[REVIEW] Great Britain Central by Orbx - Sightseeing Paradise šŸ˜Ž

Fair enough, that seems like a fair solution, I probably not seen any ā€œheroā€ POIs then yet, so much to explore!

Yeah. Iā€™ve spent 2 days slewing around and Iā€™ve seen perhaps half of them haha. At some point, I just had to stop because I was going cross-eyed. :joy:

1 Like

Ah thank you, I am not familiar with that software and didnā€™t 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 youā€™re right, itā€™s on the discover tab. Good spot :smiley:

Thanks. Looking forward to Canary Islands then. Already have the SimWings airports for La Palma, La Gomera and Tenerife Sur.

2 Likes

Hey @Abriael, I hope you donā€™t mind me posting my 2 cents here, let me know if you want me to remove, donā€™t 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.

Iā€™ve found a bunch of different flightsim.to add-ons that even offer the same or better quality.

A few examples:

First of all hereā€™s Manchester Unitedā€™s 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 weā€™ve come to expect from this sim, and even some of Orbxā€™s other city packs:

Leeds:

Poor quality on the radomes at Menwith Hill added by Orbx, notice they donā€™t 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 donā€™t 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 Asoboā€™s 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 ā€˜low 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 donā€™t 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 doesnā€™t stand out with its bright green roofing like one would expect.

I am from the North of England so maybe Iā€™m a little harsh but I think when a payware package becomes comparable to various freewareā€™s it does prompt a bit of critisism. Itā€™s 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 POIā€™s 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 Giuseppeā€™s but I feel itā€™s 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 youā€™ve 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.

10 Likes

This is something Iā€™ve said for the DC-6 already, but all sufficiently complex add-ons have unflattering angles if you look hard enough for them. Thatā€™s just the nature of producing something of this kind of scale, and focusing on them doesnā€™t ā€œpaint the full pictureā€ at all.

WeLoveVFR is a neat package, but the comparison is unfitting. While it ā€œcovers all of Europeā€ it doesnā€™t do so nearly in the same detail and it doesnā€™t add nearly the same things, so Iā€™m honestly not sure why the comparison is even made. If I had to choose between the two, Iā€™d choose this one without hesitation, not to mention that I donā€™t have to choose because I can simply load the one I want depending on where Iā€™m flying.

The comparison with the best of Asoboā€™s 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 Orbxā€™s 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 itā€™s not good enough. I think itā€™s great.

Respectfully, listening the commentary on your video, you seem to have a bit of a chip on the shoulder against Orbx, and I wouldnā€™t say thatā€™s conducive to fairly judging their addons. I would discourage that kind of attitude to begin with.

2 Likes

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 didnā€™t load in until i was virtually right on top of them. LODā€™s clearly not set correctly. Overall building modeling really isnā€™t 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 iā€™ve purchased. This one not so much.

1 Like

Overlapping scenery doesnā€™t cause CTDs since they donā€™t really ā€œcollideā€ with each other physically. Likely, one of those simply hasnā€™t 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 theyā€™ll fix it for sure. Even Asoboā€™s own jetwatys have this issue (and itā€™s driving me batty).

Curiously, if you load in close enough, the issue isnā€™t there. It happens only if you fly in from beyond visual range.

Again, you canā€™t 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 youā€™re expecting to sell at which price. Orbxā€™s city addons arenā€™t 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 Iā€™d 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, donā€™t get me wrong), the priority here is to have as many as possible of thisā€¦

Turned into thisā€¦

ā€¦ So that you donā€™t have to fly over important landmarks and find office building eyesores. And Iā€™d say this package does an exceptionally good job at that.

3 Likes

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 shouldnā€™t be compared. Mine is something like autogen+ and Orbx makes nice custom POIs for specific places, with exception of really bad radar domes :wink:

4 Likes

Could you please see if itā€™s my We Love VFR or the UK piers that is crashing for you? Iā€™ve seen that GB Central doesnā€™t crash with my mod installed. It would be helpful to know if itā€™s mine mod crashing for you. Region 1 should be compatible with SU5. My beta testers are my users, so you never know :wink:

Donā€™t get me wrong, I absolutely love your package and use it regularly when I fly over scenery it doesnā€™t conflict with (which thankfully isnā€™t 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 itā€™s pretty much the same concept. This package canā€™t be compared with Orbxā€™s own cities because it covers a much wider area, and the same goes with ILoveVFR, because it covers an even wider area.

Perhaps itā€™s the piers one causing the crash?

Orbx is TOP NOTCH. I wish they made all scenery in this sim.

I absolutely agree. Iā€™ll still try to incorporate exclusions for my objects, but I canā€™t promise anything. Also, I have a lot of work with a new object type.
Ok, enough of this post hijacking .

2 Likes

I donā€™t think Orbx ever made photogrammetry? I donā€™t 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.

Youā€™ll find some payware stuff from single devs that rip google maps (I better not express what I think of this, because it isnā€™t flattering), but a company like Orbx wouldnā€™t 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.

1 Like

Gotcha. IMHO yeah, they certainly do some of the best work in terms of landmarks among payware companies, especially given the pricing.

Agree, this is their Dubai

1 Like

Put your mod back and all was fine, so itā€™s not that. :slight_smile:

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 :wink:

EDIT: Put the Piers back in as well and it loaded up fine. Very odd. Got to love flight sims consistent inconsistency :smiley: Apologies for the false alarm.

2 Likes

Ok, did a bit more exploring and Iā€™ll 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, Iā€™m 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 Iā€™m probably pretty much at the extremes of the normal user when it comes to how closely i see this stuff.

Overall Iā€™m pretty happy with it.

1 Like