I originally had great expectation on Orbx’s True Earth Washington for P3D because the company’s True Earth Washington for X-Plane looks great. But when I got the P3D version yesterday, I have to say that I am disappointed since it is inferior to its X-Plane brother, especially in the two aspects below.
In its description, it says it offers 66,574 square miles of hand-corrected, crisp aerial imagery. However, crisp or not depends on how high you fly.
click to see larger imageHiFi Simulation’s Active Sky Cloud Art and REX Game Studios’ Soft Clouds are two popular cloud texture products that are fully compatible with P3Dv4 so far.
Although it may not justify to compare the two products head-to-head as AS Cloud Art comes with additional features rather than just pure-enhancement to the cumulus clouds in Soft Clouds, I think it would still be interesting to find out what the two products bring in terms of cumulus clouds improvement only.
I was planning to write a follow-up on the REX Worldwide Airports HD. Following is my reply to Paul who commented my Post regarding the product earlier.
Short but seems to be good to express what I (as a user) feel about it so far: Continue reading
Switching to P3D could also mean losing many handy features added to FSX previously. FSDiscover is definitely one of them. Until Flight1 launches a P3D compatible version, command TOGGLE_AIRPORT_NAME_DISPLAY is my temporary measure when I am lost in the sky.
Just open the Standard.XML file inside the Controls folder where Prepar3D.cfg is located. Then add the command to any key or key combination and save it. That’s all. Names of airports around current location will be shown when the key or key combination is pressed.
Just purchased the FTX Northern Ireland to complete my UK collection after thinking for quite a while. Followings are updated network links for my UK Google Earth maps.
If you have installed the same links from previous posts, you will find the Northern Ireland data already included.
POIs: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25018674/Google%20Earth%20Shared/EU%20-%20UK%20POIs%20FTX.kmz
As always, it is recommended to just COPY the URLs and add them via Network Link in Google Earth so that updates can be immediately downloaded when available.
FTX Global doesn’t like other scenery addons (such as the company’s AU, NZ, EU and NA products) which in general overlay specially created sceneries and textures on top of the default FSX layer to render the ultimate image. It simply replaces FSX default textures in the World\Scenery\Texture folder with its own creations.
This approach is somewhat similar to what REXessential from REX Game Studio or the Ground Environment products from Flight 1 does to FSX — the former replaces FSX’s default clouds and atmospherics items, and the latter replaces FSX’s default ground textures, meshes and some core files with their own modifications.
Even though I don’t quite appreciate Orbx’s approach on developing addons for FSX, the company’s product, however, are no doubt much better than the default FSX and well gain a seat among other quality developers. With the release of its FTX Global, I (same to most flightsimmers) am expecting all ugly default scenery to be gone for good — in theory.
Unfortunately, my first impression on it is: not yet and not quite, in my opinion. (Edit: see update in Post 204) Continue reading
Nearly two years ago, I wrote my post #100 which talked about customized FSDiscover data for Orbx’s NA region. So in this post #200, I will also talk about my newly compiled FSDiscover data for Orbx’s UK areas.
–
Following the same principle, I categorized Orbx’s original Points of Interest (POIs) for England, Wales and Scotland into two FSDiscover data files so that they could be easily assigned with different colors for easy identification.
–
FTX EU_UK-Lighthouses-Oil Rigs-Wind Farms.dat
FTX EU_UK-Misc POI.dat
–
Moreover, many of the locations (especially lighthouses) have been eye-ball checked and updated to ensure accuracy. And for this special occasion, I will open the download link for seven days until Jul-10.
–
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25018674/TEMP/FSDiscover%20FTX%20EU_UK%20POI.rar
–
After it, the link will be obsolete and only be available to FSX Times Subscribers requesting for it.
–
Update:
Since somebody asks, here are the links for AU and NA POIs as well. Updates for NA should be coming soon.
–
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25018674/TEMP/FSDiscover%20FTX%20AU%20POI.rar
–
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25018674/TEMP/FSDiscover%20FTX%20NA%20POI.zip
–
With the recent purchase of Orbx’s Scotland region, the followings are updated download links for my modified UK Google Earth map.
POIs: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25018674/Google%20Earth%20Shared/EU%20-%20UK%20POIs%20FTX.kmz
Anyone who wants to compare Orbx’s airports and POIs with Playhorizon’s and UK2000’s addons in the same area could look at my earlier Post 184 here.
As always, it is recommended to just COPY the URLs and add them via Network Link in Google Earth so that updates can be immediately called up when available.
