Why I don't like True Earth

[birdguy 3,943]

I put True Earth Washington on my P3Dv4 installation and I liked it pretty well.  Ditto Oregon.  But True Earth California was a major disappointment. 

I was born and raised in San Francisco and grew up there.  I did my senior year of high school in Mill Valley in Marin County.  When I got out of the Marine Corps I lived with my folks for a while and then got my own apartment in Sausalito.  I learned to fly off Richardson Bay.  I am intimately familiar with the Bay Area and also of Lake Tahoe where my cousin had a summer home.

To say I was disappointed in True Earth California is an understatement.  Look at the pictures.

The True Earth Golden Gate Bridge is not the graceful structure known the world over.  The cables don't even meet in the middle and are made up of segments.  Alcatraz is not a chalk island.  It is the same terrain color of Angel island to it's north.  The San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge, another iconic symbol of San Francisco, looks like it's made of Legos.  I can tell that having an apartment on a hillside in Sausalito I never looked out at Richardson Bay and saw an entire neighborhood sitting in the water.  Lastly Lake Tahoe, the jewel of the Sierras is one of the most beautiful lakes in the world.  But True Earth butchered it up by removing the northeast shoreline and water.  It looks silly.

The second set of pictures shows how Orbx Northern California looks in P3Dv5.  Graceful bridges.  Correct texture for Alcatraz Island.  No neighborhood in the middle of Richardson Bay.  And an intact Lake Tahoe.

What True Earth did to my neck of the woods makles me wonder if they did elsewhere.  I cannot say because I am not as familiar with other True Earth regions.  But for me it is a sour apple,

Is there some reason the beautiful bridges in Orbx Northern California cannot be put in True Earth scenery?  Could they have not used the same texture they used for the surrounding area for Alcatraz Island?   Could the developers not have brought the scenery 20 miles east of Lake Tahoe and not cut back to the California border until that had passed  Reno for instance?  Is this just sloppiness or is there a reason they had to make it look ugly?

Noel

[W2DR 1,860]

I'm with you Noel. I grew up on the Monterey Peninsula.  Got my PPL at KMRY. I have a over 200 hours flying around Northern California. I've now deleted True Earth. I never got to the landmarks. The ground coloring is so bad that I can't stand to look at it. At one time I thought I could "fix" it by adjusting the color sliders but I soon learned that that just wasn't good enough. I guess that once we've seen the real thing there's no going back (but the hourly rate is much better 😄).

[Rocky_53 1,581]

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

I put True Earth Washington on my P3Dv4 installation and I liked it pretty well.  Ditto Oregon.  But True Earth California was a major disappointment. 

I was born and raised in San Francisco and grew up there.  I did my senior year of high school in Mill Valley in Marin County.  When I got out of the Marine Corps I lived with my folks for a while and then got my own apartment in Sausalito.  I learned to fly off Richardson Bay.  I am intimately familiar with the Bay Area and also of Lake Tahoe where my cousin had a summer home.

To say I was disappointed in True Earth California is an understatement.  Look at the pictures.

The True Earth Golden Gate Bridge is not the graceful structure known the world over.  The cables don't even meet in the middle and are made up of segments.  Alcatraz is not a chalk island.  It is the same terrain color of Angel island to it's north.  The San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge, another iconic symbol of San Francisco, looks like it's made of Legos.  I can tell that having an apartment on a hillside in Sausalito I never looked out at Richardson Bay and saw an entire neighborhood sitting in the water.  Lastly Lake Tahoe, the jewel of the Sierras is one of the most beautiful lakes in the world.  But True Earth butchered it up by removing the northeast shoreline and water.  It looks silly.

The second set of pictures shows how Orbx Northern California looks in P3Dv5.  Graceful bridges.  Correct texture for Alcatraz Island.  No neighborhood in the middle of Richardson Bay.  And an intact Lake Tahoe.

What True Earth did to my neck of the woods makles me wonder if they did elsewhere.  I cannot say because I am not as familiar with other True Earth regions.  But for me it is a sour apple,

Is there some reason the beautiful bridges in Orbx Northern California cannot be put in True Earth scenery?  Could they have not used the same texture they used for the surrounding area for Alcatraz Island?   Could the developers not have brought the scenery 20 miles east of Lake Tahoe and not cut back to the California border until that had passed  Reno for instance?  Is this just sloppiness or is there a reason they had to make it look ugly?

Noel

 

 

Hi Joel, have you posted your disappointment on the Orbx forum? If not, then you should.

[birdguy 3,943]

11 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

Hi Joel, have you posted your disappointment on the Orbx forum? If not, then you should.

It's Noel, not Joel.  I would post it on the Orbx Forum but I've been banned from it by JV apparently for life.  I can read the forum posts but I am not allowed to post.  Haven't been for over 2 years.  If I need support I go to the Support for Limited User's forum.

Noel

[birdguy 3,943]

42 minutes ago, W2DR said:

I guess that once we've seen the real thing there's no going back (but the hourly rate is much better 😄).

Yep, the hourly rate is much better.  But Orbx FTX sceneries are outstanding.  I can find all the landmarks and they are as they should be.  I don't know why True Earth can't remain as true as FTX is.

Noel

[Rocky_53 1,581]

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

It's Noel, not Joel.

Sorry Noel, I should know that by now for all the years you've been around! 

[Christopher Low 5,359]

The ground colouration of ORBx TrueEarth GB is actually excellent when compared to the old Horizon VFR Photographic Scenery series. However, there are a handful of bridges that I am not impressed with at all. The ORBx version of the Queensferry Crossing is a big disappointment, but thankfully the Scotflight alternative is much more realistic. The Runcorn Rail Bridge and Tavy Rail Bridge (this one is just upstream from the more famous Tamar bridges near Plymouth) are basic wireframe structures, and look horrible. Once again, I have a much better version of the Runcorn Rail Bridge (part of the Digital Design EGGP Liverpool package), but unfortunately there is no replacement available for the Tavy Bridge The Tay Rail Bridge is not bad in TrueEarth GB North, but it is not a true representation of the bridge (as seen in the screenshots of the MSFS version of ORBx Dundee).

As for TrueEarth Northern California......I do not have this package, but anyone even vaguely familiar with the bridges in the San Francisco Bay area can see that the rendition of the western side of the Bay Bridge is a complete joke. I have absolutely no idea how anyone could have messed that up, considering that the version included in the ORBx landclass package of California is much more accurate.

[W2DR 1,860]

52 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

The ground colouration of ORBx TrueEarth GB is actually excellent when compared to the old Horizon VFR Photographic Scenery series.

But that still doesn't make it good enough to like it 🙂 . Like Noel, I'm sticking with the "regular" ORBX stuff which is, IMNSHO, excellent.

[Howellerman 104]

On 12/8/2020 at 12:40 PM, Rockliffe said:

Hi Joel, have you posted your disappointment on the Orbx forum? If not, then you should.

I did, mentioning that TE Northern California is way too red. My post went up a month or so ago, and it is still active with no reply from Orbx. From other forum members, yes, but no official reply.

I too found the TE series problematic. They are not near as crisply rendered as the landclass products, and flying around recently has been a delight because SNOW! TE is the Endless Summer only.

[Rocky_53 1,581]

14 hours ago, Howellerman said:

I did, mentioning that TE Northern California is way too red. My post went up a month or so ago, and it is still active with no reply from Orbx. From other forum members, yes, but no official reply.

I too found the TE series problematic. They are not near as crisply rendered as the landclass products, and flying around recently has been a delight because SNOW! TE is the Endless Summer only.

Hmm, interesting. Orbx certainly doesn't offer the kind of support that it used to. Don't get me wrong, I am a supporter of JV and his team, but at the same time, I have seen a decline in customer support over the past couple of years. By that, I mean their support at one time was exemplary. 

Edited December 10, 2020 by Rockliffe

[birdguy 3,943]

2 hours ago, Rockliffe said:

I have seen a decline in customer support over the past couple of years. By that, I mean their support at one time was exemplary. 

Their support was great when all they had were FTX sceneries for FSX and later the P3D series.

Then they added X-Plane, True Earth, and now the new MSFS simulator.

Have they bitten off more than they can chew?  Are they making FTX and True Earth step children while they concentrate on X-Plane and MSFS?

A lot of us are satisfied to come to a halt on buying and installing the 'latest and greatest'.  Perhaps we are being left in the dust.

FS2004, FSX, P3Dv4 and P3Dv5 are all on my plate now.  And perhaps because of my age and the length of time I have been flight simming I am satisfied with what I have and am not looking to upgrade anything.  And if I have to suffer lack of support because of that, so be it.

Noel

[Christopher Low 5,359]

I think the "JV" part of the team is a lot less involved these days.

[IanHarrison 522]

I do not have any US scenery by Orbx but I do have among others the complete UK TE series. I understood that these were "photoreal" but my home city and surrounding area were not even 50% accurate.

I complained about it and was told that photoreal does not mean a real photo but rather a true impression of the area. Any notable land marks have to be added  (by hand, presumably).

So TE ,True Earth, perhaps ATE, Almost true Earth.!

[birdguy 3,943]

1 hour ago, IanHarrison said:

complained about it and was told that photoreal does not mean a real photo but rather a true impression of the area.

You mean like 'Starry Night' by Vincent Van Gogh?

Noel

[IanHarrison 522]

🤣 That's about it.