On a whim, I went and re-installed P3Dv5 after years along with Orbx Global and TE.*

As I happily flew my Carenado 690 that I’ve missed so much SMOOTHLY through the skies (which never happened before), I got to thinking about how a much better, data-matched landclass like Orbx NA LC would look with XP12 - and thought maybe that’s what we’ll be getting in the future. I never realized how good that actually looks - I keep flying it when I should be in XP12.

Then I thought how fun it would be if @tonywob could just snap his magic fingers and make that NA LC work with XP12! 😂

I also saw an interesting video on YouTube where some fellow was generating better, color matched XP12 tiles using something involving 2+ years of programming and a repository of “good” orthos that could replace that bad ones - something similar using “good” landclass to match up to photographic reality might work, without all the streaming?

I love default XP12 because I know I’ll never be surprised by some awfully colored or cloud obscured ortho, hopefully the new solution provides that and I’m sure it will.

Anybody else ponder the new XP12 scenery as you fly?

*I also plan on going back and trying XP11 for fun and to fly THAT 690.

P3D can be made to look as good as any with the right addons and proper adjustments. The difference is that XPlane is a work in progress. I’ve often wished ORBX would focus more on XP but I guess the money just isn’t there.

42 minutes ago, Republic DC9 said:

Then I thought how fun it would be if @tonywob could just snap his magic fingers and make that NA LC work with XP12! 😂

Years ago (Back in the XP10 days) I actually did some experiments of doing the same land-class tile system P3D/FSX used into X-Plane, however because of the way X-Plane's scenery system was (and still is), it was all pre-baked tiles that essentially put fake orthos with realistic objects in tiles all across a large reason. Worked pretty well until we got to sloped terrain (as anyone who has used FSX/P3D will tell you), it even had the classic "roads going over nothing" feel the old sims gave us 😁

If everything they are planning to do in the next-gen scenery system actually happens, it'll open up lots of opportunities for devs to do things like this (if it's even needed).

59 minutes ago, Patco Lch said:

P3D can be made to look as good as any with the right addons and proper adjustments. The difference is that XPlane is a work in progress. I’ve often wished ORBX would focus more on XP but I guess the money just isn’t there.

I remember when Microsoft shut down the Flight Sim ops it (eventually) led me to XP11 and some “glory years” of XP add ons and focus. The XP team is doing a lot of great work and I’m certainly excited about its future (and if heaven forbid market forces take out a competitor in the future, a good portion of that demand will come XP’s direction).