Why so few sceneries?

[ideoplastic 86]

I've not been long on FSX and have already bought FSDreamteam sceneries and others, however I find that many major airports in the US and other world areas, readily available for FS9, are still not available some 2 years+ into the life of this sim. Examples: KMIA, KLAX, KSEA,etc. - Just curious why this is the case, for example I would have thought that FlyTampa and others would have by now released FSX versions for all their FS9 versions. Likewise I still see a very lownumber of freeware sceneries. What is the reason for this?RegardsJoaquin

[Virtualwombat 4]

Because FSX pretty much requires starting from scratch; it is not a matter of tweaking FS9 scenery for FSX at all. Have a look at the Orbx portfolio - at least download their freeware demo for PNW.Cheers,Noel.

[CoolP 283]

Depends, I'd say ... if scenery has to be DX10 rdy in FSX than "from the scratch" might fit, otherwise you can look at e. g. Tampa's LOWW for FSX which is a well done port from FS9.I'm no programmer or designer but I have tried some freeware "FS2004 only" successfully in FSX DX9.I think that most payware devs won't give you support on ported stuff but nobody tells you that it won't work at all.Don't forget about the economical effects of the "need" for new software versions. Might be a factor.

[tf51d 284]

Also, there are many more detailed airports by default in FSX, most with Active Jetways, so the difference in addon scenery vs default is not as dramatic at it was in FS2004, which lowers demand, as many think the default is good enough.

[Mir // Flightbeam 541]

There are several reasons, but one major one is the Dev kit microsoft provided for FSX developers. As far as scenery goes, it's rather useless and EXTREMELY time consuming. New sceneries for FSX require a "hack" using FS2002 SDK and some extra AFCAD tricks to get it to work right AND look good. Had Microsoft provided us with better tools, you'd be seeing a lot more payware sceneries. :)

[curt1 79]

I would love a good Chicago Midway (KMDW) in FSX. Anyone know if this is under development?

[Guest NoNewMessages]

New sceneries for FSX require a "hack" using FS2002 SDK and some extra AFCAD tricks to get it to work right AND look good.

Your "hack" using the 2002 SDKs to circumvent the round earth introduced in FSX is your choice. Other have learned to work with the FSX SDKs, though it takes time and desire to make the switch from the flat earth concept.

[Tierborn 191]

Also, there are many more detailed airports by default in FSX, most with Active Jetways, so the difference in addon scenery vs default is not as dramatic at it was in FS2004, which lowers demand, as many think the default is good enough.

I second this rationale :(

[Mir // Flightbeam 541]

Your "hack" using the 2002 SDKs to circumvent the round earth introduced in FSX is your choice. Other have learned to work with the FSX SDKs, though it takes time and desire to make the switch from the flat earth concept.

I"m not sure what you're referring to, I've been applying textures fitting the FSX earth curvature for months using 2002 SDK.

[CoolP 283]

I think that there even are sceneries in FSX where FS2004 lacks of em. All the Australia stuff for example.I also think that some companies are quite confident with the tools and limitations of FSX while others still complain (mostly about things that business rivals might already have mastered a long time ago).I doubt that at any time there were flight sim devs fully confident with what MS has offered as SDK but of course they are confident about the platform MS has established and therefor a basis to sell stuff."Round earth" for example might be a big task for designers but in my eyes is a big step forwards to realism which the predecessors lacked of.If one particular airport is missing in your library, go for the forums to advertise for it - seems like the best solution to me.

[duckbilled 310]

I agree that there are many reasons but I think a key issues is that the market is still split between FSX and FS9. Most companies want to go after scenery that can be used with both sims to maximize sales. Companies may be less likely to do an airport an airport if a suitable product is already available for FS9. I think this will change as more people migrate over to FSX. Although FSX has been "alive" for about 2 years I think the rush to switch has only been going on for about a year - at least more me anyway. Of course hardware had to catch up but I think stuff like the ORBX scenery has made people move to FSX. Until ORBX, the argument that FS9 can look as good as FSX held water. Only with the last year or so has it became obvious that FSX has more to offer.I guess my argument is sort of circular - nice scenery fuels the switch to FSX and switching to FSX fuels nice scenery.

[Guest anthony31fs]

Your "hack" using the 2002 SDKs to circumvent the round earth introduced in FSX is your choice. Other have learned to work with the FSX SDKs, though it takes time and desire to make the switch from the flat earth concept.

I think the hack he is talking about is the ground polys for higher detail as so eloquently described by Bill Womack in this tutorial:http://www.simpilotnet.com/index.php?optio...6&Itemid=32and has nothing to do with the round earth although if building runways this way you need to make sure your polys are no larger than about 100m square so that they will fit the earth curvature. The FSX round earth is not a problem for scenery designers.The other hack using older SDKs is to create realistic windsocks as you can't create scenery objects that respond to the wind with the FSX SDK. If you only were using the FSX SDK you would have to create default windsocks which look pretty ordinary.

[spotlope 0]

It's worth noting that the ground poly "hack" was a hack in FS9 as well. It's an FS2002 trick. And by the way, there's a function in FSX that takes those FS2002 ground polys and fits them to the new round Earth model as long as you tesselate them every 100m or so. That's entirely thanks to the Aces, who added that in SP1 (I think) after developer comments.

[dmaher 0]

The other hack using older SDKs is to create realistic windsocks as you can't create scenery objects that respond to the wind with the FSX SDK. If you only were using the FSX SDK you would have to create default windsocks which look pretty ordinary.

I'm not familiar with scenery so I don't know...But is this really true? Can

[spotlope 0]

Sadly, that's not how it works. I really wish it did. All conditional flags are removed from scenery objects when they're compiled, so you can't have an animation that reacts, for example, to wind speed or direction. So yes, in that sense, FSX scenery is a step backward from FS9 and earlier.I'm referring to standard "sandbox" scenery, of course. You can do a lot of nifty conditional stuff in missions, but they're a different beast entirely.

I'm not familiar with scenery so I don't know...But is this really true? Can't you assign animations to the library objects?If a library object refers to modeldef.xml for its animations - you could certainly add the req'd windsock logic there...no?Danny