YBBN Disappointment - MSFS

[Takadiurga]

Sadly as the title reads,

 

Must admit I'm a little bit disappointed with the YBBN that's recently been released for MSFS. Whilst I don't want to discredit the hard work that the studio put into YBBN V2 to get it ready and looking good for P3D, which it does - I am a little disappointed that it's been a direct port to MSFS - with basic features missing (like jetway connectivity), and the P3D quality textures are quite apparent and very evidently contrasting in comparison to the usual quality we've come to expect for MSFS, especially from Orbx's partners like NZA Simulations, FlyTampa and Impulse Simulations. The texture quality contrasts in comparison to the ground that is surrounding the airport, especially as some of them appear to be really stretched out... There's no roadways modelled for the front of the airport, with satellite imagery utilised instead which seems a bit unlike Orbx? Not to mention the airline signs at the front which seem to be quite low resolution. I appreciate that performance needs to be prioritised in some areas, but with Hobart, Sydney and Adelaide giving us respectable frame rates, with the quality that they are, including with their landmarks scenery - I'm just a little surprised. It feels as if the performance of the scenery in P3D was prioritised over the performance of the scenery in MSFS.

I really hope that we can expect the jetways to be fixed in the future, and perhaps a bit of a texture overhaul as well? I dread to think that Canberra Airport and Melbourne V3 from P3D would become direct ports into MSFS rather than utilising the new features and capabilities of the new simulator to their fullest! I know that I'm not alone in thinking this, but I really wish that we got a more polished product on release for MSFS. Especially since there was so much hype, and this being a large portion of the communities home airport.

 

I'm a huge Orbx fan, with the majority of MSFS scenery offerings sitting in my Orbx Central! I will admit, that it is leaps and bounds ahead of the default airport that was there before, access to the new runway finally! and it does look good in P3D! I'd hate to come across as if I'm not grateful for the offering the team at Orbx have put together here, but the looks YBBN has in P3D just don't seem to translate into MSFS very well. If you're considering purchasing YBBN I would hold off for now until there's some clarity about the issues it has come with present, at least until the jetways connect to your aircraft. It is not of the same quality as other Orbx products. Landing in YBBN from Sydney, Hobart or Adelaide with the respective partner scenery is very contrasting. Again, I feel like that is because it has been built for P3D first, rather than a conscious neglect for anything else - maybe that's just something we need to become used to! I'm just not feeling it, at the moment

 

Curious to hear other people's opinions on it!

 

Edited July 18, 2021 by Takadiurga

[OmniAtlas]

I got it for $10; so I wasn't expecting much.

 

Yes the textures look outdated; could be a little bit more polished. I flew around with the drone and there was a floating car at the multistory carpark; surely they beta test their products?

 

 

[shinkicker444]

I pretty much agree with everything you've said. I posted my thoughts here about the whole thing along with some others. But YBBN really does feel like quite the step back in comparison to other airports such as Sydney. I've seen it suggested that the reason for YBBN being lower quality is to aid in increasing performance due to the airport itself and the city pack too being close. But I find this reasoning to be somewhat disingenuous. Sydney is a far higher quality airport and its city pack is also much closer to the airport in addition to being also fairly high quality and performance is little different to other major airports crafted by Asobo, like LAX or JFK. This sim is built around pushing hardware and quality of visuals and the flight experience, and in that experience YBBN falls completely flat with what I have come to expect from Orbx.

 

For those stating they got it for $10 due to the sale, that is irrelevant, its base price is $22, Sydney by comparison is $25. I would expect Brisbane to be the same quality as Sydney. But it is not by a long shot, as @Takadiurgasaid it seems like it is a port. To me it feels like it was done purely as a cost saving measure while still putting something out there because it won't be as popular as the more well known airports, even though it is a major Australian airport. Brisbane is not Gatwick, its not Narita, its not Sydney so a cheaper method was employed to save cost. That's what it feels and looks like even if it makes no sense and it is incredibly upsetting. 

I wanted and was expecting something like Sydney with the quality textures and modelling taking into account all the tech the sim has to offer, and this... just isn't that. The description on the store feels like false advertising. What PBR? I'm not seeing that in the panelling on the airport buildings? All I saw was blurry flat textures. The ground is just as bad if not worse. Effectively rebuilt the airport from scratch, it certainly doesn't feel that way. Hell, it should be brand new. Custom Jetways... that don't work properly. 

Comparing Brisbane to Sydney and Adelaide and it's night and day the difference and it really shouldn't be. I really hope there are some fixes and attention coming to it to bring it up to standard of what is expected in an MSFS airport.

Edited July 18, 2021 by shinkicker444

[Airlifter]

19 hours ago, shinkicker444 said:

I pretty much agree with everything you've said. I posted my thoughts here about the whole thing along with some others. But YBBN really does feel like quite the step back in comparison to other airports such as Sydney. I've seen it suggested that the reason for YBBN being lower quality is to aid in increasing performance due to the airport itself and the city pack too being close. But I find this reasoning to be somewhat disingenuous. Sydney is a far higher quality airport and its city pack is also much closer to the airport in addition to being also fairly high quality and performance is little different to other major airports crafted by Asobo, like LAX or JFK. This sim is built around pushing hardware and quality of visuals and the flight experience, and in that experience YBBN falls completely flat with what I have come to expect from Orbx.

 

For those stating they got it for $10 due to the sale, that is irrelevant, its base price is $22, Sydney by comparison is $25. I would expect Brisbane to be the same quality as Sydney. But it is not by a long shot, as @Takadiurgasaid it seems like it is a port. To me it feels like it was done purely as a cost saving measure while still putting something out there because it won't be as popular as the more well known airports, even though it is a major Australian airport. Brisbane is not Gatwick, its not Narita, its not Sydney so a cheaper method was employed to save cost. That's what it feels and looks like even if it makes no sense and it is incredibly upsetting. 

I wanted and was expecting something like Sydney with the quality textures and modelling taking into account all the tech the sim has to offer, and this... just isn't that. The description on the store feels like false advertising. What PBR? I'm not seeing that in the panelling on the airport buildings? All I saw was blurry flat textures. The ground is just as bad if not worse. Effectively rebuilt the airport from scratch, it certainly doesn't feel that way. Hell, it should be brand new. Custom Jetways... that don't work properly. 

Comparing Brisbane to Sydney and Adelaide and it's night and day the difference and it really shouldn't be. I really hope there are some fixes and attention coming to it to bring it up to standard of what is expected in an MSFS airport.

 Just as a small comment; you do realize YSSY is made by FlyTampa and not by Orbx? So eventhough one can say something about both YSSY and YBBN, it's not fair to fully compare them because they're from different developers.

[shinkicker444]

25 minutes ago, Airlifter said:

 Just as a small comment; you do realize YSSY is made by FlyTampa and not by Orbx? So eventhough one can say something about both YSSY and YBBN, it's not fair to fully compare them because they're from different developers.

Yes, and it is sold by Orbx. If they want to charge nearly the same amount that Sydney does then it better be near the same quality as Sydney is. They don't have the excuse that Flytampa gets a cut of the funds either. Furthermore, why is it acceptable that Orbx in house developers being held to a lesser standard than the third party ones? All this tells me is that I can trust FlyTampa or Impulse or Drzewiecki to make the good stuff, and to avoid the in house products (unless they get a satisfactory review).

Edited July 19, 2021 by shinkicker444

[Airlifter]

29 minutes ago, shinkicker444 said:

Yes, and it is sold by Orbx. If they want to charge nearly the same amount that Sydney does then it better be near the same quality as Sydney is. They don't have the excuse that Flytampa gets a cut of the funds either. Furthermore, why is it acceptable that Orbx in house developers being held to a lesser standard than the third party ones? All this tells me is that I can trust FlyTampa or Impulse or Drzewiecki to make the good stuff, and to avoid the in house products (unless they get a satisfactory review).

 

Only thing I state is that you have to be carefull comparing airports from different developers. Different priorities lead to different choices and can affect performance. Desides that; not sure about MSFS, but I know from FSX/P3D that certain areas have a much higher fps impact compared to others without clear reason. For example; de NYC area has been known for all versions of FSX/P3D and before (even FS2004 and FS2002) to be a FPS eater.

May also be the case between Sydney and Brisbane. They're far enough from each other not to affect each other.

 

[Takadiurga]

1 hour ago, Airlifter said:

 

Only thing I state is that you have to be carefull comparing airports from different developers. Different priorities lead to different choices and can affect performance. Desides that; not sure about MSFS, but I know from FSX/P3D that certain areas have a much higher fps impact compared to others without clear reason. For example; de NYC area has been known for all versions of FSX/P3D and before (even FS2004 and FS2002) to be a FPS eater.

May also be the case between Sydney and Brisbane. They're far enough from each other not to affect each other.

 

 

I know I personally will be avoiding future Australian Orbx scenery, if they intend to be ports from P3D as the offerings from competitors are taking full advantage of the new simulator benefits, and processing power, especially with the future performance update incoming. Orbx's specifically built MSFS scenery is some of the best in the business, just look at the Sydney Landmarks, Brisbane Landmarks and so on, absolutely stunning, this is the future, of Flight Simming, and I feel that the focus should be there. I think we all know that a more enhanced airport in MSFS would not have drastically changed the performance we could expect - especially not if it was built from the ground up to be optimised for MSFS.

 

Ultimately, releasing a payware airport with jetways that don't connect to the aircraft isn't really excusable, especially since there hasn't been any staff comment as to when we can expect that to be fixed, if at all, rather just a lingering question that one... I notice staff members upvoting the comment that it's not comparable, but with the utmost respect for the development team, as the work they have produced is by far greater than anything I could ever produce, we can expect custom connecting jetway's even from the freeware community offerings for MSFS.

 

Whilst I didn't mean for this conversation to divulge into a "the other products are by different people" ultimately I think @Airlifteryou've highlighted that there's simply better AU scenery offerings from competitors, including Orbx's own partners at the moment, who are building new and exciting scenery, optimised for the new sim. Which is rather disappointing, I'd like to see engagement from team members that the issues the community is highlighting across the forums since YBBN was released (specifically the jetways) are going to be fixed for MSFS, rather than silence and upvoting comments defending it.

 

I do want to stress that no-one I've seen throughout the Orbx forums is having a personal dig at the developers, and I would encourage our conversation to remain civil, as what they've produced is fantastic, especially for P3D. But I think the lack of communication has been a bit of a sore point to a lot, there's some pretty in-depth discussions occurring in major Discord servers about it, and whilst I've already purchased, the talk in the community is if you haven't yet purchased YBBN for MSFS is to all hold off purchasing it until at least there's discussion or some sort of clarification as to the many comments we've seen on the forum about the scenery.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Takadiurga

[Nick Cooper]

Hello,

@shinkicker444

as the author of the largest number of posts about the product,

perhaps you could list the key points on which your dissatisfaction focuses so that I can present them to the developer

without the accompanying generalisations about Orbx company history, policy and other developers' products.

A simple numbered list would be ideal.

Thanks.

[Dingo77]

Fixes I would like to see are the jetways connecting properly, textures for all of the ground area updated. 

The parking indicators have no specific aircraft labeled and are blank.

The ground textures for the front entrance of the domestic terminal are just a satellite image and not shown any sense of realism with random parked cars.

 

 

[shinkicker444]

2 hours ago, Nick Cooper said:

Hello,

@shinkicker444

as the author of the largest number of posts about the product,

perhaps you could list the key points on which your dissatisfaction focuses so that I can present them to the developer

without the accompanying generalisations about Orbx company history, policy and other developers' products.

A simple numbered list would be ideal.

Thanks.

Thanks for the response. I may add some to this list, but issues I've noticed with YBBN so far are:

 

1. Broken Jetways. The Jetways do not connect to the aircraft properly. For example with the A320 and the 787 it only comes about halfway down the door. The domestic terminal has a similar issue. Overall I think they need to be lowered. This includes the A380 jetways, the upper one is much too high. The angle of connection to the A380 would be too steep for IRL.

Spoiler

 

2. Jetways don't connect to the terminal buildings. Could probably fix it by having them partially embedded into the terminal.

Spoiler

 

3. Texturing on the jetways and terminal buildings is flat, blurry and lacking PBR details. Even the company logo's are very blurry. Windows on the terminal builds are also flat with no reflections (or very hard to see) or details.

Spoiler

 

4. Texturing on the ground is blurry, inaccurate and missing markings in places. This seems like a layering issue.

Spoiler

 

5. The terminal roads and ground is incredibly low quality resolution, and in the case of the overpass separating the GA buildings from the rest of the terminal doesn't look like an overpass and the carpark seems a bit dangerous.

Spoiler

 

6. Fences! There are no border fences around the airport.

 

7. Scuff markings on the ground around the terminal and on the runways need to be darker and more obvious

Spoiler

 

8. The cargo terminal is missing quite a lot of detail. There is a whole DHL setup on the left building that is just not shown at all in sim.

Spoiler

 

8. The gap between gate 23 and 24 feels a bit too close. According to google imagery gate 23 is right on the end of the protruding part of the terminal.

Spoiler

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by shinkicker444

[shinkicker444]

  

2 hours ago, shinkicker444 said:

The gap between gate 23 and 24 feels a bit too close. According to google imagery gate 23 is right on the end of the protruding part of the terminal.

Should be gate 24 is meant to be right on the end, not 23. Can't edit the post for some reason.

 

Also for the fences, Its most egregious in my opinion near the domestic terminal where the public roadway curves near where planes are parked up. In the image here you can see the fence separating the service road and the public road. Also, where the Dash 8's are parked up there are light poles in sim that are a little too close to the planes and would need to be moved around a bit. Starting on the right of the image, that light pole doesn't exist but isn't too bad, the next one in from the right needs to be on the closest pointed corner of the next curved wedge over and the next one to the left needs to be moved over more towards the grass.

Spoiler

 

Some extra screen shots, for things down near the cargo terminal for more detail.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by shinkicker444

[skelly1818]

I often read - but rarely post - on these forums, but I was so (unpleasantly!) disappointed by YBBN that I felt the need to add my +1 to these comments! 

 

Fully agree with all quality issues listed in the previous comments. I've bought pretty much everything Orbx has done over the last many years and this is first one that has been a serious disappointment. The quality is far below the standard I would normally associate with Orbx (or with any of the leading developers for MSFS cited by others previously). Whatever reasons / dev process led to this outcome for YBBN - I really hope it is not an approach / method adopted for any other Orbx products in the future. 

Edited July 19, 2021 by skelly1818
Typo

[mrd0ct0r]

All I can do is echo this comments. Had I paid full price I would have been even more underwhelmed. The upgrade pricing was what softened the blow here, it's a good update to the default, but it just isn't what I expected which is a real shame.

 

I really hope you can come back, take a good look at the issues/improvements that can be made that were suggested above and fix this airport.

[Nick Cooper]

@shinkicker444 Many thanks, all passed to the developer.

[shinkicker444]

1 hour ago, Nick Cooper said:

@shinkicker444 Many thanks, all passed to the developer.

Thanks for passing it on.

[Takadiurga]

On 7/20/2021 at 9:52 PM, Nick Cooper said:

@shinkicker444 Many thanks, all passed to the developer.

Thanks for listening to us Nick

[Tommynzer]

Hi All - first time poster.

 

I was curious if that latest Sim update made any difference to the performace at the airport and surrounds, after checking this morning it did not. 

 

Was there any feedback given by the developer with regards to a possible update in the near future based off the comments above?

 

Thanks

[MasonDominique]

Same here, i am disappointed.

But i can say that YBBN is quite a very big airport. Not so easy  to get the best standards.

As already stated, with such a heavy airport, at least, it would have been great to get at least one inside modeled terminal.

-> Note that even Fly Tampa did not manage to do that in Sydney YSSY

It's way easier to make "landmarks  cities" for shure.

But, so far, i will not buy Brisbane Landmark.

Dom