TrueEarth GB South P3D4.4 a few more.

[Iain Emms]

Just some various shots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jester945271]

Looks awesome. Any teasers on availability yet xxxx



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[Jack Sawyer]

Very nice to see these Iain!  I looks just as good as I had hoped and I can’t wait!  

 

But how will this work?  Will this override the Orbx UK I have now?  Will it hav to be uninstalled before insatlling this?

 

Just curious.

[Buffy Foster]

*Starts digging in sofa cusions for money...*

[flying_fish]

2 hours ago, Jack Sawyer said:

But how will this work?  Will this override the Orbx UK I have now?  Will it have to be uninstalled before installing this?

From what I've read it sits 'on top'of Orbx UK, and so no un-installation is required, unless you want more disc space, and have no need to revert to seasons. I'm thinking that I'll keep UK installed, and simply disable TE if I want to fly in seasons.

[Jack Sawyer]

4 minutes ago, flying_fish said:

From what I've read it sits 'on top'of Orbx UK, and so no un-installation is required, unless you want more disc space, and have no need to revert to seasons. I'm thinking that I'll keep UK installed, and simply disable TE if I want to fly in seasons.

Huh?  So no seasons with this?  I have Netherlands and I’m pretty sure it has seasons.  I need seasons, heck, no seasons looks like I may sit this one out.

I thought that was the big difference between XP and P3D and one of the main reasons I didn’t go with XP. 

[BradB]

13 minutes ago, Jack Sawyer said:

Huh?  So no seasons with this?  I have Netherlands and I’m pretty sure it has seasons.  I need seasons, heck, no seasons looks like I may sit this one out.

I thought that was the big difference between XP and P3D and one of the main reasons I didn’t go with XP. 

It is P3D , it will have season's . Now XP is another story .......

 

John

[Jack Sawyer]

Just now, BradB said:

It is P3D , it will have season's . Now XP is another story .......

 

John

• Thanks John!  Two thumbs WAY WAY up my friend!  

[Martin Poole]

I am sure I read somewhere Jack that P3D True earth was summer only the same as XP  I might be completely wrong though most of the time I am !!

[Jack Sawyer]

8 minutes ago, Martin Poole said:

I am sure I read somewhere Jack that P3D True earth was summer only the same as XP  I might be completely wrong though most of the time I am !!

[Tezza]

I would have thought that 4 seasons in photo scenery would need 4 times the storage space and 4 times the cost for Orbx for buying aerial photos for each season or paying their staff for editing all those textures 4 times. I suppose a solution would be to edit a few areas like mountains to have a bit of snow in winter or use some sort of mask. Who knows, but I'm looking forward to it anyway.

[Jack Sawyer]

1 minute ago, Tezza said:

I would have thought that 4 seasons in photo scenery would need 4 times the storage space and 4 times the cost for Orbx for buying aerial photos for each season or paying their staff for editing all those textures 4 times. I suppose a solution would be to edit a few areas like mountains to have a bit of snow in winter or use some sort of mask. Who knows, but I'm looking forward to it anyway.

If the Netherlands can be TE (not sure it is) and have seasons then I don't see why this can't but I will most likely be wrong.

[Tezza]

Hey, you're right! Netherlands TE for P3D does have seasons.

[Longranger241]

9 minutes ago, Jack Sawyer said:

If the Netherlands can be TE (not sure it is) and have seasons then I don't see why this can't but I will most likely be wrong.

It is and it isn't. The areas are much bigger, so the costs would be higher.

And we must not forget the net problem. The big advantage for Orb is, that, in the long run, P3D and X-Plane will be slightly different outputs of the same workflow.

But if you now integrate seasons for P3D this would totally break this workflow. It would add significant costs that P3D would have to pay for by itself. It would be two totally different versions.

[Jack Sawyer]

Just now, Longranger241 said:

It is and it isn't. The areas are much bigger, so the costs would be higher.

And we must not forget the net problem. The big advantage for Orb is, that, in the long run, P3D and X-Plane will be slightly different outputs of the same workflow.

But if you now integrate seasons for P3D this would totally break this workflow. It would add significant costs that P3D would have to pay for by itself. It would be two totally different versions.

Well, if that’s the case I sit it out and don’t buy.  I likes seasons, like a lot.  

[BrianV]

I feel like you Jack, but I understand that seasons is not only a cost issue, but also a space issue, as much more storage is needed for such as large region as the UK (when compared to the Netherlands). I love the seasons,  but I wonder if the trees will change, even if ground texture will not when P3D changes season? If not, I might do less winter flying in the UK, and more in the US. In any case, I look very much forward to see the features included with the P3D version of England and hopefully some workaround with seasons will eventually be found.

[Jack Sawyer]

Just now, BrianV said:

I feel like you Jack, but I understand that seasons is not only a cost issue, but also a space issue, as much more storage is needed for such as large region as the UK (when compared to the Netherlands). I love the seasons,  but I wonder if the trees will change, even if ground texture will not when P3D changes season? If not, I might do less winter flying in the UK, and more in the US. In any case, I look very much forward to see the features included with the P3D version of England and hopefully some workaround with seasons will eventually be found.

To me it’s a step backwards.  You’ve got unreal amazing photo scenery but you’re frozen in time.  I’ll still buy everything they make but anything without seasons is off my buy list.

[BradB]

Just now, Jack Sawyer said:

To me it’s a step backwards.  You’ve got unreal amazing photo scenery but you’re frozen in time.  I’ll still buy everything they make but anything without seasons is off my buy list.

I have gone thru all of the road map again and I don't see anything about seasons not being in the P3D version ; hopefully someone form Orbx will clarify this for us .

 

John

[Jack Sawyer]

1 minute ago, BradB said:

I have gone thru all of the road map again and I don't see anything about seasons not being in the P3D version ; hopefully someone form Orbx will clarify this for us .

 

John

Thanks John.  I’ll just have to wait and see.  Like I said if the NL can be done maybe the UK can too.  Who knows I might even change my mind.  Might need a new or a few larger SSD’s.

[stiletto2]

FWIW, since I have been following this one release day to day, John has mentioned several times in the recent past that, for now, ORBX TE Great Britain for P3Dv4  is just summer season.  The reason:  it would be at least 4x in size with seasonal terrain.   John has also alluded to the fact that ORBX is looking at the possibility of developing a set of digital modifications/algorithms (e.g. shader modifications etc.) for P3Dv4 that will repaint the terrain for seasonal looks as required.   We already know that seasonal trees can be invoked easily once ORBX wants to enable that.  With the kind of resources/talent ORBX has,  I am confident ORBX will get something like that accomplished for the other 3 main seasons a bit down the road.  A little bit of magic like that would save us all a lot of disk storage.  Meanwhile, I for one will enjoy fantastic summers in Great Britain using True Earth technology.

 

Rod

[Ed Correia]

Confirming that this will summer only due to what would be large file sizes as well being quicker to produce.

[BrianV]

Many thanks Ed, it is good with the confirmation. The pics look amazing, so seasons or not, count me in.

[VH-KDK]

13 minutes ago, Ed Correia said:

Confirming that this will summer only due to what would be large file sizes as well being quicker to produce.

Thanks for clearing it up Ed .

It wouldn't have made any difference to me anyway as I hated the English winters and I don't want to be reminded if them.

Summer it is then!

[John Venema]

No seasons, just summer. Seasons would make it a 250GB product just for GB South alone, and nearly 800GB for all of GB. Delivering that amount of data for tens of thousands of customers would bankrupt us pretty quickly, and fill hard drives at an alarming rate.

 

For what it’s worth (and I recognise everyone’s needs are different), I only ever fly in summer in all the sims I use anyway. I use weather themes and saved .wx files, not real weather. I fly during the day and sometimes at dusk, but never at night. My flights typically last 15-45mins each. I am a VFR explorer/flier and as such I prefer to fly in summer with lovely sunshine dotted with lovely cumulus to vary the landscape with cloud shadows. Bliss!

 

[Jack Sawyer]

Hi JV, will there be a switch where we could toggle this on and off?  I mean the scenery so I could have seasons if I wanted then back to the excellent photoreal because I really want to buy this.

[flying_fish]

Hence my thought that retaining EU regions 'underneath' TE will allow seasonal flying by disabling TE if necessary, same as...

1 minute ago, Jack Sawyer said:

switch where we could toggle this on and off?

Perhaps JV can confirm this as a possibility, whilst we await seasonal TE as the platforms evolve.

[Jack Sawyer]

2 minutes ago, flying_fish said:

Hence my thought that retaining EU regions 'underneath' TE will allow seasonal flying by disabling TE if necessary, same as...

Perhaps JV can confirm this as a possibility, whilst we await seasonal TE as the platforms evolve.

Dang, thanks, I just woke up and must have glossed over this. 

[John Venema]

We are still in the middle of beta testing and looking at how having FTX England/Wales installed impacts the TE region. If they can co-exist, then disabling the TE region in the P3D scenery control panel would make sense for those who want seasons, but be aware that all your VFR nav points will change to the lanclass-based scenery.

[Jack Sawyer]

2 minutes ago, John Venema said:

We are still in the middle of beta testing and looking at how having FTX England/Wales installed impacts the TE region. If they can co-exist, then disabling the TE region in the P3D scenery control panel would make sense for those who want seasons, but be aware that all your VFR nav points will change to the lanclass-based scenery.

Thanks JV, perfect trade off for me.  Very much appreciate all you guy’s work!  Look forward to this one big time.

[slipstream]

The only real change that I ever see in U.K. winter is no leaves on trees. There’s still lots of green out there. If there was a switch from summer to winter trees only via the control panel then that would be good enough for me. 

[F737MAX]

6 hours ago, slipstream said:

The only real change that I ever see in U.K. winter is no leaves on trees. There’s still lots of green out there. If there was a switch from summer to winter trees only via the control panel then that would be good enough for me. 

 

There is a considerable difference in colour tones between the seasons in the UK. Spring has lighter greens than in these pictures, Autumn has a lot more yellows, oranges and browns, Winter has more grey and muted dark greens.

 

9 hours ago, John Venema said:

No seasons, just summer. Seasons would make it a 250GB product just for GB South alone, and nearly 800GB for all of GB. Delivering that amount of data for tens of thousands of customers would bankrupt us pretty quickly, and fill hard drives at an alarming rate.

 

JV, as a longer term plan, I wonder if your TE teams could investigate whether a few repeatable semi-transparent texture masks of different colour hues which could be designed and applied over green spaces such as parks, farmland, etc.? 

These texture masks would, in theory, cover large areas of land and denote the various seasonal colours without there being a huge number of individual files costing ORBX bandwidth and users storage.

[slipstream]

9 hours ago, F737NG said:

 

There is a considerable difference in colour tones between the seasons in the UK. Spring has lighter greens than in these pictures, Autumn has a lot more yellows, oranges and browns, Winter has more grey and muted dark greens.

 

I don’t agree. Two images. One mid winter and the other mid summer. I simply adjust colour saturation via HDR setting to suit the seasons. 

 

[eaim]

It's looks very likely that I'll not be buying TE England without seasons, unless Orbx/LM have something planned for a future release.

[John Venema]

Read my lips ... There are no seasons. Summer and night textures only. If that’s a deal breaker for you, so be it.

[flying_fish]

TE was released for XP 11 as summer only, well explained by JV at the time, because four or five seasons of photoreal textures would require terrabytes of storage. This provoked a really interesting debate on how we will need to focus more on storage if we want photoreal seasons, the cost of SSD's. Also how FS platforms might respond with ways of using inbuilt preset shader solutons for seasons as Slipstream & F737NG suggest  - all very exciting and no doubt pointing to a new direction for LM and Laminar.

Here's a very amateur stitch job to show Orbx EU England seasons (not TE) on approach to Portsmouth (for Slipstream!). Winter, Spring, Summer Fall in that order.

I think Orbx adds snow in deep winter at altitude and certain latitudes, so this picture may not be the best example. If that's what you want, then Orbx have created it for us in the regional products, and very enjoyable it is too; dare I say it but revolutionary just a few years ago.

 

However - what I have seen so far in the new TE is something you just can't get any other way - hand edited POI's, VRP's and photoreal that is the closest one can get to to allow accurate VFR flying.  IMHO it's not a case of either seasonal regions or TE; I see TE as a very important developmental step in the path to photoreal seasons, and also to a more immersive experience.

 

Personally, I'd rather have a one season TE as developmental step than wait for the FS platforms (or cost of storage) to catch up. This, it seems to me, is Orbx keeping at the cutting edge. 

 

I do think we have the best of both worlds here.

 

So I have a little put by for TE GB south, and plan to add a second SSD to my rig as soon as funds allow. 

[sleightflight]

Well, I've been using Horizon genx photo scenery in FSX and P3D V3 but wasn't able to get it into V4, this scenery package didn't have seasons, but as my trees did, it was good enough for me.

I still preferred it to FTX England even with the seasons.

[slipstream]

FSX and Horizon Genx was revolutionary in its day being able to display at an incredible resolution of 1.2MPP. The downside was the dreaded  blurries which ruined it for me, plus the severe lack of required updates which never materialised for many years after. 

 

TE, for me, is the current revolutionary scenery to hit the flight sim community, with the added bonus of no more blurries, colour abnormalities, or lack of updates-patches. I’m more than happy with summer textures only. 

 

Having the the ability to switch between summer and winter trees would be advantageous imo.