Why so few airport sceneries for FSX?

[Guest KaelO]

Hey guys,I'm loving FSX. I think its a big step up from FS9 in many respects but I, like many other people, am put off by the lack of addon software. Since the release of RTM was almost 10 months ago, and SP1 (Which has made the sim a LOT more accessable for people with lower end computers) some time ago, I'm wondering why we havn't seen the influx of scenery addons like we did for FS9?I understand that there are some very good quality aircraft addons (I've got the FLight1 ATR and LevelD 767 myself), but what about all that scenery. For FS9 theres litterally thousands of freeware scenery files. With inbuilt functions like Object Placer and FSX Planner that can do everything AFCAD could plus more, I would have thought scenery design would be within the reach of almost everybody?Anybody with other thoughts?Kael

[STUART_H 12]

Kael,I too am eager to see some airport sceneries for FSX. However, I suspect that the changes made to the scenery engine in FSX, has meant that it has become too difficult or complex to create these accept for the very 'experts' and it seems even they are struggling. Even Fly Tampa seem to be steering clear of FSX !I personnally would put a plea to ACES team, to provide a further update to FSX that would address this backward incompatibility. It seems that the FS9 SDK enabled 'flattens', 'excludes' etc. but that these functions no longer work with FSX. I fully appreciate that technology must move on, and presumably the inclusion of the 'round earth' concept in FSX must have some advantages somewhere, although for the life of me I don't see where....when can we see sloping runways etc.! However, it does seem a great shame that techically brilliant add-on sceneries that are less than a year old suddenly become useless!!It is no wonder that FSX is not being crowned as the next great leap forward in Flight Simming, and that 90% of the community seem to have reverted to FS9. This is certainly no way to move a product genre forward.So come on Phil Taylor and the ACES team.....what are you doing about it, as I'm sure the last thing you want to see in less than 12 months time is "FSX RIP" !!!!!Stuart

[Mace 1,896]

>>With inbuilt functions like Object Placer and FSX Planner that>can do everything AFCAD could plus more, I would have thought>scenery design would be within the reach of almost everybody?>From someone who has designed a couple of airport sceneries for FS, I can tell you that the simple reason is: time. Sure, anyone can do a half-baked airport scenery with 2 hours of work. But to do it properly, it takes at least 15-20 hours of work and research on a larger airport.Also, ADE and FSXPlanner are still beta, and there is still a lot of cross-usage of different tools (AFCAD and decompilers) to achieve a quality result. This adds to dev time.Object Placer is, well, not the greatest tool. ;) And you must remember that with FS2004, the thousands of airport scenery files you see today are the sum total of 3-4 years of development.But TIME (both elapsed time of FSX and time to work on projects) is the main reason in my opinion.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[Guest Loke]

I have to disagree regarding scenery design. I think scenery design now is much more easy than before, especially changing flattens. And gmax design is the same as before, just with a new gamepack and a different way with textures. In just 5 weeks, I totally enhanced 4 Norwegian airports with Instant Scenery, ADE, SDE, Notepad and SBuilderX, and those are already uploaded here: http://www.flightsim.no/file/FSX/Scenery/Europa/Norge/I plan to upload them to Avsim as well, after a few updates.Personally I think the only reason we still lack FSX payware scenery is that the market for FS9 is still much bigger.PS: Check in at my site and press the FSX button :-)

[Manny 1,293]

I so agree with you Stuart.Fly Tampa doesn't seem too thrilled with FSX for sceneries.. So with the exception of Juliana Intl, they don't seem to be working on making their airports upgraded to FSX. Vouchez is busy with the Airbus project.There is also not much headrooms for complex addons in FSX which is not helping.Aerosoft seems to be on the bandwagon for sceneries in FSX, but even with their awesome sceneries in FSX, the performance issue still sucks.Yeah..I still am waiting to see the benefit of round earth. As far as sloped runways.. Wish FSX supported it. But still there are three sloped runway airports I own and I love them all. Only one of them runs in FSX. LLH's Courchevel. This is one awesome airport addon and compliments VFR Frances Northern ALPS. This is currently my flagship airport for FSX. Right now, this is the best airport for landing. Nothing.. I mean nothing comes close to the experience of landing here in the sim.The FS9 had the Wasserkupe (German Scenery IV) and then the Lukla. Both from Aerosoft.MannyPS: I should add, that with Ultimate Tearrain, night flying in the US is very nice. The need for addon sceneries is not there for night fluing in FSX provided you have Ultimate Terrain.

[sipos 0]

I bet many are developers are waiting on the DX 10 release so performace won't be a let down to thier users. And it takes along time to develope good scenery so I would expect the addons to start flooding in a year or so.

[Geofa 108]

I also wonder if with the improvement to the default aiport scenery in fsx if the market has perhaps shrunk even more-and requires the product to be unbelievable which can take even more time.e.g. With fs9 I bought add on airports for Detroit and San Diego as the fs9 ones were so lacking. With fsx I am pretty satisfied with the default fsx renditions of these two airports and don't feel a need to buy 3'rd party. To entice me to do so-there would have to really be something exceptional-and that can take quite a bit of time.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgForum Moderatorhttp://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[n4gix 4,947]

For one thing, it has taken quite awhile just to program the new tools needed. These tools don't fall out of the sky ready to use you know... ;)Second, although not an "airport scenery," superior quality is available, as the screenshots below will demonstrate.A new photoreal scenery for FSX.It's the city of Nantes in the west of France:http://marcoh.gratisim.fr/images/nantes-vue1.jpghttp://marcoh.gratisim.fr/images/nantes-vue5.jpgHow about the small town of Le Croisic:http://marcoh.gratisim.fr/images/croisic1.jpgSee http://marcoh.gratisim.fr/ for additional screenshots.

[G7USL 117]

Because they only took three and a half years to make it:-hah :-erks

[STUART_H 12]

Don't get me wrong by my earlier post. I fully appreciate that for people to produce great scenery it takes time, as I am sure was also the case in FS9. I am in awe of all the great programmers and scenery designers out there that have have made this hobby "as real as it gets".I was merely seeking whether anything could be done to help easily convert those great FS9 sceneries, e.g. Swedflight airports, UK2000, Fly Tampa etc. etc. to enable them to be used in FSX.Perhaps one thing may be to create excludes for default airport buildings, but retaining FSX runways and taxiways (since these seem to be the main issue with FS9 sceneries in FSX), and relocating the FS9 add-on scenery buildings to fit the default FSX taxiways/apron.Whilst I recognise this may be a compromise, it would allow many of us to enjoy the look and feel of some of our loved FS9 sceneries in FSX.Is the above not possible? If it is perhaps some of those developers could look into it? It could be a quick win for all.Regards,Stuart

[JDWalley 354]

>It is no wonder that FSX is not being crowned as the next>great leap forward in Flight Simming, and that 90% of the>community seem to have reverted to FS9.Is that a hidden agenda in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?:-roll

[Mike... 7]

What I find interesting is the lack of new airport sceneries produced by Cloud9. They were the first to write off FS9, they arrogantly ignored a huge demand for an FS9 version of KMCO. They truly glorified their "FSX native" approach! But after Orlando and Bergen (?!), it has become awfully quiet as far as airports are concerned. It's not only interesting, but also funny. At least other companies are still producing for FS9. And they're selling...

[virtuali 4,419]

You should probably check releases better:There is a new "FSX native" scenery from Aereosoft that has just been released, it's Florence, airport+cityhttp://www.aerosoft.com/cgi-local/re/ibosh...i?showd,,D12345It's made by the same team that did all of Cloud9's sceneries. There will surely be other releases in the next months. FSX only, of course.

[virtuali 4,419]

>Aerosoft seems to be on the bandwagon for sceneries in FSX,>but even with their awesome sceneries in FSX, the performance>issue still sucks.Please, define better "performance sucks":http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=12498

[Mike... 7]

You and me both know that that is not an airport scenery in the FS9 sense. Not that the product is crap - I'm sure it pleases a lot of people, but it's a new line of products, X. It's a step away from the big airport sceneries. And for people who fly from hub to hub with the bigger aircraft, there's just not much on the market. For those people, there's also not a whole lot in FSX to warrant a switch away from FS9, in my humble opinion. Personally speaking, I do the above and FSX lacks the improvements I was hoping for. Sure, it looks nice in some areas, but cruising at a higher altitude, it all looks the same to me anyway. ;-pSo what left is a detailed airport scenery, with custom aprons, taxiways and runways. I have all that in FS9 and then some. Some great new sceneries (and other addons) have been released lately and more's on the way. The reality is, there's a market for addons for both sims. AES anyone...Heck, look at at the numbers of my last two uploads:- http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID...dded&ScanMode=0Updates to the ancient frame hogging plain ugly sceneries of Simflyers for FS9. Each have been downloaded hundreds of times. Niche files, pretty significant numbers. (Look at the rest too, well over a 1000 for the LSZH file, that in your precious FSX era.) Imagine how well that KMCO would have done...