Having trouble on the Ortho4XP front!

[wb5okj 26]

Good evening everyone,

I am having trouble with the making a shortcut for my orthos to X-Plane. I have made the shortcuts using the MKLINk /J command in a command window, the shortcuts appear in my Custom Scenery folder and they are indeed linked to the ortho folder on my secondary drive, but when I load and run X-Plane 11, the orthophotos do not load, I am still using default scenery. I cannot for the life of me figure why I can not link to  that drive. I know it is something I am doing, or probably more precisely not doing, but I am at my wits end. I know the orthophoto itself is good, as if I copy it over to my Custom Scenery folder along with the overlay folder it loads up and does well, looks pretty decent in fact. Its just if I leave it on my other drive it will not load although the shortcut looks good. 

I have only been able to make one ZL 17 that works at all, (by copying it over to my Custom Scenery folder), actually I really only want to make an ortho for where I generally fly, so would like to make a ZL 19, so far the ZL 19 that I have tried crashes X-Plane on loading. 

Thanks in advance for any and all help,

Donald E. Donovan

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

Donald, there is a MUCH easier way to link your new Ortho4XP tiles and get them into your Scenery Folder, from any other drive in your system, and you can have them spread over any amount of drives...not important where they reside.

Here is the deal:

1.  Go into each of your TILE folders that you have on one or more drives, and (be careful here..not to accidentally ERASE your new tiles!) and blue-highlight all your tile folders. Then right-click to get you your menu to ADD a SHORTCUT. Do that...and then they will all be following your actual folders.

2. Now highlight all your Short Cuts entries that are now in your Tile Folder, and then MOVE them, not Copy them, into your Custom Scenery Folder of XP10 or 11.

3. Make a Short Cut of your yOrtho-Overay folder...NOT what is inside of them one level down...just the folder...and MOVE that Short Cut into your XP10 or 11 Scenery Folder.

4. Run XP11 (or ten), and if in the XP 11, as soon as you are able to see the Resume Flight, or Create New Flight welcome screen, look at the bottom left, and press the EXIT XP11.

5. Open up your Custom Scenery Folder, and, then open up your Scenery.ini file.  You will see all your Tile Short Cuts at the top, as well as the one yOrtho-overlay Short Cut.

6. Move first, the yOrtho-overlay Short Cut down to just above your zzzUHD or zzzHD Mesh (if you have that, or just at the very bottom of your file position), and then capture all your Tile Short Cuts, and use the CUT command, and then take them down BELOW your yOrtho-Overlay entry, and PASTE them there.  Press SAVE to lock all the movements in.

You are done.  The next time you fire up XP and place yourself at an airport that is within the tile area you have generated, you will see (if you are using WD My Books (my recommendation for a few reasons...)), that XP11 will be accessing your My Book(s) as it loads in the ortho scenery that you created, by the My Book 'busy' light flashing away.  NOTAM: If ever an XP fail-to-find texture message comes up, that either allows you to plop to your airport, or most likely, with CTD on you...it will most likely be that on the first primal generation of your Ortho4XP tile, the program and/or the Server you were using as a photo-real source did not download that missing file needed by XP to load in.  If that happens, all you do, is fire up Ortho4XP (hopefully v1.20b) and go to your MAP view. Double left click the suspect tile (that held the airport region you wanted to load in) and make sure the boundaries of that tile glow YELLOW. You have now registered that tile with the program for processing.

Go to the Tile Generation Section, and press the STEP 3 Tile Generation button to fire up the texture download and conversion routine. This will usually find and download all the missing files to convert them to a fully converted tile that XP will not squawk over and drop you to the Desktop.  In fact, it takes only a minute or more to press that button once more to have THREE passes to generate the tile. I have had three tiles that took three passes, before all files were found and sniffed out by Ortho4XP upon the target file server service.  Maybe a quark?  Maybe that the server bandwidth is being hammered, and you might get dropped file 'packets'....and need to try my suggestion(s).

Anyway...with my using of, and exploring all the different .cfg options...am getting fabulous results, that frankly I can no longer not fly over...

Post Edit Comment: Donald, please remember, that any time you generate further tiles, you need to make a short cut of that new tile, or tiles, and then move them into your Custom Scenery Folder, and do all of the above steps again to get the tile entry to where it needs to reside in your Scenery.ini file.  To make it easier...I just usually highlight ALL my tiles each time and carry over their Short Cuts, into the Custom Scenery Folder, and if that Short Cut is already there, it won't mess with where that entry is already sitting in your Scenery.ini     Only the new files will be at the top after you go through the first start, then shut down, then Scenery.ini audit. You do not ever have to re-short cut your yOrtho-Overlay Folder. Once done and in the proper positioning inside the Scenery.ini file, it never needs further processing.  Every time you create an Overlay, it will be seen by XP11 or 10, because you have your yOrtho-Overlay shortcut pointing to the ROOT of that folder, and not any particular entry folder that resides within it. That cannot be done for the Tiles...each generated Tile Folder that sits inside the program folder called Tiles, must have its own shortcut created and moved into your Custom Scenery Folder.

 

Cheers,

Mitch/Ses 

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

BTW, as I was typing that, in the background Ortho4XP was working on the entire  Appalachian Mountain Chain tiles I assigned in Batch Mode. It had finished with the State of Mississippi.

BI(ng) is a good file source, in that I have found it the best so far for tile color continuity and consistency. My second choice is USA_2.  BTW, there is an important switch you might want to turn on in the Global CFG file...that tells Ortho4XP to use (I set it up to BI) whatever service you like to default to for that texture/conversion cycle, if it can not find the needed texture, on the service you have highlighted. I have seen about 10 times, the next file being downloaded from BI(ng) rather than the USA_2 that I have had the tile slaved to.  You need to have this set up, in my opinion.

Post Edit 1: (I'm generating in the background, so am in a gabby typefest mode...and all coffee'ed up, LOL)  There is another switch that comes as False, that will allow you to have (and this rocks!) z19 tiles generated AROUND 360 degrees of your airports (all of them) that can be set to any amount of kilometers out from the boundaries of the airport property. I have mine set to 2 KM's..and what a rush, to go from z17 between airports, and then come onto final approach over drop-dead gorgeous z19 scenery.  You can BET it makes a visual difference between even high z17 and the eye candy of z19! You really want this to be set to True, and to set up your z rating and KM limit in that .cfg entry.

I have also created my Caribbean tiles ONLY in z19 (that's what is great about having ample storage capacity...you get only the cream-of-the cream visual experience that can be had...) and how beautiful Guadeloupe and St.Thomas is in z19..for the whole of the islands.  Treat yourself to as much WD My Book capacity that is only one My Book away from your wife filing divorce papers.  Each marriage partner,... will have a different limit, ROTFLMAO!

Life, is good...

Ses

[wb5okj 26]

Thanks a lot Ses,

That did the trick, another case of me trying to make things more complicated than they really are. After watching some of the tutorials on YouTube, I thought you had to use the symbolic links rather than a regular shortcut. Glad to see  the simpler way is the way to go. 

Thanks again.

Donald E. Donovan

 

[Chocorua 112]

Ses, you should write up a step by step tutorial...something else to do whilst batch building!

cheers!

Greg

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

42 minutes ago, Rainydaze said:

Ses, you should write up a step by step tutorial...something else to do whilst batch building!

cheers!

Greg

I just might Greg, thanks for the suggestion.  I'm really having good luck with all the settings now...and like I stated, at least for myself, there's no going back.  Generated ortho at high Z factors has taken XP11 to a totally new elevation and realm. Totally!

Basically spoken, "...you're truly there..."

Cheers,

Mitch

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

FYI...NOTAM

I just need to clarify something.  

If you only have one HD source for both your tiles and your yOrtho-Overlay folder, than you don't ever have to do anything more with your yOrtho-Overlay folder.

But...

....if you are generating (as I am) on many HD's, then you need to do just one more thing----- if and when you do generate tiles on let's say Hard Drive 2, whereby you have your yOrtho-Overlay Folder on Drive 1 (your first drive to see the Ortho4XP program) as the one SHORT CUT'ed to your XP11 Scenery Folder, you need to do the following step always.  As you need to make Short Cuts of all your Tile folders (the ones INSIDE your ROOT 'Tiles' Folder), and carry them over and into your Custom Scenery Folder in XP10 or 11, you then need to copy (not shortcut) all information that is within any other yOrtho-Overlay folder INTO YOUR yOrtho-Overlay Folder from (as in my example here,) Hard Drive 1. This is because that folder is the ONLY one that will be sniffed each time by XP10 or 11 on each scenery load-in.

So easy as pie...go nuts generating and short cutting all your generated tiles over ten hard drives or more...but...make sure that each hard drive's yOrtho-Overlay content is then copied to (does not need to be moved) (as per my example) Hard Drive 1's same named folder. You are now good to go....and obviously, if you are running as I am with stand-alone WD My Books, to hold all your Ortho content, you need to have them all turned on, at computer start up.  I know..I know..like duh..but it is the little things forgotten that can lend to consternation and 'Ok..what's NOT working NOW!' comments flowing through your head...  They hardly draw much power, and all of them (if you have this set in W7 or W10, will power each down, if they are not accessed within a 20 minute span of time. Whey you do call upon them, they will be sniffed by your O.S. and come back on-line at full power and speed. I love these hard drives, as they don't add one degree of temperature to your cabinet, and because they run so cool, and have long life spans.

(sip of coffee, inserted...) 

Have fun, all...

Ortho Mitch

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

1 hour ago, wb5okj said:

Thanks a lot Ses,

That did the trick, another case of me trying to make things more complicated than they really are. After watching some of the tutorials on YouTube, I thought you had to use the symbolic links rather than a regular shortcut. Glad to see  the simpler way is the way to go. 

Thanks again.

Donald E. Donovan

 

Most welcome, Donald, and please see my addendum post about making sure you bring all your other drive's yOrtho-Overlay content to your first or 'drive 1' same named folder, or your roads and autogen will not be displayed on tiles generated across your other drives holding Ortho content. It's above this post, in the thread.

[longrangecruise 57]

On 25.5.2017 at 6:18 AM, Sesquashtoo said:

there is a MUCH easier way to link your new Ortho4XP tiles and get them into your Scenery Folder,

I hope it's okay if I "abuse" this thread. I have a problem with making links to the tiles as well.

My method was to open the Ortho4xp map and ctrl-click the tiles I wanted shortcuts with. After a new Windows install (the drive with Xplane and the one with Ortho4xp program and tiles stayed untouched) I lost most of the blue hashed tiles on the map. Clicking "toggle all" brings up red squares only although the tiles are still on the drive.

I know you mentioned a different method, but do you (or someone else) maybe know how to fix this easily?

[longrangecruise 57]

SOLVED: It was a matter of reassigning the drive letter and unplugging and replugging the drive I had my orthos on. (That was around my 10th trial, lol).