a massive state, and one that can be patched. Most would not base their judgement of the whole product on one problematic bridge! 

From my relatively limited flying time over TE Norcal, it seems like a decent product, as were TE Washington and TE UK N/C/S before it. 

Well of course you're right Rob.  But it's human nature to judge something based on first impressions.  And when your first flight over a familiar area shows so many anomalies and/or substandard modeling of artifacts like famous bridges it sours you on the product.

One of the members on the Orbx forum started out in Cloverdale and flew to several other small airports and had high praise for the product.  Perhaps if that was my first flight I would also have high praise for it.  But I started out in an area familiar to me.

I'm also a seaplane buff.  I love to fly my Kodiak on floats from different seaplane bases.  When I found the detailed and semi-detailed seaplane landings present in the FTX sceneries it added to my disappointment with the product.

Both the western and eastern sections of the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge look very unrealistic as does the San Francisco approach to the Golden Gate Bridge...a simple steep ramp.  And a whole neighborhood in Sausalito sitting in Richardson Bay.

I'll not be able to erase them from my mind as I fly over them.

Noel

  

Ya know, in the past eighty some years I'll bet I've seen Alcatraz Island a couple thousand times or more.  I can tell you that island isn't make of chalk.  And I've never seen the entire island whitewashed.  The prison has been closed for decades so the inmates didn't do it.

If this is photoreal I'd like to know when the photo was taken.  Those buildings really stand out against the natural beauty of a pure white island.

Noel

This is why some people think that ORBx are rushing stuff these days. In the past, they would have made sure that such an iconic landmark like Alcatraz Island was given special treatment.

Continuing on the release rush of Orbx products (coincidence ?) and TrueEarth Norcal, I would add that nor only some POI are missed but the redish or pink-ish over colour of satellite images is also annoying (see this Orbx thread "White balance if off on TE Norcal")

I'm fully eager to support the ecosytem community just to help them approaching the expected FS2020 waves but when disapointing... I can change my mind. For eg, I'm putting on hold regarding Orbx Burbank sold at the almost same price than a TE region.

7 hours ago, vbazillio said:

Continuing on the release rush of Orbx products (coincidence ?) and TrueEarth Norcal, I would add that nor only some POI are missed but the redish or pink-ish over colour of satellite images is also annoying (see this Orbx thread "White balance if off on TE Norcal")

I'm fully eager to support the ecosytem community just to help them approaching the expected FS2020 waves but when disapointing... I can change my mind. For eg, I'm putting on hold regarding Orbx Burbank sold at the almost same price than a TE region.

but the redish or pink-ish over colour of satellite images is also annoying

It's more than annoying, it's poorly done. Up against existing ORBX airports, it's like megascenery. Not sure exactly what we're paying for here.

I'm chilling on the TE stuff as well.

Edited June 20, 20205 yr by newtie
sp

I am just glad that they did a good job with the colour in the TE Great Britain scenery packages. Some people have complained about "green roads", but at least it does not have all of those "saturated red" textures that blighted numerous areas in the Horizon scenery.

Edited June 20, 20205 yr by Christopher Low

i have only one TE-Scenery: thats the netherlands.
I will not buy any True erath scenery which has no winter textures. So all new TE Scenerys did not have some, no money from me...

Even FS2020 (or should I say FS2021), will have "coloring" issues I would suspect as now the whole world in photoreal?  It was not all shot at the same time (probably not even the same years),  and I can testify one can only do so much to perfectly match edges or color tones of one scenery to another.  There are some tricks but you can be limited due to the source.  Granted... some of those shots show pretty distinct lines. 

Re: Burbank... I am curious to see how good a match (or mis-match) there is with simwestSOCAL. 🤔

Edited June 20, 20205 yr by Clutch Cargo

ORBX scenery looks it it was made from decades ago compare to FS2020 default scenery. 

8 minutes ago, Clutch Cargo said:

It was not all shot at the same time (probably not even the same years),  and I can testify one can only do so much to perfectly match edges or color tones of one scenery to another.

I'm not asking for perfection regarding scenery/airport match; far from it. I fully understand that situation and don't envy you guys in that regard.

I've lived in the SF Bay Area all my life. I wonder if developers who tackle an area like the SF Bay Area (or others) actually have beta testers that live there. This would be a great help in getting the correct saturation levels. Apparently Megascenery 4x CA has managed to do this much better. It's much closer to the real thing.

For now, I've reduced the saturation levels on my triple monitor system from 50 to 30% which helps a little bit. Guess I go with that for now.

Cheers,

Mark

11 hours ago, vbazillio said:

Continuing on the release rush of Orbx products (coincidence ?) and TrueEarth Norcal, I would add that nor only some POI are missed but the redish or pink-ish over colour of satellite images is also annoying (see this Orbx thread "White balance if off on TE Norcal")

I live and fly over NorCal (numerous times each year), and the coloring of Orbx's TENC is truly inaccurate.  Pink in some areas, and too much red everywhere.  Also, the textures seem to lack any real contrast.  I'm not a big fan of photoreal, but if this is the future... well, the future ain't real pretty then!

The mix with Orbx's existing airports is way off as well.  One would think they could have matched the TENC with their existing airports (the coloring of which is very well done).

Greg

Edited June 20, 20205 yr by lownslo
additional point

On 6/15/2020 at 9:35 PM, birdguy said:

Well of course you're right Rob.  But it's human nature to judge something based on first impressions.  And when your first flight over a familiar area shows so many anomalies and/or substandard modeling of artifacts like famous bridges it sours you on the product.

One of the members on the Orbx forum started out in Cloverdale and flew to several other small airports and had high praise for the product.  Perhaps if that was my first flight I would also have high praise for it.  But I started out in an area familiar to me.

I'm also a seaplane buff.  I love to fly my Kodiak on floats from different seaplane bases.  When I found the detailed and semi-detailed seaplane landings present in the FTX sceneries it added to my disappointment with the product.

Both the western and eastern sections of the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge look very unrealistic as does the San Francisco approach to the Golden Gate Bridge...a simple steep ramp.  And a whole neighborhood in Sausalito sitting in Richardson Bay.

I'll not be able to erase them from my mind as I fly over them.

Noel

  

As I don't have 80 years of experience looking at Alcatraz, I shall defer to your opinion. 🙂

Look, I personally don't actually like the photoreal that Orbx used in Norcal. Low quality, looks bad down low. I'm a fan of super-hi-res orthoscenery.

The autogen/overlay is pretty good. 

For the size of the area covered, I think the price is good, so the product overall for me is a buy.

However, if you don't like the included photoreal then it's not too hard to grab a copy of the Prepar3d version of Ortho4XP, and build a replacement (whilst keeping the autogen). Whilst that's not for everyone, it's definitely the way to get the best quality scenery in prepar3d v4/v5.

 

 

A tale of to flights.

This morning I flew the same route at the same time in the same weather in P3Dv4 with TENC and then again in P3Dv5 with FTX NorCal.

The route was flown autopilot GPS from Gnoss Field in Marine County just north of San Francisco to Beale Air Force Base, then east to Lake Tahoe, finally landing at KTVL, South Lake Tahoe Airport.  Flying at 7500 feet to Beale and then climbing to 10,500 to crest the Sierras then dropping down to Lake Tahoe to land at KTVL.

The first flight was in TENC.  I climbed out of Gnoss and the vivid colors around me looked almost like they were from a paint by numbers set.  The water looked as I flew past the south end of Lake Berryessa.  The costal hills looked to dark brown and as I crossed over into the Sacramento Valley there was a great quiltwork of fields.  More so than in FTX NorCal.  But again the colors looked too vivid.  Some of the plowed fields looked almost black.  

Marysville is larger in and probably more real in TE than FTX and at  Beale the aircraft turned almost due east.  Still too much brown and green climbing up the Sierras.  The American Canyon looks deeper in TE than it does in FTX but that may be due to the darker shadows.  Looking over towards Internstate 80 as you approach KBLU from the distance the highway looks like a bright white line.

What was missing from the Sierras was granite.  Too much green and brown.  Few granite shields showing.

As I crested the Sierras Lake Tahoe was, in a word, ugly.  TE ends at the state line which runs up the middle of the lake.  So you have a beautiful blue lake with a rectangle of pale blue on the east (Nevada) side.  And the sharp dividing line between the P3Dv4 mountains and the TE mountains is ugly.  You would have thought that for an iconic lake like Lake Tahoe they would have included the entire thing.

Finally I landed ad the default airport at South Lake Tahoe.

I haven't flown P3dV5 much since I got it a short tie ago.  This was my first cross country reprising the flight above in TE.

Much more pleasant coloring.  The green hills of Marin look a shade better than they did in TE.  The fields of the Sacramento Valley were just as varied but so contrasty.  Marysville is smaller in FTX than it is in TE.  TE is probably more accurate.  The climb up the Sierras was more striking.  GRANITE.  Lots of ganite shields breaking up the forest areas.  I-80 as I approached KBLU was gray and I cold see the interchanges clearly.

There was still a bit of snow on the peaks and in the high country in FTX.  Of curse that might not be availale in TE dues lack of seasonal change.

As I crested the Sierras into Lake Tahoe it was beautiful on both sides.  And as I flew over Homewood and looked down I was pleased to the seaplane docks at Homewood.  Then landing at KTVL and spotting the iconic Aline Chalet terminal my  mind was made up.  I'll take fTX over TE any day.

A note about P3Dv5.  Haze.  Throughout my flight there was haze in the distance in spite of the fact that my weather was set to clear with only 2/10 cirrus.  360 degree haze.  ut as climbed p the west slope of the Sierras it gradually disappeared.  Ver nice touch I though.  I didn't see it in P3Dv4 so it must be a v5 feature.  Ilke it.

So there you have it, one man's opinion. We all see things through different eyes so some will no doubt disagree with me and soo or notice things I did not.  If you do reprise my flights and let us know what you think.

Noel