Orbx recruiting......Xplane developers

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Ebs said:

let's not forget some of the absolute clangers JV has dropped in recent years

Actually I think it would be good to forget on both sides (Austin over the decades has said some really bizarre stuff also), not forgetting is part of the problem.  The obsessive single platform nature of some people as demonstrated earlier in this thread is also part of the problem.  Attempting to establish some type of "exclusivity" is also another part of the problem.  These drive potential users away and not towards a platform ... do you really want to promote the ongoing war?

I've been an Xplane user since version 7 (even have the DVD/CD going back to Xplane Version 8) and have supported LR's efforts thru version 11.  More products than prior years are definitely emerging for XP11 and that's great to see and very positive.  But like all platforms there is still much to improve and the only way that is going to happen is with a larger user base, more content providers, and expansion of XP11 SDK, and increasing resources in LR's development team ... because I can assure you other platforms are NOT standing still.  Competition is good and lets face it, LR seemed to me to have suddenly become more "active" at the threat of competition ... this is a good thing.

Cheers, Rob.

[pmb 5,137]

2 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Competition is good and lets face it, LR seemed to me to have suddenly become more "active" at the threat of competition ... this is a good thing.

Cheers, Rob.

As a side note, I would acknowledge if Lockheed Martin would become more "active" to tackle a few long-standing issues reported on their forums numerous times as well.

Kind regards, Michael

[Humpty 751]

Guys ORBX is more than welcome to XP , but let's not talk about installers had enough of those.  B

And BTW XP has never messed with any of my OS till date. so let's not talk of MSFS based screw up OS against XP. I am sure most of  today's generation is a bit of a computer savvy. And XP's installation and handling is pretty simple.

About Beta updates they will break something that's the reason they are called beta. It feels as if the other sim don't break anything when there is an update of course i don't own that but i am sure it will break some.

At least XP has progressed 

[Paraffin 2,197]

13 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

More developers are good for X plane.  This is a good thing!  It also means that there is more of a market than big MSFS/ESP devs thought...

Its silly that some people are upset that another developer is coming onboard- no one is forcing you to purchase their upcoming products.

Well, here's one counter-argument and I don't think it's "silly." 

It's not that I don't want more developers to get onboard with XP, but that I like the direction Laminar is going with the sim, especially with regard to the terrain systems, and the open Gateway for users to fill in airports all over the world. I'm wary of attempts by any developer, not just Orbx, to push things in a different direction. 

If Orbx only wants to sell their collection of "jewel box" small airports, then I'm all for that. I would buy a few, depending on how invasive/annoying the DRM is. But anything else involving alternatives to the default landclass system is something I'm just not interested in, because I think the default terrain system of X-Plane is making great strides in increasing the look of the world with high-resolution mesh (thanks Andras!) and OSM-based world objects. If Austin manages to include the procedural seasons he's talked about, then it will tie in beautifully with the landclass/OSM terrain system, and will probably be incompatible with larger-scale 3rd party payware scenery assets. 

I'm also hoping that XP retains the totally open file structure for scenery, and that's something that 3rd parties might eventually start to mess with, on a global level. Anyway, much of this is conjecture because we don't know exactly what Orbx is planning. Like I said, if they're just selling a few jewel-box airports, and it's not too difficult to install and maintain over time, then I'm in.

[tonywob 4,769]

5 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

Anyway, much of this is conjecture because we don't know exactly what Orbx is planning.

To quote JV from ORBX

Quote

Oh the airports are coming, that is an active project which Ed Correia is leading for us. It won't be all of them but certainly a bunch, starting with Meigs Field which is done.

 

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

If Austin manages to include the procedural seasons he's talked about, then it will tie in beautifully with the landclass/OSM terrain system, and will probably be incompatible with larger-scale 3rd party payware scenery assets.

I doubt it would be incompatible, easiest solution would be to define season specific folder names, if XYZ date, use the appropriate season folder for data (this would have zero compatibility issues).  

FYI, "open file system" has been around for decades for multiple flight sim platforms from FSX, P3D to XP ... there is nothing stopping you or an installer from copying a file (except in OS protected areas).  Either you mess with it or the installer messes with it ... Orbx will follow the rules defined by the SDK.  If those rules are not sufficient to implement a feature, they can decide to go outside the SDK to implement unsupported features (like seasons for example) ... this in most cases is done to improve the end user experience.  Then there are EXE/DLL "hacks" (dynamic references to EXE/DLLs), LR can make such a process difficult if they so choose but for the most part that type of incursion is risky (not thread safe) and time consuming finding the correct offsets and structures ... basically all the same issues as other FS platforms and again only done due to limitations of the SDK with the goal of bringing about a better end user experience.

Installers simply control the copying of files the product needs, the nature of the "open file system" doesn't change.  The files that are placed in specific folders must then be in the appropriate format, etc. etc.  I think what you are referring to is the auto detection by XP11 of files being added to a specific folder?  This process is being used in just about all flight simulator platforms in one form or another.  XP, P3D, etc. in combination (or not) with usage of .INI, .CFG, .XML, etc. etc.   

As far as DRM, quality content providers are going to want to project their work from theft, that needs to be achievable if you want more quality content WITH support.

Cheers, Rob.

[soaring_penguin 428]

Please, again, installers are not necessary, they even complicate things. In X-Plane it is all really simple, scenery goes into the "custom scenery" folder, aircraft go into  the aircraft folder, and plugins go in the plugin folder.

If you want to clean up, go in those folders and delete. Most sceneries have descriptive naming, like the airport ICAO. The only exceptions are the freeware airports that come need a bunch of libraries, but those will never come with an installer. Also the libraries you can leave. 

The problem I have currently is that I am running very rapidly out of disk space. No amount of installer can help with that.

[Paraffin 2,197]

47 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

I doubt it would be incompatible, easiest solution would be to define season specific folder names, if XYZ date, use the appropriate season folder for data (this would have zero compatibility issues).  

Maybe, but it would have to be very well integrated with the surrounding terrain. If the trees in surrounding landclass are changing color and dropping leaves, then getting covered with snow (Austin's idea for this), then trees will have to do that within the airport perimeter too. The ground texture at the airport will have to match what's happening with ground texture outside the airport. Otherwise you get those jarring transitions sometimes seen with ortho-based airport terrain that pops out from the surrounding landclass terrain. 

In other words, it might be do-able, but it won't be as easy as just porting over the existing airports for FSX/P3D. And of course, if procedural seasons don't arrive until XP12 or 13 (which is what it looks like), then you'll be buying those Orbx airports all over again for seasonal change compatibility. 

I'll still buy a few airports I'm interested in, just pointing out some possible challenges ahead.
 

Quote

As far as DRM, quality content providers are going to want to project their work from theft, that needs to be achievable if you want more quality content WITH support.

I understand that, but it's not universal for "quality" providers. See the excellent Bella Coola payware scenery, for example. I also understand that a a company the size of Orbx won't go for the honor system like that.

I'm very interested to see how Orbx handles this on a technical level, because as far as I know, there are no break points in the way X-Plane loads scenery when you fly into a new area. It just scans the open scenery folders. 

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

1 hour ago, Rob Ainscough said:

they can decide to go outside the SDK to implement unsupported features (like seasons for example)

FYI, seasons through texture switching are implemented in XP since some time during v10. The texture reload is not automatic in case of season changes during a session though. It requires a very basic plugin. A freeware plugin already exists.

Apparently Mr Venema ignores this as well. I (hope) suppose some of his employees are more aware of X-Plane's scenery system.

Pascal

[HiFlyer 9,358]

3 hours ago, Pascal_LSGC said:

FYI, seasons through texture switching are implemented in XP since some time during v10. The texture reload is not automatic in case of season changes during a session though. It requires a very basic plugin. A freeware plugin already exists.

Apparently Mr Venema ignores this as well. I (hope) suppose some of his employees are more aware of X-Plane's scenery system.

Pascal

I assume that it's exactly for the purpose of bringing that sort of knowledge in-house that Orbx is looking for developers.

[JonRD463 146]

One of the things I liked about X-Plane when I made the switch back in ver. 10 was that the freeware ecosystem, while smaller in scale, seemed as vibrant as MSFS's did back before it became an overcommercialized money sink. I rather like the idea of payware aircraft developers doing their thing, but for scenery... well, I'm quite satisfied with everything available for free. I'd hate to see that particular branch of the ecosystem dry up due to migrating locusts.

[sd_flyer 6,038]

I have a big turn off with Orbx. First JV  introduced project X like a carrot stick, then denied it existence (driven by personal vendetta with Austin). Everyone urged him to use common sense and get above personal issues, but he still insisted that other platform are more profitable and x-plane has no future. So now all of a sudden wind of change? Really? Please spare me of that excitement :) 

I used looked forward Orbx entering XP market, but sorry not anymore.

  

[tonywob 4,769]

5 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

driven by personal vendetta with Austin

To be honest, nobody actually knows the real reason and it's just speculation that this was the cause. For all we know (and we don't know what happened behind the scenes) JV and Austin are great buddies and it was all just a bit of playful banter . Either way, Austin clearly said in one of his interviews that he would never stop or discourage any developer making addons for X-Plane and encourages it. To do so would be senseless.

7 hours ago, JonRD463 said:

I'd hate to see that particular branch of the ecosystem dry up due to migrating locusts.

I can see your point here and I also remember the healthy freeware ecosystem for MS sims that seemed to have died. In my opinion we'll always have the gateway system and enthusiasts such as myself who will throw out the occasional freeware scenery or airport. I'm sure we've all noticed, but prices have gone up recently in X-Plane and many new devs are going straight into payware rather than freeware. This is likely driven by the fact that the popularity and quality of this sim is on the rise and it's becoming more worthwhile to take this approach, but also the copycat effect (Hey if he's doing it, why shouldn't I). Luckily X-Plane is a consumer sim, so at least we won't be charged "pro" prices, for now. My hope is the quality of these addons vastly improves, especially the FSX conversions. One thing I can say about all this is that if you appreciate somebody's freeware product, show the author your appreciation (Even a simple thank you helps).

[wolke85 150]

I personally very much welcome this move by ORBX to join X-Plane. I am totally aware of the fact that there are a lots of pros and cons here, as so very often, but in the end i think that it will be a win-win situation for X-Plane, ORBX and us, the users of X-Plane. And i also don't think that freeware will vanish - maybe freeware will loose some of its quality, but to be honest, even until now there has always been bad, good and best freeware quality, so i am not that worried here. Looking forward to the first ORBX airports for X-Plane now. But first of all i need to get myself a new PC ... but that's another story, so back on topic.

[Desaix 235]

Well I think that Orbx has a clear picture of what they can port to XP and what is useless and non profiteable.

The fact that all PR3D people said "wow that is amazing" looking at Ortho4Xp+W2XP images speak for themselves. They could improve the buildings and trees look but I'm not sure there would be lot of people willing to pay for them. Instead complete detailed airports have more appeal in XP world.

By the way there are two things I like more than flying (regarding flight sim of course): spotting AI planes at busy HUB and forum speculations about Orbx&XP11 :)

 

And I agree with Tony about the worries of price increase: new aircrafts all sell at 70/80 € more than the sim itself, this is enough crazy for me, we end up paying more for the package than the product included in it. But it's not a trend of this hobby only: I'm always shocked when I use to pay an original toner 60% of the whole printer cost nowadays. But there it has some sense, the producer of the printer and of the toner is the same, here we leave crumbs to poor Austin and the loaf to third party devs.