FTX England (UK) and 3rd party Airports, Airfields and Scenery

[lateagain 45]

As many here have mentioned compatability with UK2000 airfields and add-ons I thought that the following review that I just stumbled upon might help? Obviously it's written before FTX was on the UK scene.

 

http://www.simflight...te-city-london/

 

Whilst this is concentrating on London and the SE the comparative nature of this review is IMO excellent. FS.com and AVSim have both published comparative reviews on add-ons in the past and it would be useful to see a return to this format in future? Particularly when quite a few creators/publishers are about to release models of the same or very similar aircraft?

 

Of course the missing element in this review is FTX and what that will bring in the way of default airfields and airports. It does actually show in considerable detail the difference between 2-3 versions of major SE airports and as FTX don't have these on their current project list I'm sure many "tube jockeys" will want to invest in them when Fd arrives?

 

My own preference for low and slow (mainly VFR) flying means that the UK2000 VFR airfields are likely to be on my shopping list but the "tube jockeys" amongst you who don't already have any UK airport add-ons will find this helpful I'm sure?

 

Geoff

[andrewholdsworth 0]

Hi Guys. As the owner of Flightstore.co.uk, a big supporter and stockist of ORBX titles I am looking forward to offering FTX England on our website and stores..

However as some of you know, I also own the publishing company Playsims Publishing which publishers Horizons's VFR Photographic scenery , Treescaoes from Earth Simulations and UK2000 Airports.

 

I wanted to make this clear from the outset as obvioulsy some people may think i am taking advantage of a conflict of interests when reading my post below.

I assure you that as my primary business is Flightstore Pilto shop, i will sell anything to the best of our ability that is in demand, regardless of other interests.

 

But being the publishers of this well known software does allow me to give a more detailed perspective as to what the future of this title might hold, as we know quite a lot about making scenery.

 

Without doubt FTX Englnad as a replacement landclass for the default FSX scenery is a no brainer. It looks far better. I cannot comment on performance as we have not seen it run yet, but i know Orbx and this will have been at the forefront of their minds.

 

The question is , what happens to those FSX scenery libraries that have other 3rd party software on them.

 

1.) Certainly it will overwrite and effectively hide any VFR Photographic scenery for England whether that is Horizons or Just Flights VFR Scenery

2.) Blending: There are no blends between say the Welsh or Scottish border in FTX and VFR Scenery as they use different images, so you will see the border and colour changes.

3.) You may have to remove Aerosofts VFR London scenery, If you keep it and moveit above FTX England, the chances of 2 x LONDONS RUNNING is I think too much to expect and Orbx will probably argue why would you want to.

4.) Earth simulations Treescapes products will be hidden unless these are movedabove but i can say with much certainty that if you do that it will look rubbish.

There will be trees everywhere, certainly conlficting with FTX landclass buildings

5.) UK2000 , Gary's airports remain the biggest question as ORBX will launch the inital airfield Goodwood that has been designed to blend with FTX, but none of Garys work will blend with FTX. At this stage we dont even know if it will cause conflicts.

6.) REX and REX Essential. No idea.

 

 

We are hoping to test this software as soon as John Venna at Orbx gets a copy to us

we intend to do 3 tests

1.) Clean install over FSX generic with no artisitic embelishments

2.) Install over VFR Scenery and treescapes but leaving UK 2000 airports above it

3. ) Install over VFR Scenery, but moving treescapes and UK 2000 above it

 

We wll post our results as soon as we have them.

 

Hope you have fould this post useful as we dont normally do this sort of thing as it might look like punting for business, but in this case i think we have a good reason to get involved.

There are 43,000 VFR scenery users out there each with an average value on their PCs of around £100 each, So this will be a big ask to remove all these if that is what is required. And as the front line for customer support and complaints we need to know, just as you do, what exactly will happen here.

 

Keep an eye on our website for a pre-order launch. You can sign up to your newsletter if you want which will let you know immediately when we have the details online.

www.flightstore.co.uk

 

if anyone wants to contact me directly my email is andrewh@flightstore.co.uk , but please dont spam it around or i will to change it again!!!

Thanks

Andrew Holdsworth

[lateagain 45]

Hi Andy,

 

Great stuff.

 

I guess the acceptability of blending is going to be a matter of taste to some extent? The official FTX forum has already posted some comparative screengrabs of default, their own and UK2000 VFR fields. Unless there are other issues (levelling etc.) the texture differences shown there are acceptable to me personally but others may find them not so. I would point out that some of the FTX add-on detailed airfields use some photoreal textures anyway and for me these work fine.

 

The Photoreal sceneries that look excellent in higher altitude scenarios were not for me, so I only began to appreciate how much work UK2000 had done on VFR fields when folk raidsed this question. I already have Denham and White Waltham by JustFlight and decided in anticipation of FTX England to buy the 3 UK2000 areas anyway. I was delighted to find that the package has a control panel that allows you deselect airfields you may already have by other publishers. Although I'm not (for now) a tubeliner jockey I was none the less pleased to find that the renditions of the major airports included in the VFR packs are also a huge improvement on the basics, although obviously anyone wanting to fly tubes will want the more detailed Xtreme versions or their own favourites?

 

Look forward to your feedback.

 

Geoff

[GHD 21]

1.) Certainly it will overwrite and effectively hide any VFR Photographic scenery for England whether that is Horizons or Just Flights VFR Scenery

 

I don't think so.

 

4.) Earth simulations Treescapes products will be hidden unless these are movedabove but i can say with much certainty that if you do that it will look rubbish.

There will be trees everywhere, certainly conlficting with FTX landclass buildings

 

Wrong. Treescapes is custom autogen associated with photo scenery.

[andrewholdsworth 0]

No I am sorry but I dont see how i can be wrong

If you have FTX England you will not see vfr photo for England

It's as simple as that

You will see Wales and Scotland if you gave them

 

As for treescapes

In a way I think I know what you are driving at in so much that to install treescapes you need vfr scenery but once installed it will not show if you install FTX eu after this as FTX will be at the top of your scenery library

 

Surely it would by default hide them wouldn't it?

And then if you try and move them above FTX and lets say it does not crash then you must have trees from both FTX and treescapes trying to display

 

To be fair we are not trying this until Monday so we will have a clearer picture of what happens

 

Bear with us

[karrilon 20]

No I am sorry but I dont see how i can be wrong

If you have FTX England you will not see vfr photo for England

 

Sorry Andrew, this isn't the case. I installed FTX England yesterday and on the first run Horizon VFR was still there. FTX didn't generate until I deselected the Horizon scenery in the Scenery Library.

[GHD 21]

No I am sorry but I dont see how i can be wrong

If you have FTX England you will not see vfr photo for England

It's as simple as that

You will see Wales and Scotland if you gave them

 

As for treescapes

In a way I think I know what you are driving at in so much that to install treescapes you need vfr scenery but once installed it will not show if you install FTX eu after this as FTX will be at the top of your scenery library

 

Surely it would by default hide them wouldn't it?

And then if you try and move them above FTX and lets say it does not crash then you must have trees from both FTX and treescapes trying to display

 

To be fair we are not trying this until Monday so we will have a clearer picture of what happens

 

Bear with us

 

Well, I am afraid you are wrong. How do you think that photo-inserts display above FTX?

 

As for Treescapes, this is not a freestanding product, it has no entry in the scenery library.

 

Treescapes will show (and hide default autogen) so long as the associated photo-scenery is active somewhere in the scenery library.

[Andydigital 93]

No I am sorry but I dont see how i can be wrong

If you have FTX England you will not see vfr photo for England

It's as simple as that

You will see Wales and Scotland if you gave them

 

As for treescapes

In a way I think I know what you are driving at in so much that to install treescapes you need vfr scenery but once installed it will not show if you install FTX eu after this as FTX will be at the top of your scenery library

 

Surely it would by default hide them wouldn't it?

And then if you try and move them above FTX and lets say it does not crash then you must have trees from both FTX and treescapes trying to display

 

To be fair we are not trying this until Monday so we will have a clearer picture of what happens

 

Bear with us

 

I posted this quote below in reply to your post in another thread on the same subject but you failed to reply so I'll post it again here. By the way GHD and I were beta testers for Horizon a long time ago now and I don't know if GHD is still a tester, but that is two of us now that have questioned your understanding of the basic fundamentals of photo scenery design in MS Flight Simulator.

 

You have it backwards, no land class based scenery will ever overwrite photo scenery, not even FTX with its third party scenery breaking mode. Photoscenery (PS) always has priority number 1* and will always be visible instead of land class textures regardless of where it is in the scenery library layer list.

 

To use FTX UK the user will be required to disable any UK photoscenery products in the scenery library manager by removing the tick marks next to the huge list of Horizon/Playsims scenery entries, or at least the items/folders that have PS bgl's (photo 2.4, 1.2, 0.6 etc) inside them. You may need to disable the Mesh folders too but that depends on what resolution and source mesh Orbx are using. Maybe the FTX mode switcher app can disable these entries automatically, presuming of course that FTX is still using that method with this scenery.

 

The same goes for Horizons VFR London, it will need deselecting (unless the user prefers it), it is a high resolution photo scenery product with custom placed 3D scenery on top of it and not autogen like is used in FTX products for the most part, so it can't be removed or hidden by an exclusion.

 

Treescapes (TS) will automatically be disabled when you deselect the photoscenery products, the TS autogen is in the texture folders within the Horizon areas, except for those small areas around some UK2000 airfields where the trees were added locally in the UK2000 folders to make sure they were not excluded by Gary's exclusions.

 

 

*Photoscenery can be overwritten by another PS product at a higher level of detail (0.6m is higher res than 1.2m, so 0.6 would hide the 1.2 textures) but no land class based texture scenery will ever display above PS, PS always overrides land class based textures.

 

Autogen on the other hand can be excluded by an exclusion rectangle, so FTX face the same problem of Autogen voids (FTX autogen will be removed) around some UK2000 products/areas because their exclusion rectangles need some refinement.

[andrewholdsworth 0]

HI Andy

yes i see your point, it was my terminology using the word "overwrite"

 

I was trying to confirm that you cannot run photo scenery and FTX and display both at the same time.

 

which is what i was driving at as the vast majority of my customers will not be prepared to start editing fsx library

 

if they have vfr scenery installed and then buy and install FTX we will be inundated with tech support saying it does not work as they cant see it.

 

but i gettign clearer on this problem now as when we begin to start sellign it i need to try and explain what th e issues will be when depending ontheir system.

 

thanks for your help.

 

PS: You dont need to question my understanding of phtooscenery, i am simply the owner of Flightstore and not the develoepr Horizon who i trust to understand it fully.

 

i am looking at this problem from a RETAIL point only. Askign the question, What will the average flight sim user experience when installign this over any vfr product.

 

your explanation does not fill me with hope !!

 

Sorry Andrew, this isn't the case. I installed FTX England yesterday and on the first run Horizon VFR was still there. FTX didn't generate until I deselected the Horizon scenery in the Scenery Library.

 

HI

Yes it appears you are correct. Which from a retailer point of view is bad. A lot of my customers are not advanced users and will simply expect to put a dvd in the drive install it and see it working

 

I am sure you can imagine the amount of tect calls saying it does not work!!

 

if you ignore my terminolgy "Overwrite" and change that to "Replace" then what i said is correct, once FTX is running, vfr scenery is hidden after manually disabling it.

[GHD 21]

if you ignore my terminolgy "Overwrite" and change that to "Replace" then what i said is correct, once FTX is running, vfr scenery is hidden after manually disabling it.

 

That is a peculiar thing to say.

 

If you manually disable FTX, you won't see that either.