17 replies to this topic

[etien]

Hello, I am really interested by your product, is there seasonal coverage with orbx compatibility? This is unclear in the web site at the moment. Etienne

[Paul Webster]

Hi,

 

Yes there is full seasonal coverage, Once installed just open our control panel and select orbx.

 

Paul

[kevin firth]

Hi Paul, I presume selecting the photoscenery install option doesn't give you seasonal variations in the airfield base is that correct? Cheers k

[Paul Webster]

That's correct, if you select Orbx or Default you get all season but if you choose Horizon (photoscenery) you get 1 season.

 

Paul

[kevin firth]

Wow quick reply! Thanks Paul, I'm liking the way you have approached these compatibility wise. I assume you have ensured that products work seamlessly with the various different meshes as well, default, OrbX 10m and GenX 5m? (Although for Oban I suspect the nature of the terrain means very little difference between them) cheers k

[Paul Webster]

Thanks, There is no difference in the mesh that we have found for Oban.

 

Paul

[etien]

Thanks for paul for this precision. Etienne

[etien]

hi Paul,

 

Another question, (I am more and more tempted), does the install touch any of the "core" shared fsx file; (I mean the autogen\default.xml ; Env\RoofDescriptions.spb ; Env\lclookup.bgl and so on ?) I am asking because I was worried by the message about autogen trees have disapeared.

 

Etienne

[Paul Webster]

Hi,

 

We only overwrite autogendescription.spb so our custom trees works, The installer will create a backup of your current Autogen files before we overwrite them with our own. They can be found here: {fsx/p3d}\SIM720\Scripts\Backup\

If you don't use our autogendescription.spb you will only miss autogen trees.

 

Hope that helps

 

Paul

[etien]

Hi Paul, thanks for you quick answer, may I ask why such a design decision ? This is a nice little aiport for what I can see in the picture, but it should be able to cope with the standart set of autogen trees. Overwriting autogendescription.spb will lead to compatibility problems, and the solution to miss the autogen trees doesn't appeal me. Any chance of an option that doesnt affect autogendescription.spb and still have trees

 

(sorry to be such a pain, but I have hundreds of addon and I dont want to take a chance). Etienne

[Paul Webster]

Hi,

 

We did this because our trees are more FPS friendly and look nicer than default tree's.

What addon's are you worried about as we are already compatible with some other addons.

 

Paul

[kevin firth]

Good questions... Are you compatible autogen wise with Earth Simulations and their Treescapes products please Paul? I'm no stranger to merging autogen files where necessary, but I know a lot of GenX users have Treescapes as well and may not be as comfortable about playing around with the autogen files as I am, as Etienne seems to be a case in point. Cheers k

[Paul Webster]

Hi,

 

We merged our changes with Orbx so should be compatible with Earth Simulations, Orbx, VFR Germany and more.

 

Paul

[etien]

Hi Paul, glad to hear that it is compatible today with Orbx. 

 

But what will happen at the next Orbx release? they will probably update the same file on their own, or at least owerwrite it, (and as you know Orbx doesn't care much about compatibility, see the disagreement with France VFR), you are going to have to update your file as times pass which will be a drag for both your customers and yourself? As Kevin says, the other way is to decompile / amend / recompile ourselves the .spb file each time, but why?

 

I want to support your effort and promissing young comapny, and really looking fotrward trying this airport, but please release an option where you dont touch that file (aka use standart autogen for trees), I think even orbx offer that option for FTX Global at install.

 

Etienne 

[kevin firth]

Hi Etienne,

It's still early on a Sunday morning for me, but my understanding is that any changes made by either dev would always be backwards compatible, ie it wouldn't break anything, it would only provide additional functionality. So you would just install the updated libraries from either developer as they are released and all your sceneries should work without any problems (I'm sure Paul or someone else could phrase that better, or tell me if I'm wrong! )

It's worth remembering that this kind of concession to compatibility is only a relatively new thing amongst developers, and they should be applauded for working to make things as easy as practically possible for us, but... we all know FSX is a bit of a dinosaur now don't we

Cheers k

[Paul Webster]

Correct any changes to the file would be backwards compatible and would be updated via a library update.

I will raise it with Senior management next week. As for Orbx they don't offer that option on install, they do have a switch on there control panel that says "uses orbx trees" but that has never made any difference to me and i always see the same trees and as for France VFR it was their choice not to be compatible with anybody else.

 

Paul

[Christopher Low]

I have ORBx trees across England and Wales (replacing the ES TreeScapes trees) since I installed FTX Northern Ireland (my one and only ORBx product to date). Fortunately, I rather like the ORBx trees, so I am keeping them for the moment.

[kevin firth]

I have ORBx trees across England and Wales (replacing the ES TreeScapes trees) since I installed FTX Northern Ireland (my one and only ORBx product to date). Fortunately, I rather like the ORBx trees, so I am keeping them for the moment.

I found this as well, it was documented in a review of Goodwood I wrote