New Orbx Central v4.0 now available to download

[onebob 125]

28 minutes ago, MDFlier said:

Getting "Path not found: E:\P3D\Prepar3Dv4\Orbx\FTX_EU_FTX_AA_LSGK\Scenery\*_objectflow.xml". The "*_" is the problem there. This is the only airport FTXCv4 didn't migrate

Did you migrate the 'Libraries' , bottom of the list in 'Global Range'

bob

[BMW969 126]

1 hour ago, MDFlier said:

Well.. I saw the title of this thread, so I jumped right over to Orbx and downloaded FTXCv4 and installed it.

It asked me if I wanted to uninstall v3, so I let it. The install went pretty quick. 

Without starting P3D, I started looking around in FTXCv4. I noticed a "Migrate to Library" button under every product in the 'My Products' tab. So... I went through and migrated every Orbx product to an external folder, E:\Orbx Library\. The process completed after about 45 minutes. It appears to have moved the files from my P3D\Orbx folder to the new library. There is no way it downloaded everything that fast.

After all  of that, I fired up P3D. The 1st startup took quite a while (~10 minutes) and I had to click yes to allow each of them. One airport has a problem, LSGK. Getting "Path not found: E:\P3D\Prepar3Dv4\Orbx\FTX_EU_FTX_AA_LSGK\Scenery\*_objectflow.xml". The "*_" is the problem there. This is the only airport FTXCv4 didn't migrate.

I had to export the scenery library and run the Vector AEC tool, as well as reapply all of the Vector fixes (rename 4-5 Vector files to .off) to fix the elevation issues at FlyTampa's KLAS again, but all of my other airports are fine (FB: KIAD, KDEN, KMSP FT: KBOS, KLAS, T2G: KMCO, LVFR: KBWI and KMSY)

So, it appears that I got lucky that most everything worked. I'll have to look into the LSGK issue later. I took a quick look with Lorby and everything appears to be in the proper order in the list as well. Life is good. Thank you blind luck! If I had read this thread first, I probably wouldn't have done all that..

 

Have they added manual labor?

I have 150 airports. Is it for 3 days of work instead of flying?

[Indy511 686]

3 minutes ago, BMW969 said:

Have they added manual labor?

I have 150 airports. Is it for 3 days of work instead of flying?

I migrated 188  airports, regions, LC, and Vector. Took me about 4 hours on day of release, and about an hour yesterday.

[MDFlier 2,031]

33 minutes ago, BMW969 said:

Have they added manual labor?

I have 150 airports. Is it for 3 days of work instead of flying?

I don't understand. Why would it take so much effort and time? 

You already installed the airports and know what it takes to fix whatever issues they have when they are first installed. Worst case scenario is that you spot an oddity at one of your airports during a flight. Finish flying, get your notes out, reapply the fix. Problem gone next fight. It sounds like you're sweating the small stuff to me.

[kurtb 123]

lol

 

[GSalden 4,699]

Does it touch Orbx scenery only or every addon that has been installed ( both scenery.cfg and xml way ) ?

Does it put all Orbx scenery in 1 xml file or has every Orbx addon its own xml file ( read : with Lorby Si’s AO you can add scenery the xml way per addon . I use it that way so I can disable/enable every addon seperately ) ?

 

Edited August 7, 2019 by GSalden

[gsand 105]

1 xml per folder so each has it's own.

Edited August 7, 2019 by gsand

[NZ255 312]

This might also bring to light the P3D issue with the add on.xml method. Currently you ready need an external manager because you can’t adjust the scenery layers through the GUI.

it might be fine for products from the same company that work together, but otherwise what ever the layer is set by the developer at install (usually nothing so it has top priority) might not work with your other scenery installs. To adjust it a user would have to play around with the add on.xml files fiddling with numbers until it works. 

[paj 21]

On 8/7/2019 at 2:05 AM, Lorby_SI said:

I haven't used it myself, and it will be a couple of days until I can.

The technique Orbx has use to get certain add-ons to the top of the library (eg Orbx Libraries, Global Base and some assorted correction files) is to not use layers in the addon.xml

But I believe the Lorby Addon Organizer "...automatically adds layer tags to all scenery components in all the add-on.xml files". I think this has reordered my scenery library in a way Orbx didn't intend. Also, I gather from posts on the Orbx forum that their developers have not previously used AO although they were going to do so soon.

 

 

Edited August 7, 2019 by paj

[ZKOKQ 986]

2 hours ago, paj said:

Also, I gather from posts on the Orbx forum that their developers have not previously used AO although they were going to do so soon.

They know most users use AO, and they wait till a mess is created, then decide to try it ? What were they thinking!!!

[Lorby_SI 2,068]

2 hours ago, paj said:

The technique Orbx has use to get certain add-ons to the top of the library (eg Orbx Libraries, Global Base and some assorted correction files) is to not use layers in the addon.xml

But I believe the Lorby Addon Organizer "...automatically adds layer tags to all scenery components in all the add-on.xml files". I think this has reordered my scenery library in a way Orbx didn't intend. Also, I gather from posts on the Orbx forum that their developers have not previously used AO although they were going to do so soon.

 

 

A fellow simmer sent me an original file from ORBX that definitely had layers in it. So they seem to use both approaches. The problem with relying on P3D to read the scenery library in a certain sequence (and not setting layer numbers) is, that there is no guarantee that the sim will always read it correctly. It is quite easy to screw up this seemingly automated sequence. Only by applying layer numbers to all scenery components it is (logically and technologically) possible to force a specific/desired order. Which is why P4AO does exactly that, otherwise rearranging the scenery is fruitless business.

If ORBX scenery is all that you have, this whole principle certainly works great. But handling the complexity of automatically inserting multiple sceneries into an even larger collection of diverse other sceneries (that often get activated/deactivated in batches too) and then hoping that a certain sequence will fall into place - I don't know about that. 

I always advise people not to use multiple scenery altering mechanisms at the same time. And right now I am not sure that P4AO and the new FTX Central go together well. It might be better not to use P4AO anymore when you go the ORBX route.

Best regards

Edited August 7, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[kymh 8]

Oh, yes Greg, I installed the P3D 4.5 Hotfix ages ago after buying TrueEarth GB for P3D

[GSalden 4,699]

I am really suprised to read that there are people using clean P3Dv4.5 installs ( = reinstalled Fs completely) just for FTXCentral 4....

Myself I have almost 300 entries + xml scenery and would never reinstall a good working P3Dv4.5 just for one developer’s new updated app.....

[aeronauta 67]

Guys , a reply from the ORBX Central team regarding Manually downloaded files....

 

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Posted 2 hours ago

Hi Jorge,

 

Unfortunately the manual download zips for FTX Central 3 don't work with Orbx Central as we've moved to a new, more efficient method of packaging products.

 

We are investigating potential ways that we can support these older manual downloads in the future, however it is not currently on our immediate roadmap.

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aeronauta

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Posted just now

Which means that I and many others that have used the manual download method offered by ORBX  (although not recommended) are stuck with having to download many gigabytes of data again , at a cost for us and for you... with all respect not a very clever decision as makes me wonder what new BRILLIANT IDEA Orbx is going to come with in the future to impose on us.

 

Thank you Mitchel for your reply....It would have been better if the ORBX Central team understood  the impact that the new EFFICIENT method would impose on users (and ORBX) not considering that they have already DOWNLOADED the files ....sorry that is not efficient for me, rather wasteful.

 

 

Jorge

 

 

[MaDDogz 242]

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