Add on Airports not compatible with SP2

[martin_ktpa 0]

>Orlando By Cloud9>Mega Airport London-Heathrow X by Aerosoft>Zurich X By Fsdreamteam (both Version X an 9, one price for>good scenery)>Bergen FSX and 9 from Cloud9>Mega Airport Brussels X from Aerosoft>>And on developement..... KORD by fsdreamteamIn the overall scope that is very poor because everything listed is coming from only 2-3 sources (actual developers/persons). And upon close inspection, only 1 of them has made extensive efforts to adapt the FSX SDK. Without exaggerating I am quite sure that Orlando is literally the only "highend" airport that was ever made as 100% purebred FSX-SDK. Everything else contains legacy content in one form or another. And the reason is not because these devs are old and stupid, the FSX SDK is just lacking in the airport-dev department to the point where vital things such as drawing a non-default hold short marking can't be achieved at all without going back to older SDKs.Ideally a new SDK would have been embraced by the dev-community and every dev would have trashed the old compilers within days.

[PhilTaylor 45]

Herein is the rub.Your statement appears to have a logical contradiction.If Orlando is indeed a "highend" airport and is 100% FSX SDK compliant - is that not an existence proof that "older SDK techniques" are not necessary? Especially considering said "older SDK techniques" are what are causing the back-compat issues? Deliberately exploiting unsupported techniques means a 3PD puts themselves ( and by extension their customers ) at risk. It is hard to see how that is not more of an "authoring" issue than a "platform" issue.

[martin_ktpa 0]

>Your statement appears to have a logical contradiction.Apparently a contradiction. However if we look at Orlando we find that it consists of a number of default items, such as default runways, pavement surfaces, markings, jetways, service vehicles and so forth. I am not passing judgment on the developers, they made a honorable effort to create something purely FSX-SDK based.>is that not an existence proof that "older SDK>techniques" are not necessary? It depends on what the developer aims to achieve. "Highend" airport developers generally appreciate being able to customize every item (just like Aircraft developers wouldn't appreciate default gauges in their planes). With the FSX SDK that is not possible for airports. Most prominent example: We cannot customize a runway, its' surface, markings, skidmarks and lighting beyond a dozen preset values in XML. If the goal is to fix a default runway from concrete to asphalt, yes it can be done, but if we can call that "highend" content is questionable to me. Generally speaking: If the Addons must rely on large quantity of default FSX assets, where does that leave the value of the Addon?I understand that FSX is a closed case which is fine. All I wish is that the next FS be made far more flexible with regard to customization/addon development.

[PhilTaylor 45]

Having an add-on that works is always better than an add-on that doesn't work.Picking an authoring style that almost guarantees issues for your customers, as opposed to an authoring style that admittedly might have a lesser feature set but fewer issues - how is that a hard choice to make?

[martin_ktpa 0]

>Having an add-on that works is always better than an add-on>that doesn't work.>>Picking an authoring style that almost guarantees issues for>your customers, as opposed to an authoring style that>admittedly might have a lesser feature set but fewer issues ->how is that a hard choice to make?What you say is correct in essence, the question then becomes why aren't there hundrets of FSX airport addons, seeing that placing & rearranging preset assets is not a very difficult task."Highend" airports and many other FS Addons are built by Modelers & Texture-Artists, if their ability to apply custom assets is limited, they run away or look elsewhere - in this case they look at the older SDKs. I find this very unfortunate, because the FSX SDK only lacks in certain aspects, in other aspects it is very good.What you can observe is that a significant number of devs are not even adopting the SDK for its good parts, having decided to stick with the older SDKs completely. What I'm getting at is that a new SDK will have better chances of succeeding adoption-wise, if it includes all possibilities of the old SDK and goes beyond it. The earlier mentioned "rotate-to-user" for example, not to be found in the new SDK, yet a feature developers obviously wish to use. Seasonal changes in XtoMDL, ground polygons, visibility checks, there are numerous features not covered in the new SDK which cannot be simply discarded as unnecessary legacy features.I fully understand that the SDK is the way it is regarding airports because ACES did not need anything extra to create the 20.000+ default airports. This is why I suggest that in future you have a in-house artist work on a "highend" airport (without generic assets) so way ahead of RTM time, he will have told you about everything he needs in terms of tools/SDK.PS: I am speaking as a end-user and market-observer here. The only content I personally created for FSX so far, TNCM, was created with the FSX SDK, only the pavement/runway had to rely on a legacy SDK. And not even this 95% purebred FSX addon I dare to advertise, instead I label it "preliminary" (very much like ACES' DX10 "preview") and distribute it only behind closed doors as a curiosity item.

[Guest sssummer]

Phil,I appreciate the dialog between you and Martin. I don't know if you guys have spoken before, but as a customer and a flight simmer, who knows nothing about scenery design, programming, SDK's etc., one of the main things we customers care about (regarding add ons) is the ability to purchase high end products that strive for absolute quality and realism. With airports, it all starts with the custom ground scenery. That's what sets Fly Tampa, Flight Scenery, and FS DreamTeam apart. The ground as the cornerstone of the airports they design are magnificent! If Martin (and others) are frustrated by the limitations of FSX, we the customers will tend to side with them IMHO. As consumers we are very frustrated by the lack of add on airports that are high end. My hope and dream (this is not a world peace speech :) )for the next version for FS is that the ACES team would include as many of these developers in the design process as possible (if they are willing). There are so many well known guys on these boards and others in the flight sim community that are a wealth of knowledge that could improve the next version of FS, so its not all trial and error, but rather getting a head start with the correct tools right out of the gate, otherwise, we get nothing, or have to wait over a year or more to get a decent high end product. If a product has some rough edges, bring in some folks like Martin and George from FlyTampa for custom scenery design, and include them in the planning stages so you know what is essential to designers. Bring in other people for other facets of flight sim, such as Jim Vile and Reggie Fields for AI Traffic. So much knowledge, yet so frustrating to not have what the community needs included in the design of the product, giving us many limitations on what so many of would like to see.I hope this makes sense, and am eagerly looking forward to the next version.Thanks for listening.Brian S.

[PhilTaylor 45]

Martin,First off, let me say I appreciate the dialog.I guess I just plain dont understand the "walk away" mentality. Sure I agree it would be better if these "missing features" were indeed possible with the FSX-SDK. However I do not feel airports done with the FSX-SDK techniques only are horrible; just they lack a couple of features. Even with that said, I started a thread about just this on the beta forums to try to capture exactly what the "missing feature set" is; once I understood this was fundamentally what was driving 3PDs to not use the new SDK. I would be interested to see your set. Remember I started right at the end of FSX, and SP1 and SP2 were essentially my way to learn the product. So I personally did not really grok this bit about "missing features" until that thread on the beta forums during SP2.Where I get lost, though, is to then say "I am not going to make FSX scenery at all" or "I am only going to make FSX scenery with the feature set I deem important and ignore the rules" and then come back and blame Aces repeatedly. I agree discussing is good, and as I stated at the outside I appreciate the dialog. But I also see a lot of fixation and unwillingness to move on. So we are missing a few things in the FSX-SDK that 3PDs would like to see. Ok, I acknowledge that. However, what else is possible or exploitable that is new? Are there areas where you can squeeze something unexpected out of FSX, like some of these features in the past? How deeply has that avenue been explored?Things always change, expecting the same thing in perpetuity is just not realistic. Even if we add these specific features next go round, somewhere else something else is going to change. And that could again include the addition of some new things and the subtraction of some old. There is no way to give a blanket guarantee here. So 15 months after FSX was RTM'ed and a month after SP2 is out, it is time to look at the landscape and decide. FSX-SDK content will work, content using old SDK features will not. Given the backwards compatibility game is going to change for FS11 and the FSX-SDK is the jumping off point for the future; it is worth considering what the right position is moving forward.Phil

[martin_ktpa 0]

Good intentions were there, ACES communicated with 3rd parties more then ever before during FSX development. Perhaps too many people talking at the same time wasn't such a good idea, I surely don't know the answers.

[martin_ktpa 0]

>First off, let me say I appreciate the dialog.Same here. I will make sure to head over to the beta forums and give my contribution.>I guess I just plain dont understand the "walk away">mentality. Okay, to understand that I think we have to forget about the payware/support aspect for a moment and think purely in terms of hobby, which at the core is what drives most 3DP devs, certainly the freeware community.In that aspect - within airport addons - I think the runway is a essential core aspect. If a developer makes this for his own sake, he won't have long lasting fun with the FSX runway limitations. After getting bored with the presets, he will either look into creating other types of Addons or, if he is a hardcore airport fanatic, he will remember the old dusty SDKs that allowed him to customize his runway. Again, read this without thinking business and support/compatibility, think purely visual satisfaction when creating a Addon for yourself in your basement. Sorry if this seems fixated on a single runway issue, there are other aspects but they are smaller in significance.>However I do not feel airports done with the FSX-SDK techniques> only are horrible; Certainly not horrible, thats way too harsh. I can only say that for myself an airport composed of imagery processed via resample & overlayed with pre-textured XML runways & aprons is not satisfactory to the point where I would not bother to create a lot of them. I think this can be applied to any other environment, if you give "infinite" artistic freedom it will blossom for a long time, if you limit via presets it will get boring quickly.>Where I get lost, though, is to then say "I am not going to>make FSX scenery at all" or "I am only going to make FSX>scenery with the feature set I deem important and ignore the>rules" and then come back and blame Aces repeatedly. As I stated earlier I am not a developer who is actively trying to pass non-compliant content as FSX-Addons. SP2 has shown that this can backfire. I do however take the liberty to criticize, hopefully in a educated manner. That said, if you go download & analyze the products listed in this thread, you will see that many of them don't even use x2mdl for 3D structures, which to me shows that those devs have chosen to not even adapt the parts of the FSX-SDK that do work fine. Only a handful of airport developers (myself included) have bothered to create "pure" FSX content that takes the new SDK features into account (specular mapping etc). Perhaps the wish to remain FS9 compatible is keeping devs from it, or perhaps certain things need customizing so badly that the risks of using a legacy method becomes acceptable. I do not know for sure.> Are there areas where you can squeeze something>unexpected out of FSX, like some of these features in the>past? How deeply has that avenue been explored?I only care for airports - and mostly their runways :) - so I can't really answer that question. I can however see & agree that Resample/Photoscenery, Mesh, large data-based scenery have all been greatly enhanced in the FSX SDK which is why I never say that all of FSX or its' SDK is bad or lacking.>Things always change, expecting the same thing in perpetuity>is just not realistic. Even if we add these specific features>next go round, somewhere else something else is going to>change.I fully agree. I didn't, nor would I expect legacy content to be compatible with a new FS. When I say that a new SDK should have all the features from the previous one, I do not mean it in terms of compatibility but in terms of "ability to achieve the same or preferably better effect". I have no problem at all trashing my old baggage and starting over with a new SDK/toolset, this new toolset must however be more powerful in every single aspect.

[scott967 62]

Hasn't there always been this sort of thing going on? As long as I remember, there have been the canned runways, taxiways, aprons, just like the generic buildings. So an interested user can very quickly create a new or mod airport using these. But, the more serious user or developer has been interested in really going beyond this in the airport environment, so there have been these parallel methods that aren't directly supported in the sdks, but worked, such as using variety of ground polys.Going back to something Jim mentioned earlier, I think it was maybe a mistake to combine the AFD elements with the visual elements of the airport. I can see the advantage from a consistency standpoint, but in the long run maybe it's better to let the "plumbing" experts deal with the AFD and 3d object designers handle the visual aspects. Perhaps in aircraft modeling it isn't so easy to separate the visual from the plumbing, but in scenery things might be different.I wonder if the payware Hawaii Dillingham X and freeware NZPP represent more of the type of 3pd efforts to expect in FSX, and not the mega-sized airports that were common in FS2k2/FS9.scott s..

[Guest diddydaddy]

I haven't followed the technical debate, I just use FSX to fly airliners to large airports. But I've been thinking about this whole FSX thing and fundamentally it all goes back to FSX Day One.MS should've originally released a decent copy of FSX. If they had then we wouldn't be in this situation today. No use blaming developers for not doing this or that. MS should have got it better. Actually, if I think about it a bit more its outrageous. I think the blokes who worked on FSX are amazingly lucky to still have their jobs (if they still have them).Are there any more fixes for FSX? Can developers have a stable FS platform to create addons from now on? Or will an SP3 appear and we go through all this again?I dunno what to do now. It looks like all the releases are being made for FSX and FS2004 so maybe I can do both. Incredible, over a year after FSX was released and I'm actually going back to FS2004.Martin

[martin_ktpa 0]

>Hasn't there always been this sort of thing going on? As>long as I remember, there have been the canned runways,>taxiways, aprons, just like the generic buildings. So an>interested user can very quickly create a new or mod airport>using these. But, the more serious user or developer has been>interested in really going beyond this in the airport>environment, so there have been these parallel methods that>aren't directly supported in the sdks, but worked, such as>using variety of ground polys.Thats basically it :) Some of the "more sophisticated methods" are gone without replacement and part of the "highend" crowd refuses to lower themselves to the simpler default methods. Sounds arrogant perhaps, I just don't see myself taking the time to create airport terrain that any user can easily create himself by modding the "Afcad" and have the Photoscenery pulled automatically via Tileproxy. Let alone justifying such content as "highend" payware.Now keep in mind that in FSX RTM this legacy airport method did not work, with SP1 it got fixed to the point devs started using it again with some confidence ... and now in SP2 the same thing partially broke again (legacy runway code used for papi-lighting causing legacy AI models to become invisible unless aircraft-shadow is turned off, complex explanation and way too much use of the word legacy i know).

[Guest diddydaddy]

"in FSX RTM this legacy airport method did not work, with SP1 it got fixed to the point devs started using it again with some confidence ... and now in SP2 the same thing partially broke again"Sorry, am I getting this right? You mean that,1. Original FSX. Our old FS2004 stuff didn't work (fair enough).2. SP1. Developers get most of FS2004 stuff upgraded to FSX (great).3. SP2. MS release a patch that stops my airports working (eh?)Brilliant! Just what we all wanted.Either MS don't keep an eye on the addon world, or if they do, they just couldn't give a monkeys about it.Martin

[Guest hondaxr]

>>Orlando By Cloud9>>Mega Airport London-Heathrow X by Aerosoft>>Zurich X By Fsdreamteam (both Version X an 9, one price for>>good scenery)>>Bergen FSX and 9 from Cloud9>>Mega Airport Brussels X from Aerosoft>>>>And on developement..... KORD by fsdreamteam>>In the overall scope that is very poor because everything>listed is coming from only 2-3 sources (actual>developers/persons). And upon close inspection, only 1 of them>has made extensive efforts to adapt the FSX SDK. Without>exaggerating I am quite sure that Orlando is literally the>only "highend" airport that was ever made as 100% purebred>FSX-SDK. Everything else contains legacy content in one form>or another. And the reason is not because these devs are old>and stupid, the FSX SDK is just lacking in the airport-dev>department to the point where vital things such as drawing a>non-default hold short marking can't be achieved at all>without going back to older SDKs.>>Ideally a new SDK would have been embraced by the>dev-community and every dev would have trashed the old>compilers within days.Sorry Martin but where is the problem? the ground poly tecnique is realized with old FS2002 SDK but on your product for FS2004 the use of SDK 2002 for you is applied without problem, now with FSX is mandatory the use of pure code? mmmm, I will buy products from who, courageously produces good products such as Aerosoft.

[Guest diddydaddy]

I think you're missing the point. This thread's about that there were good products working for FSX, but since Christmas and SP2 loads of them don't work any more. FlyTampa are probably the best around and personally I would like to see them working in FSX (even if they don't use sacred FSX code or whatever coveted by purists).Who cares what the programming is behind these airports? Me and probably 99% of the other airline simmers don't. You gotta give the developers something solid to work from and not decide to change stuff just when everything was starting to work.It's not complicated. Don't need to be a rocket surgeon. Just uninstall SP2 and go back to SP1.Martin