No Palm Trees in Florida with UTX/GEX

[mcparr42 13]

I am doing a lot of Florida flying now in FSX and have both Ground Environment X and Ultimate Terrain X. The ground textures look very good but there are no palm trees anywhere in the state that I can find. I have spent time in Tampa, Miami, Fort Myers, and West Palm Beach.Previously when I used Birds Eye View in FS9 there was an option that activated palm trees in certain areas. Is there such a feature in FSX that I dont know about? If I get FS Genesis landclass or Cloud 9 X Class would that solve the problem?Thanks in advance for any information.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

A complicated issue and understanding it requires knowing the autogen annotations of the add-on ground textures.The variety of vegetation depends on the annotations for the particular ground texture and also the regional assignment there. For example, some ground textures are annotated to display a "Deciduous Broadleaf Forest" that includes a diverse range of trees and bushes. However, in North America, this annotation will not display palms, whereas the very same annotation in tropical regions will also add palms and Eucalyptus trees.So, perhaps there are a few solutions;1. The most obvious is to write the authors of the add-ons and ask them. They are supposedly the best qualified to respond to such questions about their product.2. The do-it-yourself solution - check the ground textures of the add-ons and see what the annotations are, change them if required, then make a replacement regional file so that autogen will display as if it were in the tropics.For a more detailed explanation of the autogen annotation process, please see Using the Autogen Annotator in the Avsim library:http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?&DLID=107335Best regards.Luis

[Guest Nick_N]

I am doing a lot of Florida flying now in FSX and have both Ground Environment X and Ultimate Terrain X. The ground textures look very good but there are no palm trees anywhere in the state that I can find. I have spent time in Tampa, Miami, Fort Myers, and West Palm Beach.Previously when I used Birds Eye View in FS9 there was an option that activated palm trees in certain areas. Is there such a feature in FSX that I dont know about? If I get FS Genesis landclass or Cloud 9 X Class would that solve the problem?Thanks in advance for any information.

It is a catch 22 problem and its centered on a error in FSX in ZONESIf palms are directly annotated to the tiles they will appear far out of the Florida area which creates the opposite issue "Why are there palms in Atlanta" and because of the zone issues selecting the annotation options which should switch the tress automatically when annotating a regional tree you end up with palms where they do not belong like in Aspen Colorado, etc. We found a partial solution and made changes to try and reduce the palms showing up in places they should not.. and by the way, this same issue of palms seen in Colorado and other mountain areas is seen in FSX default too. Make sure you have the latest patch for GEX (v1.08) as it can be downloaded through the interface. As we go back over the USA we will attempt to test a fix and see if we can get palms showing where they should uniformly however right now the problem is the design of FSX itself and not the addon.BTW.. have you noticed it snows in Florida using the default seasons file? LOL Another issue in itself

[mcparr42 13]

Nick and Luis,Thanks for the information. I do have the current version (1.08) installed. I also get the basic idea of the problem, and have read the posts where people are upset with the palm trees showing up in Colorado.FSX is certainly not perfect, but as somone who has been playing flight simulator for the past 10 years, I am sure happy with the progress (and also sad to see that it has come to an end with the apparent demise of FS11). I guess for now I will take a look at the annotator, or maybe just add some palms on the approach patterns using Instant Scenery. Again, thanks.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hmm, you know it is really not very difficult to do this. It took about 2 minutes to create a regions file that converts all of Florida south of Belle Glade into the Tropical Americas region. I would place it here but it seems that zip files are no longer allowed as attachments in this forum. (Strange - Tom, Geof, David, is this just some option that was not selected?)It is a very small file, only a few kBs in size, and if you want it, please just give me a mail address. There are 3 files covering 3 different Cells. I cannot guarantee the results because I do not know anything of those add-ons or the ground textures and annotations they use, but these files will work with the default files, so they will probably also work with them.All that they do is force the display of tropical Americas ground textures, autogen vegetation, and autogen building textures for the area covered. It is a simple and effective solution.About palms in Florida, however, it is interesting to note that apart from Sabal (the palmetto or scrub palmetto, endemic throughout the Gulf region), perhaps Roystonea (the Royal Palm), and Acoelorrhaphe (the Everglades or silver saw palm), there are no palms native to Forida. All the others have been brought in recently, most in only the last few decades. And of course in most of Florida there are no palms at all.Best regards.Luis

[FalconAF 213]

BTW.. have you noticed it snows in Florida using the default seasons file? LOL Another issue in itself

That's just FSX attempting to solve the Global Warming issue. :((OK...so I'm bored right now....)Rick

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

The seasonal variations in FS seem to be based on the K

[Guest Nick_N]

I am currently in Boca Raton, FL at my winter residence getting ready to head back to Seattle and I can say with experience it does not flurry down here more than twice every 25 years.. which is why I am here in the winter LOLAnd even when a flurry would be seen its gone, nothing sticksNow, Orlando CAN see a 'dusting' every so many years (10 or so) and Jacksonville (north florida) and the panhandle can get snow in accumulation regularly every year and although frost can bite from time to time in the center of the state away from the ocean where the orange groves are located there is not enough of that to allow any snow or accumulation to hang around other than from Orlando, north and unless it happens in the very far north of Florida, no more than a day (or 1/2 a day) it hangs around on the ground and even that is very rare. The center of the state south of Orlando can see flurries in the middle of the night at best and can have a dusting from time to time however its much much rarer than frost which usually presents itself in possibility for about 3-6 weeks of the year in the winter.. usually there is a 1-2 week period that may cause the majorty of the damage to the crops and that varies from year to year if it happens at all. People who live here know what

[Guest PPSFA]

I have the opposite problem, palm trees in Wyoming :-)

[Guest Nick_N]

I have the opposite problem, palm trees in Wyoming :-)

Yea I know.. LOL default has them in Colorado, Wyoming and I even saw some in central Canada once with SceneryTech Landclass.. never did figure that one out

[scott967 62]

I did a Florida season mod for someone a year ago. If someone wants it shoot me a PM with email. It isn't a work of art, but gets the job done.scott s..

[VeryBumpy 272]

Is there a file download somewhere solving the no palm trees in Florida? thanks

[PIC007 82]

Plenty of palm trees, they were planted after 2009, the date of this thread  :-)

[stans 702]

Holy dead thread resurrection! :Silly: