XP vs Real life

[tonywob 4,769]

 

 

The W2XP buildings just look weird without photoscenery underneath them though. If default autogen can have a yard or parking lot under a building as it's placed, is there any way for you to incorporate that in the future with buildings derived from OSM?

 

Absolutely agree, it looks simply terrible without photoimagery, almost like a child has thrown lego blocks all over the place and expect thems to look good. So much so that I'm considering future regions to simply be overlays for photoimagery as opposed to standalone scenery.

 

I've experimented with ways of making it look better, and this includes adding textures underneath the buildings. The most extreme approach I used was to craft a mesh to match the objects above exactly, you can see the results here: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/90019-norway-scenery-work-in-progress/&do=findComment&comment=987044 and it was very nice to fly over, but also the triangle count was quite high ;-). I may revisit it someday and work on it some more

[Mountain Man 142]

Since they admitted to have 97% of the first scenery completed it's quite obvious that it was a personal decision to give up porting to XP to try to take a revenge over Austin's revenge.

 

We don't know how far along they really were -- maybe it was 97%, maybe it wasn't -- but I've often heard that in software development, the last 10% is 90% of the work.

 

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If it was possible for money to be made from X-Plane, then Orbx would be here. I'm betting it was that Orbx couldn't figure out a good enough way to protect their scenery with DRM on X-Plane's open scenery file system.

 

That or they couldn't figure out a quick and easy way to automatically convert all their scenery without having to do hand-coding for each one.  If they could push a button and have X-Plane scenery to sell then they would be fools not to do it, but if they had to individually tweak each scenery package then that could represent a substantial amount of work that would quickly eat into what were probably small profit margins.

[irrics 1,517]

I think OrbX was primarily worried with how to deal with piracy given the simple nature of XPX/11 add-on installation/management.

 

That aspect of XP is a *huge* strength.  Dealing with add-ons/updates/new versions of sim in FSX/P3D is an absolute world class PITA.

[tonywob 4,769]

I think OrbX was primarily worried with how to deal with piracy given the simple nature of XPX/11 add-on installation/management.

 

I don't think this was a major problem, it can be dealt with via a plugin

[irrics 1,517]

deleted as quoted post changed.

[alpilotx 505]

I don't think this was a major problem, it can be dealt with via a plugin

Yes, as long as you only talk about the management.

But honestly, I can not imagine a way to implement scenery DRM simply via a plug-in .... For that, you would - as far as my understanding goes - need some serious support from Laminars side (as the scenery reading code would need a way to deal with encrypted / signed DSF files)!

[tonywob 4,769]

No, really nobody knows why this happened and it's all just speculation. I have respect for both John Venema as a business man and talented developer and Austin to believe it was simply because of some posts on a Facebook page, and I also know from personal experience that developing airports has its problems.

 

From what I've seen in FSX and AeroflyFS, development of 3D objects and scenery are similar, in X-Plane there are a lot of diffirences, I guess time will tell

[irrics 1,517]

Maybe if OrbX didn't price things so incredibly high people'd be more inclined to buy them..

[tonywob 4,769]

Yes, as long as you only talk about the management.

But honestly, I can not imagine a way to implement scenery DRM simply via a plug-in .... For that, you would - as far as my understanding goes - need some serious support from Laminars side (as the scenery reading code would need a way to deal with encrypted / signed DSF files)!

 

Thanks Andras, I thought that the plugin system could be used during scenery load, but I guess I'm wrong here (and it happens a lot). It's an important point, but in the past it didn't stop ORBX caring, until they decided to delete pirates' entire scenery folder if pirate software was detected.

Maybe if OrbX didn't price things so incredibly high people'd be more inclined to buy them..

 

If you knew how much work went into photographing and modelling/texturing an airport, you would change your mind. I can only hope the actual talented developers get most of it

[irrics 1,517]

If you knew how much work went into photographing and modelling/texturing an airport, you would change your mind. I can only hope the actual talented developers get most of it

The same could be said for all software, but the reality of pricing is that it has to make sense on the consumer side or all of the rest simply doesn't matter.

[tonywob 4,769]

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter, we have developers like http://www.beti-x.com/ and http://www.truscenery.com/ amongst others who will gladly fill their place. It took FSX devs many years to gain experience and get where they wanted to be, as it will be with X-Plane (New names for a new platform).

 

One thing I very much like about BetiX and others like Drziewiecki Design is that the scenery has no DRM. I just buy it on X-Plane.org and there it is, to use on my 2 computers. Piracy is a big problem, but I hate being punished for buying stuff.

[scotchegg 4,188]

 

 

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter, we have developers like http://www.beti-x.com/ and http://www.truscenery.com/ amongst others who will gladly fill their place. It took FSX devs many years to gain experience and get where they wanted to be, as it will be with X-Plane (New names for a new platform).

 

It is (really) encouraging that BetiX are here and I really hope they evolve into something that can offer a similar volume and quality of products as OrbX. After the initial OrbX announcement in December I had high hopes that that volume and quality would be available for XP in the short term, so the fact it won't and I'll have to wait for what may be years (it's taken BetiX several years to make two airports) still disappoints.

 

I know I'll get over it eventually and recover the patience necessary to enjoy XPlane...

[tonywob 4,769]

 

 

I know I'll get over it eventually and recover the patience necessary to enjoy XPlane...

 

Yeah, I hear you, everyone thought BetiX had disappeared, but they did reappear :smile: . It's very much harder to develop an atmospheric small GA airport for X-Plane, but I think the market is there for the few who have enough patience to try. 

[Glynn 405]

 

 

I think some people have the impression that OrbX have 10 developers sitting around waiting to do some work.

 

No, more like 70 at the last count and they are all now busy reworking stuff for P3D 64 and Aerofly.

 

 

Drziewiecki Design is that the scenery has no DRM

 

Drziewiecki Design likes it when there is no DRM, just ask the Dev over at Vidan design.

 

http://www.vidandesign.com/stanislaw_drzewiecki_illegal_use_of_vidan_design_textures.htm

[tonywob 4,769]

Drziewiecki Design likes it when there is no DRM, just ask the Dev over at Vidan design.

 

Oh, wow, ok  :mad:, I had similar happen in some recent sceneries