Orbx Releases YBBN

[JayKae]

Orbx is pleased to announce the release of YBBN Brisbane International Airport, its most detailed major airport created thus far. Encompassing over 65 square km of 60cm, 15cm and 7cm imagery and modeled entirely in 3DStudioMax, YBBN is a technological marvel and pushes the boundaries of what is possible in FSX to faithfully reproduce every aspect of this gateway airport. YBBN provides full support for AI traffic, has kinetically animated aerobridges, NIGS guidance, custom modeled ground services vehicles and also includes the Fisherman Island Docks percent, landable ships offshore, the twin Gateway Bridges, the International, Domestic and GA terminals, plus all cargo and maintenance facilities. YBBN is now available for purchase as an instant download and soon on limited edition DVD.

For more information visit ftxnow.com

[MCDesigns]

from the screenshots, it looks freakin fantastic! Thanks for the HU Jay! :ernae:

[SirBenn21]

No offence intended, but looks like you only want a niche market to buy your products at that price.
I use to try and buy all your add-ons, but it just got too expensive for me.
You guys should really consider a "Loyal customer" policy
Looks great buy the way. Pity though. :blind:

Ben

[Skittles]

People should be aware that this add-on will have a significant frame rate impact. The video showing John doing a tour of the airport has sliders relatively maxed (except water, airport vehicles, GA traffic, boats) and he runs an average of about 30fps over the airport.

Impressive, until you realize he's running an intel 920 I7 at 4.0Ghz, with 12Gb DDR3 RAM, a GTX 285 1Gb graphics card and velociraptor hard drives.

The frame rates look very good for what's on offer - but to get the level of detail shown in the screenshots your PC will have to be top, top quality.

[MCDesigns]

People should be aware that this add-on will have a significant frame rate impact. The video showing John doing a tour of the airport has sliders relatively maxed (except water, airport vehicles, GA traffic, boats) and he runs an average of about 30fps over the airport.

Impressive, until you realize he's running an intel 920 I7 at 4.0Ghz, with 12Gb DDR3 RAM, a GTX 285 1Gb graphics card and velociraptor hard drives.

The frame rates look very good for what's on offer - but to get the level of detail shown in the screenshots your PC will have to be top, top quality.

So true and based on what I have seen, read and experienced this seems to be on par with their business model, BUT that being said, they also go to great lengths to provide for options to make things work on older systems, problem being that we see what if offered in all it's glory and that is what we want, kinda like cranking the sliders to max in FSX just to see it and then lamenting for the day we can actually run it smoothly at that setting, LOL.

[koorby]

No offence intended, but looks like you only want a niche market to buy your products at that price.
I use to try and buy all your add-ons, but it just got too expensive for me.
You guys should really consider a "Loyal customer" policy
Looks great buy the way. Pity though. :blind:

Ben

No offense intended Ben, but a team working for 18 months on this and we sell it for A$39.95 and you're complaining? Sheesh...

[koorby]

People should be aware that this add-on will have a significant frame rate impact. The video showing John doing a tour of the airport has sliders relatively maxed (except water, airport vehicles, GA traffic, boats) and he runs an average of about 30fps over the airport.

Impressive, until you realize he's running an intel 920 I7 at 4.0Ghz, with 12Gb DDR3 RAM, a GTX 285 1Gb graphics card and velociraptor hard drives.

The frame rates look very good for what's on offer - but to get the level of detail shown in the screenshots your PC will have to be top, top quality.

My PC spec is very 'last year' already (it's nearly a year old). People who purchase our larger airports know what they are in for, and the user manual is there on the product page to read before you purchase. We go to great pains to explain in the manual that we design airports to have a long shelf life so hardware can grow into it. We don't do cookie-cutter airports which look lifeless, empty and bland. We're trying to push the boundaries and people who purchase the YMML and YBBN style of airports from usually know what they are getting into.

BTW, YMML is our best selling airport by a long margin (go figure) and YBBN is setting new sales records as we speak, so there is clearly a huge demand for this style of scenery.

But it's not for everyone, we acknowledge that.

[Skittles]

Edit: After your response Koorby there's no point me going on, as you said the add-on isn't for everybody, I hope you have success with it - unfortunately I'm afraid my PC specs prevent me from being part of it.

One final thought in relation to Ben's post. I can see where he's coming from. With an expensive PC to run FSX, all the accessories required etc, and then paying for the surrounding area then the airport within the area you've just paid for, buying each airport one by one is hugely costly.

I can't particularly think of a way of putting this without sounding blunt, but the time taken to complete a project has no bearing whatsoever on my intention to purchase it. I will never be able to afford $40 per airport regardless of how perfect they are.

Once again good luck with it, by the sounds of it it is selling very well and I'm sure it deserves to do so.

[spotlope]

Don't discount the fact that they also produce freeware. There aren't too many other scenery devs who do that along with their regular payware offerings. It's just something to factor in when discussing their prices.

[Kiwikat]

Edit: After your response Koorby there's no point me going on, as you said the add-on isn't for everybody, I hope you have success with it - unfortunately I'm afraid my PC specs prevent me from being part of it.

One final thought in relation to Ben's post. I can see where he's coming from. With an expensive PC to run FSX, all the accessories required etc, and then paying for the surrounding area then the airport within the area you've just paid for, buying each airport one by one is hugely costly.

I can't particularly think of a way of putting this without sounding blunt, but the time taken to complete a project has no bearing whatsoever on my intention to purchase it. I will never be able to afford $40 per airport regardless of how perfect they are.

Once again good luck with it, by the sounds of it it is selling very well and I'm sure it deserves to do so.

+1

I'm definitely an orbx supporter (as can be seen by my signature on their forum) but I can only afford the regions these days, not to mention my overclocked Q9550 struggles with PNW, let alone an airport of this detail. I wish all of their development time went towards the region packs, but that's obviously not my decision.

Best of luck with the release! It looks incredible. I look forward to NZ and the rest of the US of A :salute:

[tigisfat]

Guys,

I too stopped buying these products a while ago when Hervey Bay fell flat on it's face with my system. That was my limit. I also can't afford 40 dollars per airport.

This software can be run on VERY hot modern computers, and it will only get better a few years from now. When it is no longer a new release, the price will surely drop as well.

Let us think about the future invesment made in our hobby by developers that stay in the cutting edge and make products for the future. To remain profitable for a long time, developers really have to create long standing products. We will look at this incredibly detailed airport as cutting edge for years and years to come. If you can't run this airport now, consider it a new release for 2011.

Clearly ORBX is creating a library of products that we will want (and therefore they can still sell) when other products of 2009 and 2010 look dated upon their release. IMO, other developers are rushing products out the door in an effort to sell SOMETHING. Subsequently, they really only sell when there is buzz about them.


I will continue investing in ORBX at my own pace (and as my processing capability increases over time) just as they've invested in this great hobby of ours. I commend them for making tomorrow's scenery.

Their strategy will benefit us all. :salute:

[bstolle]

IMHO airport development is heading in a wrong direction.
FSX is still a FLIGHT simulator and one of the reasons I stuck with fs9 for a long time was because of Flightscenery.
The designer is a pilot and tried to optimize the airports from a pilots point of view which he did perfectly, sceneries like KPVD had a great framerate and were of unparalled quality.
Now we have airports which are so detailed that you can walk and drive around them.
People complaining that the bottom of a finger gate isn't corretly textured.
That has nothing to do with flying at all and costs a lot of performance.

Nevertheless I LOVE the Orbx sceneries, I was one of the first YMML customers (as I loved to fly there IRL) although it did have quite a few problems in the beginning.
Their AU blue region is still my top favourite scenery by far (with a high framerate on my old dual core PC)
As Bill has mentioned already they also provide great freeware as well and combined with the 300+ freeware Oz airports this is the only area I fly in since many month.

[MCDesigns]

IMHO airport development is heading in a wrong direction.
FSX is still a FLIGHT simulator and one of the reasons I stuck with fs9 for a long time was because of Flightscenery.
The designer is a pilot and tried to optimize the airports from a pilots point of view which he did perfectly, sceneries like KPVD had a great framerate and were of unparalled quality.
Now we have airports which are so detailed that you can walk and drive around them.
People complaining that the bottom of a finger gate isn't corretly textured.
That has nothing to do with flying at all and costs a lot of performance.

Nevertheless I LOVE the Orbx sceneries, I was one of the first YMML customers (as I loved to fly there IRL) although it did have quite a few problems in the beginning.
Their AU blue region is still my top favourite scenery by far (with a high framerate on my old dual core PC)
As Bill has mentioned already they also provide great freeware as well and combined with the 300+ freeware Oz airports this is the only area I fly in since many month.

I see no difference between Flightscenery and Orbx products. Flightscenery did exactly what Orbx has done within the capabilities of FS9, problem is that FSX allows for so much more detail, more than most PCs can handle and Orbx is taking advantage of this. As for optimizing, if you follow any of the Orbx forums, they are very much into this as well while still creating a product that will be viable later on.