Again, you will probably need to look to photoscenery, because nothing short of hand-placing custom limerock strata textures and such is going to look realistic, just give kind of a general feel of the area. The way FSX's terrain rendering works, it basically looks at how steep a slope is, how long the distance is, what the landclass called for is, etc and renders based on an algorithm. It will never be able to bring even close to a 1 to 1 representation to the real thing.

 

That's why OrbX uses photoscenery (albeit blended nicely with the autogen) for things like ornate canyons.

The Grand Canyon is a very unique geographical area, as is a lot of southern Utah.  You're not going to get very close to life with a set of generic textures that are meant to work pretty much everywhere there is a dry, sagebrush climate.  Still, this doesn't look that far off to me, and I've been there a number of times.  The north plateau, in particular, is covered by pinyon and juniper forests and looks about like those shots above from the air.  

 

Your shot, on the other hand, looks very much like default FSX with a greenish tint.  I'm wondering if your install is correct.  I don't know because I don't have FTXG (nor am I likely to get it...although those lower shots are probably more tempting to me than most of the other preview shots I've seen).  

Your shot, on the other hand, looks very much like default FSX with a greenish tint. I'm wondering if your install is correct.

 

Every place else I have been looks really pretty decent to me, so I think the install is fine, but if somebody who has no other Land class, photo-realistic or mesh add-ons, just FTX-G could take a screen shot north of KGCN just as you cross into the Grand Canyon and post it up I'd be grateful... :wacko:

 

 

Your shot, on the other hand, looks very much like default FSX with a greenish tint.  I'm wondering if your install is correct.  I don't know because I don't have FTXG (nor am I likely to get it...although those lower shots are probably more tempting to me than most of the other preview shots I've seen).  

Well with FTX Global even Afghanistan looks like that to me, I don't think there's anything wrong with his install, might have to do something with custom landclass...

Go here to get a better Grand Canyon.

 

After your setup...show me a sceenshot as compared to the one you posted above.

 

http://aussiex.org/forum/index.php?/files/file/12-grand-canyon-and-kgcn-holgermesh-v2/

 

I think you will find that this download is the best you can get.

Go here to get a better Grand Canyon.

 

After your setup...show me a sceenshot as compared to the one you posted above.

 

http://aussiex.org/forum/index.php?/files/file/12-grand-canyon-and-kgcn-holgermesh-v2/

 

I think you will find that this download is the best you can get.

 

Going to get this now - really curious if this will be on par with molleh's screencaps - still find it hard to believe how bad my FTX-G with stock FSX LCs look...

Okay, I am not crazy :Big Grin:  - this exact problem (and in the Grand Canyon area), was posted in the official ORBX support forums as well - this guy has a screen shot that looks just like mine...

 

Going to get this now - really curious if this will be on par with molleh's screencaps - still find it hard to believe how bad my FTX-G with stock FSX LCs look...

 

It will be better.

This is what it looks around Kabul, comparing part of photoreal background of my current Kabul scenery project which should have more or less right colors and surrounding FTX Global textures:

 

 

I hope OpenLC packs will fix this. 

This is what it looks around Kabul, comparing part of photoreal background of my current Kabul scenery project which should have more or less right colors and surrounding FTX Global textures:

 

 

I hope OpenLC packs will fix this. 

 

Okay, that is definitely a study in contrasts :blink: - one would have hoped these types of disparities would have been caught in testing, but then I think we are always saying that about products from most FSX developers...

I personally think this is a direct result of Orbx trying to combat the "desertification" effect that happens with default FSX landclass and textures. People everywhere complained that way too many areas looked far too try and "deserty" that should be more vibrant and green. So I think they did their best to combat that and this is the result - most areas look more beautiful and vibrant as they should, but some areas that should be dryer now look too green.

 

This is just a hypothesis but I think this is what happened. Maybe orbx can provide an optional texture pack with drier textures for those who like to fly in the drier areas like the southwest etc.

 

On the other hand, I could be totally wrong and it's just something they screwed up.  

Okay, that is definitely a study in contrasts :blink: - one would have hoped these types of disparities would have been caught in testing, but then I think we are always saying that about products from most FSX developers...

There's nothing to catch. These are the limitations of FSX stock landclass. To fix other areas that shouldn't of been desert they messed up some desert areas.

 

Only fix for this will be custom landclass.

There's nothing to catch. These are the limitations of FSX stock landclass. To fix other areas that shouldn't of been desert they messed up some desert areas.

 

Only fix for this will be custom landclass.

 

I guess I am sort of the opinion that if FTX-G is going to have me swapping one set of problem land classes for another, then either ORBX dropped the ball a bit either technically or product-information wise and it should have been "caught" one way or the other. It's certainly possible that this was covered somewhere and I missed it though...

I think the biggest problem with this release is managing one's own expectations of what it can do without bespoke landclass. This product is the proverbial game of two halves, in that the custom landclass packages that will follow will sharpen some of these rough edges out, and for a very reasonable pick n mix pricing structure, all things considered.

 

Overall I'd say FTXG is a winner accepting, as one always should with a breakthrough product, that this is Day One and there's a lot more to come from this package. It's a huge improvement over default, but not perfect. To be fair, Orbx has been exceptionally transparent about that.

I think many people overestimate the capabilities of Orbx. This is very obvious with the many critical remarks about FTX EU England.

 

With FTX-G you are dealing with a global area and mainly relying on replacement textures; so in many locations this will result in the "lipstick on a pig" situation.