I am doing a new installation of P3D at the moment

Having to download all the sceneries yet again is a big failp s.Fortunately I have a steady fast internet connection with a lot of data so I set the downloads to start at 11pm and woke up in the morning with the sceneries all done.

Unfortunately , some users do not have a very fast internet connection and downloading everything could take days.

There should have been a provision to be able to use the installation files from FTX v 3.0. 

At least they are using the addon-xml method and it is now more consistency with other addon installation . Plus you can disable areas much easier.

And if you do re-install your sim at a later date , you don't have to re-install the sceneries again , just point the library to your Orbx addon folder.

 

Priority photoreal scenery are today.

I like your thinking BMW969!. I think you can just delete the xml folder and then select the scenery via the Scenery Library if one wishes, unless I am naive on this?  I have done it for several add-ons.  With ours, we give the user a choice of which way they wish to install.

1 hour ago, planechaser said:

I am doing a new installation of P3D at the moment

There should have been a provision to be able to use the installation files from FTX v 3.0. 

There is.

Even if the files are migrated to a new library, the download is only of some files.

Edited August 9, 20196 yr by Reader

Now I am newly confused - just on a much higher level 😊

My understanding was this:

Migration of (in) existing installation - possible as existing (installed) files are being moved, only *some* new files to be downloaded

New installation of P3D: It is not possible to use previously (manually) downloaded zip-files, everything will be freshly downloaded via ORBx Central V4

Is my understanding wrong ?

New installation of P3D: It is not possible to use previously (manually) downloaded zip-files, everything will be freshly downloaded via ORBx Central V4

That is correct, the clue is Manually Downloaded....

 

Jorge

Well i had a lot of files that i manually downloaded from ORBX a while ago. Globial, Vector etc and they installed fine.

It says under the big install button. Install via manual download just underneath it

Mike , for a start Global does not install without a download (already said at ORBX forum) Vector may install fine but does not work, you say "it says under the big install button. Install via manual download just underneath it "...yes , but the manual says different (if you care toread, I did that , it starts to extract, then create chunks and in the end downloads the file again...were your downloaded files single .zip files ... if not we are talking different thing.

 

Jorge

14 hours ago, planechaser said:

 

I am doing a new installation of P3D at the moment

Having to download all the sceneries yet again is a big failp s.Fortunately I have a steady fast internet connection with a lot of data so I set the downloads to start at 11pm and woke up in the morning with the sceneries all done.

Unfortunately , some users do not have a very fast internet connection and downloading everything could take days.

There should have been a provision to be able to use the installation files from FTX v 3.0. 

At least they are using the addon-xml method and it is now more consistency with other addon installation . Plus you can disable areas much easier.

And if you do re-install your sim at a later date , you don't have to re-install the sceneries again , just point the library to your Orbx addon folder.

Just how easy is it? Disabling areas on my PC is very easy, and I am still using the old scenery.cfg method.

27 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

Just how easy is it? Disabling areas on my PC is very easy, and I am still using the old scenery.cfg method.

Every ORBX product has its own package definition (=add-on.xml), containing all assets (scenery, mesh, effects, whatever) that belong to that product. So you can disable all of Germany South or Pacific NW with one mouseclick on the Options->Add-ons dialog in P3D.

Using the same approach, you could group your scenery products into packages for example by continent, and then turn on/off all of Europe or all of North America with one click. 

Best regards

Olive has said it , the xml method is the best there is , I had been using it since early V3 , I dont have ORBX or OZx or any addon simobjects in my root P3D , and it truly is that easy to enable or disable any addon , one click ...

 

The problem here is that ORBX messed Central up. Too early released and not fully tested.

 

Jorge

31 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Every ORBX product has its own package definition (=add-on.xml), containing all assets (scenery, mesh, effects, whatever) that belong to that product. So you can disable all of Germany South or Pacific NW with one mouseclick on the Options->Add-ons dialog in P3D.

Using the same approach, you could group your scenery products into packages for example by continent, and then turn on/off all of Europe or all of North America with one click. 

Best regards

Hello,

not a challenge or a critique but this has been possible for years with any of the software that edits the scenery library, SCE, SimStarter etc.

Also, even after the one click, one still has to wait for the scenery to redraw, as before.

I had understood that the principal motivation was to comply with Lockheed Martin's insistence that no one's addon files should be inside the P3D folder?

Edited August 10, 20196 yr by Reader

15 minutes ago, Reader said:

not a challenge or a critique but this has been possible for years with any of the software that edits the scenery library, SCE, SimStarter etc.

And now it is possible without any additional software. Nothing more to it.
(or to be more precise - this has been possible since P3D V3.x without any additional software)

Quote

I had understood that the principal motivation was to comply with Lockheed Martin's insistence that no one's addon files should be inside the P3D folder?

Not really. This is not what the addon packages are about. The assets can be anywhere, inside or outside the simulator folders, it doesn't matter. The main motivation for addon packages was to add more flexibility, to keep all assets that belong to a product together and to prevent 3rd party stuff from physically overwriting default simulator assets (that others may rely upon). The "add-on.xml method" is not about scenery. Packages link every single type of simulator content, freeing developers from the need of trying to figure out into which folders and/or config files that have to squeeze their stuff - thus minimizing the risk of assets ending up where you don't want them to be or config files getting corrupted.

Best regards

Edited August 10, 20196 yr by Lorby_SI

Or in my case with 1 click I uninstalled Central and all of ORBX, truth is it was more than 1 click lol. I just finished a new build so I did not transfer from FTX Central to the New Central. What I did notice was the New Central had very very fast download speed for fresh install, it was impressive. What was not so impressive were the insertion points, they appeared to be dead. I downloaded 4 regions and 2 airports just to test and yes everything worked as it should flying wise but something was off on the ground texture and 1 runway they appeared to lack definition, ( they looked washed out and sorta blurry). So at the time I did not install vector as I understood it does not work for XML. Global was installed and NA L/C. Anyway could not get the insertion points to work, was not able to change scenery order so said to heck with it and uninstalled it all! Everyday ORBX messes with this is a day they will lack sales, their loss not mine. This move by ORBX will cause me to enjoy, X-Plane with no add-ons, and DCS World with all the add-ons. Sad this was not thought out better, shame on an early release and forcing the entire community to be Beta Testers!  

Hello,

just to be clear.

Orbx Central is causing no problems at all to users of FSX, FSX-SE, P3D 1 - 3, Aerofly FS2 or indeed X Plane 11.

Also, if simply installed and used with no changes to the file structure, it causes no problems at all to users of P3D v4.

Once P3D v4 products are "migrated" out of the P3D root folder, indeed the Vector Control panel auto-configuration

function des not work, because it cannot read the add-ons.cfg file where the scenery library entries are now stored.

However, the product works perfectly well and the AEC settings can still be manually applied and stored in a profile.

This is less than ideal but certainly does not preclude the use of Vector.

Edited August 10, 20196 yr by Reader

41 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Every ORBX product has its own package definition (=add-on.xml), containing all assets (scenery, mesh, effects, whatever) that belong to that product. So you can disable all of Germany South or Pacific NW with one mouseclick on the Options->Add-ons dialog in P3D.

Using the same approach, you could group your scenery products into packages for example by continent, and then turn on/off all of Europe or all of North America with one click. 

Best regards

Oliver, how is it possible to create scenery groups for ex Europe wihout the help of addon as Addon Organizer? Yoy can´t do it inside P3D or?

/Thomas