Chris Bell & Cretative Design Studios

[jmig]

I saw a link today on Air DailyX about Chris Bell having a 50% off sale on his night lighting and night sky software. I went the the site and didn't see where it was on sale.
However, his packages looked interesting. Does anyone here have experience with Black Marble or the Stars program? I am especially interested to know how it works with Orbx. The site talks a lot about the changes made to the base PD3 package. Only one line at the bottom says it is compatible with 3rd party add-ons. Nothings states Orbz specifically, or anything about what you get that Orbx doesn't offer.

The total package in my in-box was $209. For that amount of money, I would like to know more about what I am getting.

[scotth6]

That sounds like a lot. Be sure you are not purchasing the global products and the region products as you will be doubling up. I don't really know a lot about it, but Black Marble offers improved night lighting. Do some searches online as I have seen comparisons before between FTX Vector lighting and Black Marble. Not sure what Blue Marble does.

Cheers,

[jmig]

Hi Scott, I went ahead and purchased Black Marble, Vector, Extruded Bridges, Traffic, and Stargazer for $109. I found it by reading and research. You had to put in a code, I think it was BIGSALE and then the price was halved.

I am impressed with the products. The night lighting is definitely better than with just Orbx Global and Vector. I haven't tried it in any of the Orbx regions yet. The Stargazer, which is only $30 full price is really good. You get a lot more stars. It reminds me of when I flew at nights in USAF. I used to look up at all the stars and the blackness of the sky at 30,000 feet and feel close to God.

The only negative was that I maxed out my systems capability to generate autogen lights on a timely basis while flying over New Orleans. I have Aersoft's US Cities-New Orleans. The combination of Black Marble lights, Stargazer and Aerosoft NO was too much for my GPU with the settings I had. At first NO was dark, (just the normal autogen lights) compared to outside the Aerosoft NO area. Little by little the NO lights started coming on in batches.

All in all, I like the products. With a 50% savings it was worth it to me. I would not have purchased it at $200.

[scotth6]

All the products sound pretty interesting. Thanks for the explanation John. I did look into it a while back, but I suppose I don''t fly enough at night to justify the night lighting.

Cheers,