Holger

Hi guys,this is actually more than "just" a patch; it includes a complete land class package for the UT-X Europe coverage area, which could very well mean SceneryTech or Cloud9 are no longer needed!Cheers, Holger

Hi Manny,good idea! Below is an image I took of the Dent Blanche (Weisshorn, 4357m) during a camping trip (!) in November 1991. Dent Blanche sits NW of the Matterhorn at the head of the Val D'Herens. It's a truly spectacular area and I'm excited that Frank is sharing these excellent photoreal textures.Perhaps you can re-use the effects Ed made for SIRP? http://edtruthan.com/sirp/Cheers, Holgerhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/186681.jpg

Hi Brian,from the FS2004 SDK:"For performance reasons, the scenery engine in Flight Simulator limits the number of buildings displayed to 300 per square kilometre and the pieces of vegetation displayed to 600 per square kilometre. Future versions of Flight Simulator, however, may increase these limits; there is no limitation on the number of building footprints and vegetation areas stored in the annotation files."Cheers, Holger

Hi Bill,FSX style photoreal ground textures include them in the bgl. You can actually load the bgl into TMFViewer (Terrain SDK tool) and see the image, its coverage area and LODs used.Cheers, Holger

Hi Turnip,Can't have enough real-world pilot on board of a project ;-) Thanks for the offer; I'll send you an email.I lived in Bellingham for a couple of years and then in Vancouver (BC) for a number of years after that. It sure is a beautiful area.Cool website, by the way ;-)Cheers, Holger

Hi Turnip,yes, FTX and UT-X will co-exist. It wouldn't make sense for FTX to duplicate features already provided by UT-X, like detailed roads and water bodies. We're still working on the feature set for FTX Pacific Northwest but the idea is to focus on those aspects of the landscape and scenery that UT-X doesn't touch.Australia requires a different approach because there is no UT-X available and the FSX default landscape detail is pretty poor compared to the default landscape detail of North America and Europe. Cheers, Holger

Hi there,looks like you forget that maps "lie" because they distort areas depending on latitude and other projection parameters (lots of interesting articles on the web about that!). Try Wikipedia or other online geographic database instead: all of Europe covers ~10 million sq km and western Europe (depending on your definition what that is) covers 1.5-4 million sq km. The area covered by FTX BLUE is 2.5-3 million sq km; it's difficult to measure exactly because its boundary doesn't align with state or provincial boundaries. Thus, if you follow Wikipedia's definition of Western Europe, FTX BLUE is actually bigger but if you include northern and southern Europe in your definition then western Europe is bigger. That's the numbers game for those to whom size matters ;-)Cheers, Holger

Hi Alvega,did my suggestion in your FTX forum thread not work for you? http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=1324.0If so, please post again in that thread and we'll investigate.Cheers, Holger

Hi Nick,as for my comparison being "off base" I'm just going by what the FSX land class tables tell us. For example, how can GEX provide custom textures for South America without providing a front-end switcher as per your statement in this thread: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...topic_id=435281South America (Regions D and Q) does not have a single specific texture set in FSX out-of-the box and the hard-coded nature of the lclookup.bgl means that you can't just make your own and name them according to the region. It's pretty much the same for most other regions across the planet; all of Africa offers seven specific default classes and all of Asia eight. Unless you plan on using the GEX North America Region B textures for the remaining classes throughout those areas you have no choice but to employ a mechanism similar to FTX. Which, I'd like to emphasize, is not a bad thing ;-) And it's not a new discussion either because similar questions were asked with the release of BEV, GE, and FScene for FS9.Anyhow, the answer to your question is available on the FTX website and in the Region BLUE document: the FTX mode switcher cannot be used during a flight. If you want to do a cross-continental flight and have UT-X installed you should let the UT-X configurator add its custom entries to the terrain.cfg file (meaning you leave FTX Mode ON and run each UT-X configurator once). Any other changes with FTX Mode ON are very minor and probably require a screenshot comparison to be noticeable; and they are listed in the FTX FAQ as well. Cheers, Holger

Hi Tom,"FTX Mode will replace some generic scenery files with it's own, not the least is the autogendescriptions.spb, and the default.xml files, with a much larger one then default, so it could potentially affect your performance."The reason those files are larger is that they include custom autogen definitions for the FTX autogen. The process for doing this is documented in the FSX Autogen SDK. These definitions are used in the FTX area only so FSX ignores them elsewhere. In other words your concerns about potential performance impacts are unfounded.According to the SDKs adding custom data to the global files, like terrain.cfg, autogendescriptions.spb, and default.xml is the proper method. What the SDK conveniently ignores is what's supposed to happen if several add-ons use this approach. One option is to write an installer that adds the information in a "neutral" fashion, meaning without changing any existing modifications. That works well until a user makes his/her own changes or re-installs FSX or any of the service packs and everything gets reset to default (witness all the "where's my water?" posts here and elsewhere. FTX uses the alternate approach, which is to switch back and forth the files that require changing. Either approach has its drawbacks; a clever programmer who comes up with fail-proof code for dealing with global files stands to make a lot of money. In the meantime we're lobbying ACES to please allow, in FS11 and beyond, for stand-alone local additions to these global files. Cheers, Holger

Hi Nick,"I assume you can do that in-flight without interrupting the flight? or that would be a real show stopper flying out of a FTX sector to another area that has no FTX coverage. I was under the impression from their promo's they designed a seamless method so FTX worked with everyone, but if you cant do that at the very least, "in-flight" that means they didn't."Actually, you can set up FTX so that FTX mode can stay enabled with UT-X installed; how to do that is explained in the UT-X and FTX forums. Obviously, once FTX provides coverage for areas that UT-X also covers an ON/OFF switch as with Australia isn't really feasible anymore anyway. So, yes, you can fly from Australia to the US or Hongkong or London without having to stop and hit a switch.Speaking of seamless, I assume your "show stopper" comment was specific to FTX? After all, once GEX textures are available for other regions there will have to be a mechanism to prevent Europe or Asia textures from showing in North America, Africa, etc. Most likely, this would be a GUI switcher as well, which would have to be used prior to a flight. That assumes that GEX actually includes complete texture sets for each region, which will be tricky to achieve given the default state of our "beloved" lclookup.bgl -- hello, ON/OFF switcher! ;-)Cheers, Holger

Hi guys,while it's always a good idea to set FTX mode to OFF while installing or upgrading add-ons there's no requirement for it in this particular case. FTX doesn't affect any of the textures and autogen files that GEX uses and vice versa.Cheers, Holger

Hi Dick,in FS9 one could place photoreal tiles as VTP2 poly fills and thus allow for VTP2 vector/poly overrides. That's not the way photoreal is supposed to work in FSX but that feature may still be available; haven't checked myself.The other option I can think of is to use an Alpha blending mask to "carve out" the area in your original photoscenery file you want to have displayed as sloping apron in the sim. FSX allows for two blending masks at the same time, water and background. Check the SDK for the process on this.Cheers, Holger

Hi Manny,if you have FTX installed I suggest you switch FTX mode to OFF when flying outside Australia. I'm not sure whether this is the cause in your particular case but we spotted similar texture mix-ups during Beta testing. FTX replaces some of the autogen roof definitions and textures, which will be reverted by switching FTX off.Cheers, Holger

Hi guys,as Victor has pointed out, Train Sim 2 is advertised on its official website as "Coming in 2009". I doubt that ACES would be willing or able to ship two major titles in the same year unless TS2 was to be released in spring. Thus, my guess is 2010 at the earliest for FS11.Cheers, Holger

Hi J,one cool thing we noticed with the tree-lined roads is that, during dusk, dawn, and night, the moving car's head and tail lights briefly get blocked by the trees in a more or less regular fashion. This creates a dynamic effect of "flickering" white and red lights, which is quite unique. You should check it out.I must admit that initially the new FSX feature of moving cars didn't have much appeal to me. However, having road traffic in your direct or peripheral vision during flights and approaches does make a big difference in terms of immersion, IMO.Cheers, Holger

Hello Ben,sorry, FTX doesn't contain dynamic cloud shadows. The code to enable this feature was supposed to be provided through the integration with the FEX weather engine/environmental simulator: http://www.flightenvironment.com/ However, the direct cooperation between ORBX (FTX) and Aerosimulations (FEX) was ended a few months ago. The FEX weather/environmental engine hasn't been published yet and we don't know whether it will include cloud shadows. If it does, we also don't know whether that feature will be exclusive to ground textures Aerosimulations publishes itself or applicable to ground textures in general. Perhaps Chris or Peter will read this thread and can speak to that.For FS9 many of the more exciting add-ons didn't show up until late in the cycle. With FS11 at least two more years away there's still hope that one day we will have at least the beginnings of dynamic cloud shadows ;-)Cheers, Holger

Hi Christian,don't know the technical details but you can check in Filemon or similar tools when and where FSX touches elevation files (within the "infamous" 4.5x radius). We found that, in general, bigger seems to be better because it reduces the number of file touches. On the other hand, complex add-ons like UT-X handle thousands of files and performance remains OK.Not sure what your LOD8 global mesh idea is about. For many areas (North America, Europe, parts of Australia, etc.) it wouldn't even be displayed because default is already at LOD9 or 10. Or are you talking about areas outside the higher-res coverage?Cheers, Holger

Hi Geof,you should definitely use a download manager, like DAP or FDM.Haven't been able to log into the store either for the last few hours; seems like there's a bigger "appetite" for FTX than anyone expected...Cheers, Holger

Hi there,actually, the FSX Terrain SDK knows:"Default land class textures will be used if the terrain system cannot find photo-imagery at LOD13 (5 meters per pixel) or greater detail. This can lead to default textures appearing when photo-imagery is desired. To ensure that the LOD13 requirement is met, consider using LOD=Auto,13 in the [Destination] section of the .inf file. "There's quite a bit on photoscenery in the SDK as well as sample files.Cheers, Holger

Hi Christian,old thread but still valid: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchFor 10-m data you may want to work with the FractionBits parameter to get sub-meter vertical resolution and avoid terracing effects; see the Terrain SDK. General background on FS mesh design (some of it has changed for FSX) available at Steve Greenwood's old site: http://home.earthlink.net/~smgreenwood/welcome.shtmlCheers, Holger

Hi Tom,there's a bit of an odd prerequisite for this to work: your polygon needs to be covered by a custom land class file that resides in the same scenery folder as your cvx file. What classes you use for the land class file doesn't matter. However, FSX will search for the textures of that land class file in your parallel texture folder. Unlike FS9 this won't cause memory leaks but it does show up as a read error log in Filemon and may lead to micro stutters (if your project area covers more than just a few sq km).An alternative approach is to place your class 002 as land class and then draw polys along the outer edges where you don't want desert, using the surrounding land class for those polys. The visual result is the same as placing a desert poly but it avoids the requirement for the additional land class file.Hope that makes sense.Cheers, Holger

Hi guys,well, it's not that Boeing is the good old all-American company anymore. Maybe the guys in charge got scared of the 1000+ Russian engineers? (just kidding)http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/conte...05/b3969417.htm(two-years old news but interesting, IMO)Cheers, Holger

Hi Tom,nice stump speech of the us vs. them type: "Beware, there are dark and evil forces lurking out there!" Ever considered running for office? ;-)Cheers, Holger

Hi Brian,thanks for fishing my post out of the ether and taking the time to respond. Good point about us readers not knowing what's happening behind the curtains.My main point wasn't that the business models are the same (ad sales and sim shop revenue vs. "direct" product sales are obviously different) but rather that both organizations include volunteers and that some of these were portrayed as belonging to "the dark side" ;-) whereas you moderators are supposedly "just volunteers". Anyway, it's not really what this thread is about, just wanted to post it as food for thought. Cheers, Holger