I have the Toliss planes, and the Diamond DA42 as payware. While the planes are great, the cockpit textures are not all that great. I'd be interested to hear from the community - what do you think the best looking plane in XP 12 is? GA, Airliner (no military or helos please), freeware or paid is fine. 

Specifically, I'm looking for great texture work inside the cockpit so it looks as real as possible. XP has amazing lighting now so it makes average texture work look worse than before, and I've love to see a plane that really looks amazing. 

I use both sims and I've been curious about this for a while. For eg, the Fenix has really good textures.

Also please do note that I'm asking this in a spirit of genuine curiosity, and I only bring up Fenix as a point of comparision as their texture work is really good. Note that I'm making NO claims about flight models, weather, clouds, lighting, or what have you for either sim. All I want to know is what you think the best looking cockpit is in XP 12. 

I would really like it if we can avoid the sim v sim arguing. 🙂

Probably the upcoming Airfoillabs 737MAX. The cockpit texturing previews they posted so far are 3 levels above the competition if you ask me. Now, my only concern is how it will affect the performance and VRAM usage.

Just now, Pe11e said:

Probably the upcoming Airfoillabs 737MAX. The cockpit texturing previews they posted so far are 3 levels above the competition if you ask me. Now, my only concern is how it will affect the performance and VRAM usage.

Interesting. And of the planes currently available? Or, like me, have you found that the current crop all need updates and nothing really compares?

1 hour ago, JonathanC said:

Interesting. And of the planes currently available? Or, like me, have you found that the current crop all need updates and nothing really compares?

Well since I fly also in MSFS20, and probably got used to a texture quality there, I lost track of XP11/12 addons to be honest. Maybe Toliss A319 in XP12 is the best, I did a worn out cockpit texture modification, and while texting it I was looking at the texture work up close. It is really a solid work, unless I'm missing something.

Thanks for the help! Yeah it’s not bad or anything, but it just feels like texture quality has rapidly increased and some of the older addons are a bit dated. Still fine to fly of course. 
 

Ill look up the 737Max you mentioned. 

Wonder whos willing to pay for all that extra work. There has being a lot of changes due to lighting.  

I quite like the cockpit textures of the HotStart CL650. But then, I didn't think the Aerobask cockpit textures (I own the DA42, the DA62, and the DA50) were too bad either so perhaps I'm not critical enough? 

Of all the XP12 add-ons that I have seen so far, I am most impressed by the textures and modelling of the Torquesim Citation Jet C525 .

Hmm I think the FF 777 is not bad at all and texture wise as good as the HotStart CL650 and the C525 

 

Zibo's or LevelUp's 737s have a good art style, as do most of XP12's default and VSKYLABS' birds.

7 hours ago, Tim-HH said:

Of all the XP12 add-ons that I have seen so far, I am most impressed by the textures and modelling of the Torquesim Citation Jet C525 .

I'm a GA guy, not interested in the airliners.  Your post peaked my interest so I have watched a few C525 videos and may well get it 👍

Thanks all,  I’ll check out the various suggestions! 

The Torquesim does look great. I’ll be reading a few reviews and so forth but looks like I’ll get it! Thank you. 

2 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I'm a GA guy, not interested in the airliners.  Your post peaked my interest so I have watched a few C525 videos and may well get it 👍

 

1 hour ago, JonathanC said:

Thanks all,  I’ll check out the various suggestions! 

 

1 hour ago, JonathanC said:

The Torquesim does look great. I’ll be reading a few reviews and so forth but looks like I’ll get it! Thank you. 

The literally ONE thing that bugs me about the TS  Citation is the lack of ambient occlusion in the footwells. Mainly because I see it every time I look around the cockpit. 
 

other than that, it is a wonderful addon. I call it my “Goldilocks” plane: not too slow, small airports no problem, not too complex, very easy to hand fly, etc, etc. 👍

A humble opinion as a a simmer who dabbles a lot with paints - I have seen excellent textures (colours shading etc) on some very simple models and on payware ones both. The key aspect I run across is the actually 3D model built that textures map to or wrap on! The better this is in terms of accuracy (straight lines, curved surfaces etc) the better a good paint will look or the textures look. Then there is the issue of the paint program used and its ability to handle larger formats with more pixels. I am a cheapskate so use a cheap paint program because it suits me but it gives mixed results down at a fine level because of the pixel size it will go to! it is possible to get really amazing models inside and out if the developer or designer as put the work in to do this but you come up against the dreaded polygon count in this area, the more accurate the more detail you do you begin to load up the overall model architecture and then have to sacrifice animation and functionality - always a trade off! For example I have a number of really nice models but the paints or textures are very very simple because the developer has limited the parts to paint and gone for a broad brush approach so you lose details such as rivets screws etc because they are painted not constructed painstakingly with the model. Other payware models are a nightmare to work with because of multiple complicated sheets fragmented textures and the various tricks used such as normals etc. 

I would agree that XP12's progression and refinement now makes a lot of stuff look very ordinary under good lighting conditions other stuff hit and miss. 

As for the best - I would give that to the Hangar 23 Bellanca Aircruiser, which was payware but has been released on the Org as freeware. It is a masterclass in textures and painting and general modelling! But it is no a GA aeroplane but a vintage aircraft! So most do not give it a second thought!