The clearly smitten Dave Tonks explains why the folks at Orbx Simulation Systems are the bees knees when it comes to flight sim scenery development, and uses their recently released Tamworth package to prove his point.
We are extremely lucky little simmers that there are organisations (and individuals) who possess the passion and drive to provide us desk-bound aviators with the tools we need to develop our flight sim systems into something extraordinary.
Orbx Simulation Systems is one such organisation. Born from a bunch of guys who just wanted to put some of their local airfields into FS9 (2004), Orbx has emerged as one of the major players in scenery development, both for Australia and recently other countries as well.
Orbx’s MD (John ‘koorby’ Venema) established the company, initiating firstly the release of individual packages of scenery enhancement for FSX in Oz (FTX).
FTX can still be purchased in these four packages, but personally I reckon the ‘All of Oz’ package holds better value. Once FTX is up and running (along with a surprising amount of freeware add-ons that FTX has to offer, including the brilliant AussieX ‘local airports’ package containing some 300+ airports) you are already well on your way to developing a flightsim system that will simply amaze any non-simmer who sees the onscreen result for the first time.
I have even had people ask me how I got, “the terrific video of a B25 landing at Boonah” when what they are looking at is in fact a replay of an earlier flight I had recorded!
For top-quality flightsim add-ons (and that includes aircraft and scenery) there is no substitute for dollars being spent, that’s a fact of life. Part of the Orbx modus operandi is to offer noteworthy Australian airports as payware add-ons, with current offerings including Tamworth, Cessnock, Warnervale, Aeropelican, Hervey Bay, Avalon, Melbourne International, Coffs Harbour, Jandakot, Caloundra, and the recently released YBBN Brisbane International.
From the previews on the Orbx website (www.fullterrain.com), YBBN looks like being one of the most significant scenery developments ever seen for FSX.
And there are many more planned airports in the pipeline at present, including Cairns and Canberra. Some are available boxed, others are download only, and you will pay $39.95 for downloads and $49.95 for boxed versions – good value considering the staggering amount of detail in each pack.
As a Queenslander, Hervey Bay was the Orbx product I was really looking forward to, and I was not disappointed – it was the first Orbx airport to utilise 100 per cent digital imagery (captured directly to a hard disk, with the pictures taken from an actual aircraft). The township foreshore was precisely modelled and includes shops, hotels, apartments, jetty and the marina.
At the airfield there is also significant detailing and there is very accurate detailing in stationary cars, fencing, signage, etc. Lighting has been developed particularly carefully, making a night flight into Hervey Bay a true delight.
Tamworth (YSTW) is a very special development for Orbx – it utilises the world’s first seven centimetre per pixel airport and includes 150km2 of pristine 60cm per pixel photoreal imagery of the Tamworth township, farms, hills, and surrounding countryside.
Remember when 76.4 terrain mesh was a big deal? This Tamworth development includes five metre terrain mesh, so the view you get is so close to the real thing in visual accuracy it is quite an eye-opener.
Tamworth is a busy regional hub so expect to see Red Rat Dash 8’s regularly, and it is also home to the BFTS (Basic Flight Training Skills) school - as expected, this area is fully modelled in the package.
There are some clever tweaking tools that are provided with the Orbx airfield add-ons, one of which is called the Control Panel. This enables the user to choose from a vast range of scenery items so the area can be fine-tuned to suit the performance of the individual computer.
Another nice one is a tool called FTX Aero, and the great thing about this is that it alters the bump mapping, runway texture and taxiway markings of all airports globally. It automatically installs an icon onto your desktop so it’s easy to access, alter or simply turn off as required.
FTX products have a reputation for being very frame-rate friendly, and Tamworth is no exception. Certainly if you do not take advantage and crank up all the sliders and tick all the boxes, you are going to see frame rate degradation (unless you have a mega computer). That’s a fact of life in flightsimming, and any home-based pilot who has been dabbling in this stuff for a while will be aware of that.
The package includes full 3D night lighting, taking advantage of the lighting tweaks that are now available within FSX. Night flying around any of the Orbx payware airfields is a treat, with the complexity and accuracy of the lighting quite spectacular.
As are all the Orbx airfields, Tamworth is a terrific package – my score has to be five out of five stars. But readers should remember that this is not a stand-alone package - it requires FTX to function correctly.
Feel free to drop me an email at davidtonks@bigpond.com to discuss this review, ask a question, or just to say g’day. And if there’s a particular sim you’d like to see reviewed in Australian Flying just let me know.
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