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martin_ktpa

Add on Airports not compatible with SP2

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>It's not complicated. Don't need to be a rocket surgeon. Just>uninstall SP2 and go back to SP1.How do you do that? If doing it through the uninstall control panel do you need to reinstall SP1?


Jim Wenham

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>I may have missed it but no one in these threads pointed out>that it not SP1 or SP2 (generally speaking) that causes these>problems. The problem lies with the DX10 Preview function. I>have all of the airports mentioned in these posts and quite a>few more. I do not have the problems mentioned herein. These>airports do "work" in FSX l- just not using the DX10 preview.>>I think it is up to the poster to ensure a precise description>of the problem and not "the airport does not work" kind of>statement.>>fbHi,I posted the pic of the trees with the black rectangles. I'm not using Vista so DX10 preview does not apply. What video card are you using? Bob..

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Guest Nils79

Bob,do you use replacement textures for trees? I had the same problem with the ZurichX demo and i could solve it by adding an alpha channel to the tree replacement textures.

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Guest bertvankampen

I am not 100% sure you need to re-install SP1; i have read on some machines you have to!What i only did was re-installing to the SDK-version 1A, because i also installed the SDK SP2update.BTW after reading this whole thread what is certainty with this version of FS...;-)Good luckBert

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Bob,I use a EVGA 8800 Ultra - 768Mb or RAM.fb

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I did indeed acknowledge this, so your selective quoting is off.I have to admit, I am surprised that given the alternative of 1)authoring airports without this one feature, and 2)not authoring airports at all that the choice would be to do nothing.It will be interesting to see how that works out. Certainly at a minimum that means much more work when FS11 rolls out.

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Guest G.Grimshaw

Phil, if you need a visual comparison of just how bad a fully SP2 compliant airport will look compared to one authored with FS2002 ground polys, we will gladly send you some shots. Doing nothing is a perfect option right now. I'm not running a FS business, I don't need the money, I have a full time job working in the games industry as an environment artist. Scenery design is just a hobby I used to enjoy before FSX came along. Without basic support for groundpolys, theres very little visual pride left in creating content for FS. It could be so awesome if your tools showed a little innovation. I'd love to see shader support for a custom wet taxiways/runways. Maybe even a greyscale map to control the wet look.Currently, FSX can't provide ANY alternative for FS2002 groundpolys & that's a tragic oversight for everyone, especially the customer.

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Quote"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." - Martin.I cannot state that more emphatically. Runway and then taxiway is almost everything in an airport scenery when coming to land. When you approach to land, your primary vision is on the runway and the approach end of the runway. Your peripheral vision views everything else. Thats what distinguishes from one airport to another. That stays in your mental image when you think about the approach in hindsight. The runway texture is like the signature of an airport.Using a common runway texture across 1000's of runways breaks that illusion completely.Almost all the current available FSX addon airports including my current favorite publisher Aerosoft, do not come close to Fly Tampa's or Flight scenery addon. I am using FSX almost all the time now, But I generally fly around water and Islands and coasts and never take off and land..with the exception of the following airports1. Fly Tampa's TNCM.2. LLH's Courchevel3. Aerosoft's Lukla. All three have FS9 like textures.When Blue sky scenery freeware put out high resolution textures for FS9, I used to take that and use it in FSX because at many airport it gave me a runway photo texture during day time (PHNL, KLAS, KSAN). I used to forgo night flying into those airports as well as put up with the bleed thru when you get too close. I preferred that to an addon using default textures. But now, I can't even use that anymore since it now messes up the coastal water post SP2.MannyPS: I hate that Cloud 9's Orlanda airport. Its a constant reminder of this problem that I have come to loath. Using default runway/taxiway textures.


Manny

Beta tester for SIMStarter 

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>Bob,>do you use replacement textures for trees? >I had the same problem with the ZurichX demo and i could solve>it by adding an alpha channel to the tree replacement>textures.Hi Nils and thanks for the suggestion. I am not using any replacement textures that I know of. But I do have UTX (currently disabled) and Flight Environment X. And I'm sorry, I'm not a graphics expert. The only thing I would assume is the alpha channel must precede the beta channel? Is it on comcast cable? LOL.Thanks again Nils!Bob..

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Guest Bob Z

I uninstalled SP2 via Control Panel several weeks ago and haven't had any problems. It should work OK.

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>Bob,>>I use a EVGA 8800 Ultra - 768Mb or RAM.>>fbThen if you don't see the cardboard trees at the location of my pic, it must be a video card issue. I'm shocked. :)Bob..

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>I am not using any replacement textures that I know of. But I>do have UTX (currently disabled) and Flight Environment X.When you say UTX - I assume you mean Ultimate Terrain and not Ultimate Traffic.By disabled - did you unselect it in the Scenery Library, or edit the Scenery.cfg file - or did you use the Ultimate Terrain Configuration program to restore the original state of the default flies?We see a lot of issues when people disable programs like Ultimate Terrain which replace default files by using the scenery library or editing the scenery.cfg file.Those programs must have their configuration utility run to restore the default files.And of course, we only learned that the hard way by messing up our own systems once, or twice.

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Phil, In my mind its a matter of viewpoint. As a designer of airports since fs98, I've seen a steady progression of improvement in visual and functional quality, as perceived by the user.This meant that somewhere around fs2000 we were adding custom ground surface that looked great on the ground. Somewhere in there we began adding animations, like the hangar doors opening with a proximity switch. The animations became triggered by conditions. We learned how to make use of rotate to aircraft features. Most if not all of these developements were outside of the microsoft enterprise. We had no opportunity to dialog with MS back then, so what choice was there.But that doesn't change the very valid expectation of users to still enjoy those features. Its very hard to feel good as a high end scenery designer if you have to give up on those developments that have been with us for years and start over. So its natural to find that some of us have temporarily retired. Its not easy to find out that what you've built over many years is of no use now. Yes, we are all working to learn the new ways, but quality payware looks best when the designer is mature in his/her techniques, not a true beginner. This is the first time since fs98 that I've felt this much like a beginner. The other factor is the users, the level of disgruntlement, and confusion is still an issue. If I release product into this market place, that disgruntlement becomes my problem...I have to field the requests for compatibility with multiple versions OR field discontented questions about why my payware is using the same quality runways as so and so's freeware. No thanks....the return is far too small to put with all that. I don't even want to release freeware into this market.I'm keeping my skills up to date, still designing for my own pleasure. My fs world is far different from the default, and some of it looks great, some of it sux! That's the learning process. When we can start fresh with a new version and avoid the mistakes made with introducing this one, perhaps I'll "un-retire". Viva fs11!Bob

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>It will be interesting to see how that works out. Certainly at>a minimum that means much more work when FS11 rolls out.Build it and they will come. Better yet, ship it with an example that is so convincing of the new Sim/SDKs power & features that no 3DP dev will dream of holding on to legacy methods.Resurrecting compatibility to 5 y/o compilers is not the answer and I can tell you that a little XML extension such as......won't be enough either resulting in this discussion all over again. Like I suggested in my email, a lot of whats needed seems to be there already. The solution to fully customized airport terrain with sloped runways maybe right in front of your eyes, unfortunately it is only half-baked at this stage.So "walk away" isn't fully case, we are still here and very interested pushing the hobby forward :) My biggest worry is that other devs (who are capable of much more) by just adopting default assets overtime will become a silent mass and noone at ACES will remember that something needs to be done about this.

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The problem of the trees is that they are modeled as flat surfaces. The surface is rotated so it is always facing the viewer (sprite). Additionally, instead of trying to model a complete tree, with all its branches and leaves, it is simply a rectangle with a texture, and DXT1 transparency is used to "see" only the branches/leaves. This makes for a very easy to build tree (and very frame friendly). The same technique can be used with other objects.But, in order to make this sprite rotation possible, it is necessary to apply a tweak which only works with GMAX objects created for FS2k2. It turns out that they way DXT1 transparency is done in that that version of GMAX doesn't display right in FSX sp2 (DXT1 transparency in GMAX for FSX does work, but you can't do the sprite tweak). (Don't ask about DXT3/DDS!) Anyway, there is no easy way around this, except to use the MS method, which creates abjects as intersecting planes (looks like a cross from top-down) so they don't need to rotate.scott s..

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