Fair enough, that seems like a fair solution, I probably not seen any āheroā POIs then yet, so much to explore!
Yeah. Iāve spent 2 days slewing around and Iāve seen perhaps half of them haha. At some point, I just had to stop because I was going cross-eyed.
Ah thank you, I am not familiar with that software and didnāt know about the map. I found that I could see the landmarks on the map on the Discover tab without needing to uninstall it which is what I was looking for, thanks !
Haha youāre right, itās on the discover tab. Good spot
Thanks. Looking forward to Canary Islands then. Already have the SimWings airports for La Palma, La Gomera and Tenerife Sur.
Hey @Abriael, I hope you donāt mind me posting my 2 cents here, let me know if you want me to remove, donāt want to hijack your review.
I personally found that the package whilst convenient (covers large area) and good value (a lot cheaper than I was initially expecting), I was personally quite let down by the quality of models by Orbx here.
Iāve found a bunch of different flightsim.to add-ons that even offer the same or better quality.
A few examples:
First of all hereās Manchester Unitedās ground as added by Asobo from the free UK update:
And here is neighbouring Old Trafford cricket ground - by Orbx:
The theme continues with a lot of their other sports grounds:
Hillborough:
Odsal Top:
Some of the scenery (not just stadiums, I promise!) seem stick out very obviously from the surrounding scenery:
Headingley Stadium:
Some of the cities are OK but seems to lack that certain level of polish that weāve come to expect from this sim, and even some of Orbxās other city packs:
Leeds:
Poor quality on the radomes at Menwith Hill added by Orbx, notice they donāt line up with the satellite imagery either:
For comparison here is the same location added by We Love VFR (free on flightsim.to, covers all of Europe):
I could go on and on with examples here but hopefully this paints a picture.
I will say some areas such as Liverpool do have quite good models and so does Newcastle. Manchester looks OK as does Leeds.
Overall I think its an OK package. For the price it offers a great coverage and may mean you donāt have to have multiple different packages installed to cover different areas. I do think however, quality has been sacrificed in some areas in order to hit that price point. I personally would have paid more to have a better overall quality of product (when this was announced I was prepared to pay at least double for this pack considering the cost of other city packs). Also when compared to other free add-ons and Asoboās free world updates this pack does fall short.
A lot of the models as already shown look quite poor up close and somewhat go against the advertised description that this is for ālow and slowā pilots.
For VFR pilots it does also clash with the We Love VFR add-on, the developer for this add-on also made this statement regarding trying to fix the problem:
Another thing I would mark them down for is how poorly some of the landmarks themselves are blended into the surrounding environment. Some of them stick out like a sore thumb and donāt appear to have taken consideration to the general toning of the the surrounding environment. I noticed Magna near Sheffield city is very bright and cartoonish looking, whilst in contrast neighbouring Meadowhall looks very bland and doesnāt stand out with its bright green roofing like one would expect.
I am from the North of England so maybe Iām a little harsh but I think when a payware package becomes comparable to various freewareās it does prompt a bit of critisism. Itās perhaps also worth noting that a lot of the city buildings here in the North of the England are relatively bland by nature so this might also have some bearing on the perceived quality!
Me and a friend did a flight around the major cities in Yorkshire last Sunday on stream, some of you may find interesting to scan through the various POIās to see what you think yourself.
We flew from Leeds - Bradford - Sheffield - Doncaster - Hull, flying over the smaller towns in between which do have some decent coverage for example some landmarks in Halifax and Huddersfield:
Appreciate my remarks are somewhat contrasting to Giuseppeās but I feel itās only fair paint the full picture as I appreciate it is a large pack to go through for one reviewer!
Overall I think the pack is worth it for the asking price. But if youāve been impressed by the quality of other Orbx city packs and/or been using any other add-ons for the area, be prepared that in some areas this add-on may not meet your expectations.
This is something Iāve said for the DC-6 already, but all sufficiently complex add-ons have unflattering angles if you look hard enough for them. Thatās just the nature of producing something of this kind of scale, and focusing on them doesnāt āpaint the full pictureā at all.
WeLoveVFR is a neat package, but the comparison is unfitting. While it ācovers all of Europeā it doesnāt do so nearly in the same detail and it doesnāt add nearly the same things, so Iām honestly not sure why the comparison is even made. If I had to choose between the two, Iād choose this one without hesitation, not to mention that I donāt have to choose because I can simply load the one I want depending on where Iām flying.
The comparison with the best of Asoboās models is also not very fitting either (and they have a lot of their own unflattering ones), one, because the level of coverage is on a completely different level. Same with Orbxās own cities.
I maintain that the package as a whole is very good and offers great value. The bottomline is that it replaces a ton of absolutely inadequate autogen (or nothing at all) with models that restore what should be there, for the price of a lunch at McDonalds. You may think itās not good enough. I think itās great.
Respectfully, listening the commentary on your video, you seem to have a bit of a chip on the shoulder against Orbx, and I wouldnāt say thatās conducive to fairly judging their addons. I would discourage that kind of attitude to begin with.
First attempt to load a flight into Liverpool airport with this addon installed resulted in a CTD. Removed Puffins WeLoveVFR and the excellent freeware piers for the UK suspecting a clash and it loaded in fine.
Flew over to Manchester. Most of the BBC buildings didnāt load in until i was virtually right on top of them. LODās clearly not set correctly. Overall building modeling really isnāt up to Orbx usual standards compared to recent Cityscape products.
As mentioned by others, most of the buildings dont really blend well into the surroundings. They stick out like a sore thumb. A lot of this i suspect had to do with the lighting changes in the sim thoughā¦ this would have been developed with the lighting as it was pre SU5.
Going to check out some more sights, but initial impressions are not great. Been very happy with all the recent cityscape products iāve purchased. This one not so much.
Overlapping scenery doesnāt cause CTDs since they donāt really ācollideā with each other physically. Likely, one of those simply hasnāt been updated for the SU5 yet.
This is likely due to the fact that SU5 changed how LOD are handled. I would report it to Orbx and theyāll fix it for sure. Even Asoboās own jetwatys have this issue (and itās driving me batty).
Curiously, if you load in close enough, the issue isnāt there. It happens only if you fly in from beyond visual range.
Again, you canāt exactly make a comparison between an add-on that includes a single city and one that improves a third of a country.
Payware addons are made with a budget which depends on how many copies youāre expecting to sell at which price. Orbxās city addons arenāt priced that much lower than this in relative terms, so the budget is likely comparable, which obviously means that less dev time goes into each building.
Considering how much time is spent flying over each building, what matters primarily here is coverage (IE: having as many buildings as possible, covering as wide an area as possible and replacing as much bad autogen as possible), so Iād say this approach is a lot more appropriate than the two alternatives, which are either fewer buildings with more detail for each, or higher pricing.
Given the obvious flaws of the autogen (which I appreciate for what it is, donāt get me wrong), the priority here is to have as many as possible of thisā¦
Turned into thisā¦
ā¦ So that you donāt have to fly over important landmarks and find office building eyesores. And Iād say this package does an exceptionally good job at that.
I cover all of Europe in quite some detail but with selected object types. All radar domes are placed manually and as you can see above I still mess up sometimes. That one on the concrete pole should be of another type. But yeah, I agree that these addons shouldnāt be compared. Mine is something like autogen+ and Orbx makes nice custom POIs for specific places, with exception of really bad radar domes
Could you please see if itās my We Love VFR or the UK piers that is crashing for you? Iāve seen that GB Central doesnāt crash with my mod installed. It would be helpful to know if itās mine mod crashing for you. Region 1 should be compatible with SU5. My beta testers are my users, so you never know
Donāt get me wrong, I absolutely love your package and use it regularly when I fly over scenery it doesnāt conflict with (which thankfully isnāt many, and this would be solved so easily if Asobo allowed users to set their own exclusions).
I simply meant that the detail it offers focuses on specific VFR elements and not really on monuments and landmarks. So itās pretty much the same concept. This package canāt be compared with Orbxās own cities because it covers a much wider area, and the same goes with ILoveVFR, because it covers an even wider area.
Perhaps itās the piers one causing the crash?
Orbx is TOP NOTCH. I wish they made all scenery in this sim.
I absolutely agree. Iāll still try to incorporate exclusions for my objects, but I canāt promise anything. Also, I have a lot of work with a new object type.
Ok, enough of this post hijacking .
I donāt think Orbx ever made photogrammetry? I donāt think many serious payware addon devs are willing to delve into photogrammetry as it gets you in some rather big legal cans of worms unless you want to go to the trouble of finding (and licensing) third-party photogrammetry sources that are likely very costly.
Youāll find some payware stuff from single devs that rip google maps (I better not express what I think of this, because it isnāt flattering), but a company like Orbx wouldnāt do that and risk legal issues.
I may have used the wrong term. I meant they make amazing scenery and third party cities/downtowns/etc. Top notch.
Gotcha. IMHO yeah, they certainly do some of the best work in terms of landmarks among payware companies, especially given the pricing.
Put your mod back and all was fine, so itās not that.
Both seem to be playing ok together so far. Obviously id prefer to see your objects over the Orbx ones where you both have the same stuff having seen some of the pics above! Thanks for your work, cant fly without it
EDIT: Put the Piers back in as well and it loaded up fine. Very odd. Got to love flight sims consistent inconsistency Apologies for the false alarm.
Ok, did a bit more exploring and Iāll revise my impressions.
Obviously they have taken more of a quantity over quality approach for this one, but that is not to say the quality is in any way bad as such. The product as a whole clearly improves over default and in some places significantly so.
Also, Iām probably a little picky as i spend 90% of my time is in a heli below 1000ft, often getting very close and slow to study the models, so Iām probably pretty much at the extremes of the normal user when it comes to how closely i see this stuff.
Overall Iām pretty happy with it.