[REVIEW] Frankfurt City Pack by Orbx

Discussion Hub World Discovery
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Here’s my review of Orbx’s Frankfurt City Pack released last week. Another really great package, even if they did take a slightly different approach compared to the previous (and the right one IMHO).

On top of being very fetching, it basically corrects the very, very weird implementation of default Frankfurt, integrating the weirdly-positioned photogrammetry very well. Now approaches to the 25 side at Frankfurt look as they should :smiley:

As usual, there’s plenty of video content in addition to the written review, so you should have enough visual input to make your own opinion.

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Great review and thanks for the 27 minutes video. It is a great looking addon. But one thing I have to disagree. Let me quote:

Helicopters are real aircraft too. And from time to time they fly close to buildings. After all there are helipads on the roofs of some skyscrapers. Parallax windows make not much of a difference at daytime but at night (as you can see in your video) it’s pretty obvious. I love flying between skyscrapers with my ultralight or my chopper so I would prefer the parallax windows. But the scenery looks pretty good even without it. And I guess for that price you can’t complain. :wink:

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I’m talking about realistic operation of course. I do understand it may be fun to fly very close to skyscrapers, but most cities have regulations for helicopters that aren’t much less strict than light aircraft.

You don’t really get as close to buildings in dense urban areas that parallax windows make much of a difference compared to good use of PBR unless it’s very, very limited and specific cases. Then we get into the fact that when you do get close and you move at any decent speed, parallax windows start looking very unnatural and weird. IMHO, of course. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Hey nice review…somehow I always get freezes when I approach the city…anyone having these issues too? With these freezes I am not able to fly with this cityppack, which is quite sad…

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I love the city pack. The approach to EDDF is now amazing. However, FPS in Asobo’s premium EDDF airport is the worst it’s been since launch I think. Can’t enjoy Frankfurt in its entirety because of this.

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As I’ve started modelling a few of those items some time ago and did a lot of private research also on-site as well, I’d just like to add to your observations.

I think the 3D modelling is pretty good for the most part.

There are missing parts on the Holbeinsteg though that are very obvious (the outer struts).

Also too bad they didn’t model the distinct and unique surface structure of the Westhafen Tower, which gives impressive reflections in real life with those triangular shapes. I started modelling those details months ago but unfortunately didn’t have time to continue. Since we now have a serious first general add-on for the area maybe that’s a good reason to pick up the project again to refine those details. If it’s modelled right, those reflections will appear in the sim just as they do irl which is almost magic.

Texturing convinced me way less as it’s a bit cartoonish but it blends in well. Also there are details missing on the Europaturm for instance, plus I think that broad set of antennae must be from years ago. That’s far from the current setup.

However the far worst and most disappointing part is the night lighting.
Across all buildings, all red obstacle lights appear way too dark and are really blurry. As I haven’t spent time with the SDK for months I don’t know if that’s a limitation of the simulator. It needs to be fixed in any way.

There are obstacle lights missing on the EZB, which has a very noticable appearance at night. Actually all of them are missing except for the roof part.

The yellow spot lights on the Commerzbank Tower are entirely missing, probably the most significant downtown lights at night.

Also the lighting of the Europaturm is way less than perfect or realistic. The unique purple-pinkish spots are mostly missing. From far distance this is a significant eye catcher and it’s none in the sim.

Generally speaking the night lighting is just completely dull and extremely lacks contrast. The skyline doesn’t really pop out at all as it should.

All in all I’d rate this package a max of 3/5. It has some good and promising parts but to be more authentic there are a number of things that need more attention (and I think should get more attention as they don’t seem neither major nor impossible).

Hope this helps.

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Hi everyone, and thanks for the review @Abriael.

I own all the landmark packs Orbx released until now, except this one.
Screenshots and videos I’ve seen look good but there’s something strange about it that I still cannot put my finger on - maybe because I know the city fairly well irl.

I was wondering if Orbx released a list of all the things they modeled with this one or if they’re still on the generic 200 landmarks/buildings without any complete list. Anyone knows?