ORBX Textures to Replace UTX Custom Ones

[alainneedle1 97]

My apologies Alain, I seem to recall a post you made some time ago proudly proclaiming yourself to be "Orbx free".

 

Still, my point stands: If tomorrow John Venema found a cure for cancer, Orbx put a man on Mars and ended world hunger you'd still find a way to turn it around and bash them.

 

You have a problem with JV and Orbx. We get it. We got it a long time ago. It's not necessary to continually throw yourself and your agenda into discussions about products you don't own produced by a developer you no longer purchase from. You do neither yourself nor the wider community any favours by continuing to pursue this agenda - in fact you are very rapidly becoming something of a caricature. Surely there must be more important and pressing matters in your life than travelling the Internet stirring the Orbx pot at every opportunity and trying to drag other personalities such as Nick Needham and Word Not Allowed into your campaign? It can't be good for you.

 

Let it go.

 

Yes there are some legitimate questions about how Orbx handled the release of FTXG - specifically about how certain issues were kept quiet until the customers discovered them. Getting satisfactory answers to those questions isn't going to happen when you keep muddying the water.

 

No need for apologies.

 

Let me deal with that, I'm a big boy, I can take it.

[simmerhead 885]

Any tools or files that modify or manipulate Orbx textures or files contravenes the Orbx FTX EULA. Please do not go down the path of modifying or moving Orbx texture assets or we will take swift legal action.

I had to read this twice and still can't believe what I've read... You're not making it easy being a fan of your products.

[Kangaby 14]

Imagine if you brought a car, that came with an EULA, that only allowed you to drive it in the state you purchased it in. Then the supplier wanted to take you to court because you drove your car out of your home state, and this contravined their EULA, because you didn't purchase a multi-state user pack. This would be laughed out of court.

 

If you apply EULA's to physical products, they are just absurd. It's time these software EULA's were tested in the courts, and proved to be the shame they are.

 

We're not talking copyright violations here.

[sascha 314]

Yes, I think

 

Imagine if you brought a car, that came with an EULA, that only allowed you to drive it in the state you purchased it in. Then the supplier wanted to take you to court because you drove your car out of your home state, and this contravined their EULA, because you didn't purchase a multi-state user pack. This would be laughed out of court.

 

If you apply EULA's to physical products, they are just absurd. It's time these software EULA's were tested in the courts, and proved to be the shame they are.

 

We're not talking copyright violations here.

 

Absolutely right! The OP was actually suggesting replacing UTX textures with ORBX textures to make them more compatible.

 

So if anything UTX should be complaining.

 

But this just goes to show: it's  not about thinking and facts, but about attitude ...

[pilotjohn 19]

I'm sure I would not have had that well thought out and logical response from ORBX if FTXG had no vector product in the works. But alas, they made their point clear. Despite this I'm hoping the community will prevail in the long-run, which is what keeps FSX viable. Otherwise, ORBX is doing nothing but contributing to the erosion of an already dwindling user base.

[alainneedle1 97]

I'm sure I would not have had that well thought out and logical response from ORBX if FTXG had no vector product in the works. But alas, they made their point clear. Despite this I'm hoping the community will prevail in the long-run, which is what keeps FSX viable. Otherwise, ORBX is doing nothing but contributing to the erosion of an already dwindling user base.

 

A long time ago (when FTXG was announced but not released) I said that Orbx was aiming at getting the monopoly (as much as they can) with their new way of making add on (FTXG), THEY do not see it as erosion as they are trying to keep their customers and possible new blood in their circle, as a business decision does that make sense...of course it does but to whom detriment...the whole community, should they care about the community...naaaa they won't ....UNLESS you mess with their stuff. 

 

Sascha already pointed it out...Quote"  ORBX already seems to have caused some splits in the FS community judging from the increasingly bitter debates raging along several forums." end of quote

 

Why do you think they have not kept the on/off switch button from their FTX central, why not keeping it with FTXG, there is NO reason why they took it off but to slowly and surely keep their customers and future newbies in their circle....good business decision.. yes, to whom detriment...again, the whole community.

 

Why is JV posting a threat like that...I think you all know the answer to that question, and guess what, I got a time out for trying to show what was coming....I was tagged as having a agenda, not liking the company, having an axe to grind,  muddying the water. and on and on and on....you all don't mind if I laugh a little about that right now, right?

 

If somebody find a fix for a problem or a way to make FSX run smoother with better visual and want to share his finding but is not sure about the legality of such a thing.....PM or e-mail is the way to go, and NO they won't come after you in the privacy of your own home.

 

At the end the community SHOULD prevail.

[cvearl 60]

Imagine if you brought a car, that came with an EULA, that only allowed you to drive it in the state you purchased it in. Then the supplier wanted to take you to court because you drove your car out of your home state, and this contravined their EULA, because you didn't purchase a multi-state user pack. This would be laughed out of court.

 

If you apply EULA's to physical products, they are just absurd. It's time these software EULA's were tested in the courts, and proved to be the shame they are.

 

We're not talking copyright violations here.

 

Question... Should I (or anyone else) be entitled to use the 3D Library objects (models created by ORBX staff) and Textures (drawn and painted by ORBX staff) to make my own airports and upload them to AVSIM Library? Not the same issue as this thread but I always wondered why people thought they should be able to.

 

While I understand what JV was trying to protect his company assets, he may need to soften his responses a little. Otherwise you get this whole BS show. Us against them! Evil companies that try to make products that improve our experience must die! But really. If people are worried, why buy it then. Just don't. Ya got your GEX's and UTX's and FSGenesis's. Get em while thier hot! Nobody is stopping anyone.

 

If a company wants to make an ORBX compatible airport, they can. Nothing stopping them either. Make your models. Make your textures. Colorize them to blend as best you can and go to town. There are companies already doing that.

 

If JV does not want anyone using company made assets to enhance or create other sceneries, what is so evil about that? I think his comment (albeit blunt) was to say... As you go down the "community made solutions path", don't adjust or change anything in the ORBX product or use ORBX made assets to enhance someone else's scenery as it is not allowed. This is Business 101. But he needs a publicist before too many enemies are made.

 

PS - The community is not dwindling because of ORBX. That's crazy talk. It's a lack of interrest in the hobby in general. Period. Where does ORBX cause the community to dwindle? I can't wrap my head around that. I don't get it.

 

Charles.

[pilotjohn 19]

Question... Should I (or anyone else) be entitled to use the 3D Library objects (models created by ORBX staff) and Textures (drawn and painted by ORBX staff) to make my own airports and upload them to AVSIM Library?

 

Not the same issue as this thread but I always wondered why people thought they should be able to.

 

While I understand what JV was trying to protect his company assets, he may need to soften his responses a little. Otherwise you get this whole BS show. Us against them! Evil companies that try to make products that improve our experience. But really. If people are worried, why buy it then. Just don't. Ya got your GEX's and UTX's and FSGenesis's. Get em while thier hot! Nobody is stopping anyone.

 

If a company wants to make an ORBX compatible airport, they can. Nothing stopping them either. Make your models. Make your textures. Colorize them to blend as best you can and go to town. There are companies already doing that.

 

If JV does not want anyone using company made assets to enhance or create other sceneries, what is so evil about that? I think his comment (albeit blunt) was to say... As you go down the "community made solutions path", don't adjust or change anything in the ORBX product or use ORBX made assets to enhance someone else's scenery as it is not allowed.

 

This is Business 101. But he needs a publicist before too many enemies are made. The community is not dwindling because of ORBX. That's crazy talk. It's a lack of interrest in the hobby in general. Period.

 

Charles.

 

I think you're missing the major point here... that they advertised UTX compatibility, and it was not delivered. And when their customers pointed this out and asked how to make it work, they were more then happy to give direction on and hint at how to modify another companies configuration/entries to make some of it work.

 

But when the other half of the compatibility problem requires the reuse of their assets, they seem to have a different take on the matter. It's hypocritical, and clearly a new stance only because they now introduced a UTX-competing product. It might be the right business decision, but apparently they missed the ethics courses. I would use the analogy that they are the strip-miners of the FSX community.

[cvearl 60]

A long time ago (when FTXG was announced but not released) I said that Orbx was aiming at getting the monopoly (as much as they

 

*snip*

 

At the end the community SHOULD prevail.

 

What is it you want ORBX to do exaclty? Stop making scenery? Go out of business. Fold up? And to what end?

 

Please... Be short and clear.

 

Charles.

[pilotjohn 19]

What is it you want ORBX to do exaclty? Stop making scenery? Go out of business. Fold up? And to what end?

 

Please... Be short and clear.

 

Charles.

 

The questions is not directed at me, but I'll give an answer: deliver the advertised product for which I paid $100.

[sascha 314]

Question... Should I (or anyone else) be entitled to use the 3D Library objects (models created by ORBX staff) and Textures (drawn and painted by ORBX staff) to make my own airports and upload them to AVSIM Library? Not the same issue as this thread but I always wondered why people thought they should be able to.

 

While I understand what JV was trying to protect his company assets, he may need to soften his responses a little. Otherwise you get this whole BS show. Us against them! Evil companies that try to make products that improve our experience must die! But really. If people are worried, why buy it then. Just don't. Ya got your GEX's and UTX's and FSGenesis's. Get em while thier hot! Nobody is stopping anyone.

 

If a company wants to make an ORBX compatible airport, they can. Nothing stopping them either. Make your models. Make your textures. Colorize them to blend as best you can and go to town. There are companies already doing that.

 

If JV does not want anyone using company made assets to enhance or create other sceneries, what is so evil about that? I think his comment (albeit blunt) was to say... As you go down the "community made solutions path", don't adjust or change anything in the ORBX product or use ORBX made assets to enhance someone else's scenery as it is not allowed. This is Business 101. But he needs a publicist before too many enemies are made.

 

PS - The community is not dwindling because of ORBX. That's crazy talk. It's a lack of interrest in the hobby in general. Period. Where does ORBX cause the community to dwindle? I can't wrap my head around that. I don't get it.

 

Charles.

 

I think you didn't read the OP well (or at all). Or do you just want to deflect criticism from ORBX by suggesting it is all about pirating or something like that?

 

This thread did not start because people want to use ORBX products for their own stuff. They would be legit to warn against that.

 

Pilotjohn was thinking about making ORBX compatible with UTX by overwriting some UTX stuff with ORBX textures.

 

It was stated on the ORBX forums that FTX would be fully UTX compatible, just as it was stated that it would be DXT10 compatible.

 

But Pilotjohn wasn't even complaining, he was just saying how this problem could be solved by anyone interested in doing so.

 

He also didn't say he would post the modified files or anything like that, he just thought about how one could fix it.

 

So why would ORBX threaten him with legal action? Especially in such a rude fashion?

 

That is not only legally dubious becuase Pilotjohn would not be modifiying ORBX textures but UTX textures.

 

It also shows that ORBX seems not to think clearly because how would they know if people modified their own setup?

 

So it just annoys people (including me) because this is an attitude that squashes the sharing of information about FS setups and tweaks which has always been part of the community.

 

Please read my post #5 to see why I find this behaviour wrong.

 

Regards,

Sascha

I think you're missing the major point here... that they advertised UTX compatibility, and it was not delivered. And when their customers pointed this out and asked how to make it work, they were more then happy to give direction on and hint at how to modify another companies configuration/entries to make some of it work.

 

But when the other half of the compatibility problem requires the reuse of their assets, they seem to have a different take on the matter. It's hypocritical, and clearly a new stance only because they now introduced a UTX-competing product. It might be the right business decision, but apparently they missed the ethics courses. I would use the analogy that they are the strip-miners of the FSX community.

 

Aha, I didn't know that, not following this controversy very closely.

 

But you are right - this is hypocritical at best. UTX should have threatened them with swift legal action

 

But I guess the guys over at UTX are more relaxed about this.

 

Sascha

But when the other half of the compatibility problem requires the reuse of their assets, they seem to have a different take on the matter. It's hypocritical, and clearly a new stance only because they now introduced a UTX-competing product. It might be the right business decision, but apparently they missed the ethics courses. I would use the analogy that they are the strip-miners of the FSX community.

I don't think it is a very good business decision. I think they are scaring off a lot of potential customers with this attitude.

 

They also seem to scare off customers with their handling of the support forums.

 

They also seem to have induced some fence-sitting with potential customers through the pricing.

 

They also annoyed some buyers because FTXG could not be uninstalled initially.

 

They also annoyed some buyers because they hyped the product with OpenLC screenshots but you need to buy that program for an additional 50+ bucks I hear. Or is it more?

 

Then they confused a lot of potential buyers and caused some more fence-sitting because of the slew of new products and people do not understand how they combine (and they also seem to have changed some functions of the usual interface at the same time).

 

I believe they make really good products but I do not think their handling of the customer base is very wise at the moment.

 

It will be interesting to see where ORBX goes in the future ...

[cvearl 60]

I think you didn't read the OP well (or at all). Or do you just want to deflect criticism from ORBX by suggesting it is all about pirating or something like that?

 

This thread did not start because people want to use ORBX products for their own stuff. They would be legit to warn against that.

 

Pilotjohn was thinking about making ORBX compatible with UTX by overwriting some UTX stuff with ORBX textures.

 

It was stated on the ORBX forums that FTX would be fully UTX compatible, just as it was stated that it would be DXT10 compatible.

 

But Pilotjohn wasn't even complaining, he was just saying how this problem could be solved by anyone interested in doing so.

 

He also didn't say he would post the modified files or anything like that, he just thought about how one could fix it.

 

So why would ORBX threaten him with legal action? Especially in such a rude fashion?

 

That is not only legally dubious becuase Pilotjohn would not be modifiying ORBX textures but UTX textures.

 

It also shows that ORBX seems not to think clearly because how would they know if people modified their own setup?

 

So it just annoys people (including me) because this is an attitude that squashes the sharing of information about FS setups and tweaks which has always been part of the community.

 

Please read my post #5 to see why I find this behaviour wrong.

 

Regards,

Sascha

 

Aha, I didn't know that, not following this controversy very closely.

 

But you are right - this is hypocritical at best. UTX should have threatened them with swift legal action

 

But I guess the guys over at UTX are more relaxed about this.

 

Sascha

 

Good points. I have no emotional stake in this. Tell ya what...

 

I have a virgin install of FSX right now. I am going to screen shot Default FSX over some city at night. Then with UTX installed to see what it was designed to look like. Then lastly with FTXG added. If it's broken, I will definitely understand what you are all on about I guess.

 

Charles.

[EngineRoom 205]

 

 

If it's broken, I will definitely understand what you are all on about I guess.

 

If you want to see the problem you'll need to run FTXG with UTX disabled. Then enable UTX and spot the difference... I posted some screenshots in the UTX/FTXG thread showing the differences.

 

FTXG's vector lights on the roads didn't work with UTX scenery enabled. The user has to go into their terrain.cfg and adjust the entries for the UTX roads to get FTXG's lights to work with them.

 

The issue is that in the pre-release publicity Orbx said FTXG was compatible with UTX, they even showed screenshots of FTXG running with UTX. The FTXG manual states that it is compatible with UTX. It wasn't until after release we find out that one of the headline features of FTXG doesn't work with UTX. It's no biggie for sure because it was actually pretty easy to fix. The problem in my mind is that Orbx must have known this was the case but kept quiet about it so as not to damage potential sales of FTXG on day one. The same for DX10 compatibility.

 

I don't think they're ripping us off, but I think they are maybe sailing rather close to the wind with stuff like this. As a long time Orbx customer who owns everything they have made, it does give me pause for thought. Certainly JV's response to the OP confirms my feelings that he has long since given up any real concern for the community and is a pure 100% business man now. It's all about the money.... I don't have a problem with that at all, after all Orbx make excellent products. However, if I think they are starting to take me for a fool then my wallet will snap shut pretty quick.

[e51f8e0401548d7940caf01724 16]

A long time ago (when FTXG was announced but not released) I said that Orbx was aiming at getting the monopoly (as much as they can) with their new way of making add on (FTXG), THEY do not see it as erosion as they are trying to keep their customers and possible new blood in their circle, as a business decision does that make sense...of course it does but to whom detriment...the whole community, should they care about the community...naaaa they won't ....UNLESS you mess with their stuff. 

 

Sascha already pointed it out...Quote"  ORBX already seems to have caused some splits in the FS community judging from the increasingly bitter debates raging along several forums." end of quote

 

Why do you think they have not kept the on/off switch button from their FTX central, why not keeping it with FTXG, there is NO reason why they took it off but to slowly and surely keep their customers and future newbies in their circle....good business decision.. yes, to whom detriment...again, the whole community.

 

Why is JV posting a threat like that...I think you all know the answer to that question, and guess what, I got a time out for trying to show what was coming....I was tagged as having a agenda, not liking the company, having an axe to grind,  muddying the water. and on and on and on....you all don't mind if I laugh a little about that right now, right?

 

If somebody find a fix for a problem or a way to make FSX run smoother with better visual and want to share his finding but is not sure about the legality of such a thing.....PM or e-mail is the way to go, and NO they won't come after you in the privacy of your own home.

 

At the end the community SHOULD prevail.

 

banned at orbx, endless posts at this forum, temporarily banned at avsim, move to aerosoft and kostas blog where next?

 

what if we dont want your kind words of caution?

 

what if we want uninterrupted threads about Orbx/P3D/whatever-Alain-doesn't-like. when is enough enough?

 

or are we all still in the dark and need to be enlightened

[EngineRoom 205]

 

 

banned at orbx, endless posts at this forum, temporarily banned at avsim, move to aerosoft and kostas blog where next?

 

You forgot the GEX forum....