Orbx Simulations's AU Blue
It is a a rare pleasure for a reviewer to be in complete agreement with a product's advertising. Full Terrain Experience is advertised as revolutionary, and I could not find a better word myself. It offers an unparalleled flying experience in many ways. The patches of land are photorealistic and offer incredible detail down to 500 AGL, as well as amazing variety and a feeling that you're really flying above Australia. I only wish I lived down under so that I could do this product full justice.
First Impressions-
Unlike a lot of high-detail packages like this, FTX comes in the form of a relatively small 700MB download exclusively from flightsimstore.com. I purchased a product the other day that only covers only the size of about one city, but still took over a gig on my harddrive. It installed easily with the usual required information, but I must say that the installer did run a little slowly. It didn't cause problems, but hey, I'm nit-picking here. After the installer ran, it created an Orbx group in the start menu as well as a manual and two programs on your desktop. The programs were FTX mode and FTX lights tweaker. Each of these are very handy tools that can save you a lot of trouble. FTX mode basically enables or disables FTX in the sim, and it's recommended that you shut FTX off when installing scenery. Also, shutting it off can help when flying around other addons that are covered by FTX, namely Aerosoft's Lord Howe Island X. FTX lights tweaker is just that; it lets you configure the different halo styles and sizes to your own preference. Mr. Tim Fuchs of Real Environment Extreme lent a hand here, with the result being some very fine light styles for different weather. When you start FSX, go straight to the included mission. It shows off a good variety of what's to be seen in FTX as well as some fun little easter eggs.
As I said, I think an Australian native could do a much better job at this. I can't say if the houses and autogen included are true to life, nor can I say if it's a good representation of what Australia really looks like (outside of me using Google Earth, of course, but you know what I mean). I did ask Mr. John Venema if Orbx would pay to send me on a short trip to Melbourne to get a feel of Australia, but apparently a good review isn't worth quite that much
. Anyway, I'll try to discuss the trees and buildings included. If you're a native, you can decide if you think they are a decent representation. If you've never been to Oz like me, pipe down as you don't know any better! Just kidding…
Foliage-
Trees are trees, and that's a fact; it didn't seem to me like there was much of a difference in quality between FSX and FTX trees. A lot of what's to be seen in this region consists of the shorter, fatter trees like a red ironbark. There are a lot of these lining the roads and in the cities. Further out, you'll see things resembling the FSX tropical trees like eucalyptus. One thing that I'd like to note here is that the trees are simply beautifully placed. This is especially noticeable along roads. From the air, it looks like they were placed actually on the road, but inspection from the ground shows that they are actually placed within feet of the road, just like a border of trees in real life. A quick look through what FTX installed reveals that they used trees like maples and sycamores. I don't know if these can be found in Australia, but they sure look good with the scenery anyway.
Stations (or houses/ranches :p )
Do you remember the first time you booted up FSX in a big city? Remember those horrible looking multisided Pentagon-things? Well, fortunately I did not see a single one of those throughout the whole scenery. As you're in the air most of the time in a flight simulator, you notice the roofs more than the sides of houses (unless you fly like me). The predominant color is a sort of Spanish red. A google search showed a house with a roof like that as one of the first results. As well as red, there are a smattering of white and grey of course. The sides of the houses of are quite nicely done, and they are much better defined as well as having loads more detail than FSX. Further out from the cities, you'll also find some very nice ranches stations with fences, the occasional barn, and perhaps a future drumstick or two. I personally prefer flying out towards the more rural areas myself as they're easier on frames, and you'll notice a lot of extras placed around some of the buildings such as a parked truck. Also, many have roads leadingstraight to them. Everything is very well placed, and you have a very convincing feel as you see the neat rows of houses. Well, do I sound like a real estate agent yet?
There is a good variety of different 'patches' of land. The way FTX was created is a little like FSX; the developers simply got to each section of land and put what landclass should be there, be it a train station, field, house, or road. However, that's where the similarity ends. FTX uses much more detailed sections, and places every field, rather than a whole batch of them. As I said, everything is beautifully positioned. Ever notice how a lot of the FSX roads require nothing short of a tank to drive on? FTX's roads wind along flat paths along cliffs, line the fields and skirt streams, or bisect rows of houses. Also, the movement of the AI cars is very believable with bidirectional traffic. Unlike FSX, however, you can see the dividing line painted onto the asphalt.
A lot of the fields have a reddish material and I suppose that's a great indication of the soil. As I said, it uses photoreal landclass, and all of the different crops in the fields are very easy on the eyes. All the textures are crisp and clean, whether you're out spraying fields or dodging the high rises of Sydney. The coastlines all are well portrayed and have a lot more detail and curves than FSX. Also, there are very nice beach textures and objects such as bright white sand or cement boat docks. The introductory mission takes you through some very nice examples of this, and it's really a great way to get to know the scenery. One nice touch that I rather liked is that there are flocks of birds flapping sporadically around the scenery. You'd better be pretty low to see them, however. The only major landmark that I missed are mines. Mining is not a small chunk of Australia's economy, but during my flight I never flew over one. Lastly, it was very considerate of the developers to include the lights tweaker. Everyone has different opinions of what the lights should look like, and they look different under the various weather conditions. So, with this handy tool, you can choose which style of light will be displayed in the sim. Mind you, this only covers the lights in AU Blue and doesn't extend out of that area or to traffic. Just so you know, my personal favorite is the 'Holger' style at size 7.
A couple of things that deserve a mention-
The traffic is simply superb. There are vast miles of roads, and the traffic dynamics and turns are beautifully done. Also, at some of the airports, there will be roads going right up to them. The most noticeable fault that I found is that a lot of roads just suddenly stop. However, these are generally dirt tracks with no traffic. There are plenty of lighthouses, streetlights, and custom objects. For all the autogen, it is incredibly easy on frames. In fact, I'd say it performs better than stock FSX in rural areas, but perhaps a little worse in the big cities. My rig is by no means high-powered, but I still got a lot out of the addon. The winter textures are also quite nice, and as with the summer, there is plenty of detail. One thing that I should note is that Australia is a very dry climate, and as such, you won't get the snow textures unless you select 'Winter Wonderland' as a theme. The higher mountains or ranges do receive snow, however.
Final Word-
In short, this is undeniably the best looking scenery package ever released for flight simulation. That's a tall compliment, but I don't think that it's unfounded. Many people would, I think, be put off by the small area it covers, but honestly, how much of a big package would you actually cover? If you really saw all that was to see in this package, it would take days of simply sitting at the computer and doing nothing else. The autogen is excellent and well placed, they did a marvellous job with the big skyscrapers custom buildings, and you can go incredibly low and still see detail. Frankly, it makes you want to download a car and see the sites that way. This is Orbx's first product for FSX, and they hit an absolute home run. If you don't have $30.00, go beg in the street, because this package will revolutionize your simming experience.
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