Orbx AK Mesh Released

[Tom Clayton]

I'm not sure when it actually came out, but it's out..

https://orbxdirect.com/product/na-alaska-mesh-msfs

[Priller]

Watched a side by side comparison with the default mesh... Not really sure whether this is worth it TBH.

Priller

[Tom Clayton]

If you're talking about the pics on the official forum, I saw the same thing. Seems MSFS default mesh is pretty darn good. I'll be saving my money too.

[Priller]

If you're talking about the pics on the official forum, I saw the same thing. Seems MSFS default mesh is pretty darn good. I'll be saving my money too.

Yeah, and I saw something on youtube, that made it really clear!

You know, when this sim was just officially launched I was chatting about the scenery in a thread here with Bomber. With this sim things like FTX Global, mesh and other world improvements are actually futile. We've never had scenery in any sim like we're having with this sim.

Then again, there are a few freeware gems of (military) scenery on flightsim.to.

Priller

[dvj]

On topic, Orbx New Zealand mesh is a serious improvement over the default. Especially around the Mt. Cook area. 3rd party Milford Sound freeware still seems better than Orbx or default. Such a confusing situation.

[Tom Clayton]

It's possible (probable?) that Asobo concentrated on making the mesh better in areas that would be more likely to be popular destinations. Asobo may have realized just how much of a legend the Alaskan bush aviation industry really is within aviation as a whole and decided that virtual bush pilots would make it a 'must-fly' area.

[Snurdley]

I really can't justify buying this since much of the imagery in AK is sub-par. Hopefully Asobo will be able to update that at some point.

[Penzoil3]

PAJN comes with it, and it's better than default. Almost made it worth it. The mesh itself is not impressive.
Sue

[Tom Clayton]

Sue beat me to the punch - I just found out Juneau is in there too. So now the real question is whether you can pull out the mesh and just install the airport. If the mesh can be deleted, then you could just regenerate a new layout.json, save a bunch of disk space, and still have a decently priced addon airport.

[Bushpounder]

If they want to fix something, they should look at Valdez (PAVD). Out of the box, it is 1/2 there, 1/2 gone. There is a freeware version, but it was pre-SU5, so it has compatibility problems. Flying and designing scenery for Alaska for the past 20 years, I have to say MSFS, as-is, is pretty nice. Needs some work, but looks nice.

Don BP

[spatialpro]

I find it odd that PAJD still isn't mentioned on the product page and there are no screenshots of it:

https://orbxdirect.com/product/na-alaska-mesh-msfs

If one didn't read forums etc. you'd have no idea it is included. This really does smack of after thought. I'll also add that IMO there seems to be a trend at ORBX of providing less details on their product pages.

Still on the subject of PAJD... Whilst I'd be delighted to have an improvement upon the default I'd now prefer a DC Designs rendition of it. They have done excellent work with a bunch of Alaskan airfields and in many cases I find their work to be superior to ORBX:

• PAVC
• PAKW
• PAPG
• PAWG

I also like Northern Sky Studio's and Realworldscenery's work on Alaskan airfields, so I'd probably buy a PAVD from them too, if they got there before DC Designs.

I believe one of these 3 developers will also likely release a pretty good Valdez in the near future.

MSFS has drawn in a lot of very talented X-Plane scenery developers, as well as spawned a long list of new start-ups. The increasing popularity of Blender and FOSS4G has also helped (in terms of both freeware and payware). In some cases what they're producing are superior products.

In short, compared to ~2 years ago I'm no longer likely to rush to buy an ORBX airfield (in this region especially, but elsewhere too).

On the subject of addon mesh for MSFS, I believe it is a case of diminishing returns (e.g. the 80-20 Rule etc). Back in the days of FSX/P3D/XP11 addon mesh would be a worthwhile improvement. One could say the default mesh provided you with 20% of the quality, whereas an addon gave you the remaining 80%. With MSFS one could say this situation has reversed, i.e. the default already provides 80% of the available quality, with an addon only providing the extra 20%. IMO there are also two other factors:

1. The content of the default scenery is improving over time, thanks to World Updates (WU), and Asobo will get to Alaska at some time and provide every user with the same mesh data (the source data ORBX used is freely available for anyone to download and use for whatever purpose)... but this time it will be free and will not use up any filespace!
2. Asobo are working on reducing/removing so-called LOD popping and other terrain mesh issues (a fix might even be available with the next WU)

I believe ORBX Alaska mesh does add value, but only in the interim, and whether it is worth the US$9 to US$10 is down to the individual. IMO I'm not surprised many are staying away (and in some cases asking for a refund).

[YoYo]

I find it odd that PAVD....

Im with you. I know Alaskan airports quite well (from sims for sure) and I noticed also that few, known and not small (!) airports from this part of the World are missed in MSFS.
What is good, few weeks ago I created ticket with list of missed Alaska airports in MSFS on Zendesk with hope that they fix it and will add it too. It has stil ... "open" status unfortunately.

[jmig]

I bought it, sight unseen. I spent a week at a hunting lodge in the Lake Clark National Forest (50 miles west of Anchorage), photographing bears. We flew in and landed on the beach in a Cessna 206. I tried flying that in MSFS and it sucked. The terrain just disappeared. I couldn't recognize it, even after reviewing the area in Google Earth.

In my opinion the boys in France need to learn that there is more to Alaska than Juneau and Anchorage. Until then, I will support designers who offer Alaskan upgrades.

[Daube]

In my opinion the boys in France need to learn that there is more to Alaska than Juneau and Anchorage.

Was this OrbX product made in France ?
Concerning the overall look of Alaska in MSFS, let's keep in mind it comes from... Microsoft Bing (not French, either)

Could you indicate the position of that lodge approximatively ? I'd like to see how that area looks like in the sim. I found the lake you mentioned but it's quite huge

[YoYo]

He talks about Asobo…. ORBX has nothing with this (but maybe in the future the will do missing airports from Alaska?).

[spatialpro]

In my opinion the boys in France need to learn that there is more to Alaska than Juneau and Anchorage

That is an odd comment, given that the data was acquired by American and Canadian companies, paid for by the US government (all with the intent of acquiring the best available state-wide coverage for the time) and processed into an MSFS format by ORBX, who are about as international as it comes but if anything could be said to be Australian and British (given this where their only offices are located). Why does it matter where the "boys" are located anyhow?

[jmig]

Oops! It seems that I was unclear. I meant Asobo, when I said the boys in France. Maybe I should have added Microsoft. My point is that areas of Alaska are dismal when it comes to reproducing the scenery. If Obrx or any other company can improve this, state of dismal scenery, I approve and will most likely purchase their scenery.

[ak416]

The issue is the way that satellites capture the images used for things like Bing Maps and Google Earth. The further away from the equator, the less detailed the satellite imagery is. When you have a relatively small landmass like say, New Zealand or Iceland, you can fill in that data with aerial imagery instead of satellite imagery. When you have a massive chunk of land covered in ice and snow and clouds, like most of Canada and Alaska, that becomes a bit more difficult.

It's not an Asobo thing or an Orbx thing. If Orbx had the data to make an Alaskan version of their TrueEarth products, they'd have done it by now. If Asobo had better data for Alaska we would have gotten it with the United States World Update. If I had to guess, the data they want either doesn't exist in a way that is useful for them or it is prohibitively expensive for them to license to use.

[spatialpro]

The further away from the equator, the less detailed the satellite imagery is

The way you phrase that makes it sound as if the further one is from the equator the coarser the spatial resolution of the imagery, which is absolutely incorrect. I believe what you meant to say was there is less coverage of fine spatial resolution imagery (i.e. metre/sub-metre) in the archive...

covered in ice and snow and clouds

The latter is one of the main issues (i.e. poor weather causes frequent cloud cover). The other is related to latitude, in that there are fewer weeks/months in any given year when the sun angle is within acceptable limits (i.e. high enough). This narrow window of time is then impacted by the aforementioned cloud cover. Even though we've had commercial metre/sub-metre spatial resolution imaging satellites orbiting the Earth for >20 years now these are the reasons why high latitude coverage is still incomplete.

[ak416]

Yes, poor wording on my part, thank you for the correction and the additional context.

[Dangerous Beans]

ObsidianAnt talks about the new mesh in his latest video and he reached out to ORBX about how similar it is to default.

Watch from the 3:50 mark for their statement wich sound like a pretty reasonable explanation to me.

[DennyA]

Note that there are a wealth of excellent free Alaska airports up on FlightSim.to, many of which are payware quality. I really wish you could filter by state and not just country there. I've filled in a bunch of missing airports that way.

In fact, that's my biggest hesitancy about the OrbX product. It's inexpensive enough to buy given how much I like flying in Alaska, but I've seen mesh products mess up third-party add-ons.

[sketchy]

Note that there are a wealth of excellent free Alaska airports up on FlightSim.to, many of which are payware quality. I really wish you could filter by state and not just country there. I've filled in a bunch of missing airports that way.

In fact, that's my biggest hesitancy about the OrbX product. It's inexpensive enough to buy given how much I like flying in Alaska, but I've seen mesh products mess up third-party add-ons.

Could not agree more, as a long time add on downloader I am amazed at that site. You cannot select by state but the nearest and best thing I use is the "Scenery Map" that is helpful to at least zoom in on a geographical area.

Cheers,

Fras

[YoYo]

Alaska gate out - PAKT Ketchikan

https://orbxdirect.com/product/pakt-msfs

[Tom Clayton]

I'll probably pick that up instead of the bigger package.