FTX: Global openLC Europe out

[UnknownGuest12]

Hi Dimus

Yes, that´s the problem. Saw in Orbx Foruns a Portuguese fellow complaining about the "looks" of Lisbon, completly wrong on Vector. Using Utx, its ok and it´s very old...because of that never bought it. And think I will not risk buying this one without making sure my town is, at least, acceptable.

Regards

[UKTrafficPilot]

I'm disappointed. After buying FTX Global, Vector and now Open LC. This is how the roads look in West London. Random grey lines running right through houses, side-streets etc.



Autogen tends to "hide" the mistakes in the Vector info and everything looks alot better outside of cities but if you're looking for realism...stick to photographic scenery (as I dust-off my Generation X DVD's!).

Regards,

Adam

[Roger]

I used to fly hybrid all the time since FTX Global but recently, to take advantage of regional autogen I've been flying regions.

To UKTrafficPilot,
If, like me, you spend most of the time flying low'n'slow then photo-real is no good. What ORBX have done with FTX is the best thing that happened to scenery. Without it I may well have given up simming, at least in FsX for good. What is difficult is getting a handle on what's possible with the limitations of FsX architecture and then understanding it once it doesn't do everything one might wish, lol.

[Sascha66]

What ORBX have done with FTX is the best thing that happened to scenery.

I suppose you are not aware of this (freeware) project: http://world2xplane.com/

IMO this is the best thing that happened to scenery.

Add some other freeware like HD mesh and custom world autogen - and you have the most realistic sim experience ever, at least in summer.

Alas, my computer can't handle XP, FSX or P3D - so I am sticking with FS9

Back to topic - from ORBX we now have:

- FTX Global

- FTX Vector

- FTX EU

- FTX PNW

- ORBX Regions

- EU Open LC

controlled through FTX Central or the various control panels.

At least that is what I understand from various posts.

But everthing only works with certain other products - no wonder there is confusion with newcomers!

[ncooper]

OK, so just for the purposes of clarification in this thread:

If you have any ORBX region(s) and FTX Global/Vector/LC and check "Hybrid Mode" in the Config panel, then you will have ORBX scenery in the appropriate regions and FTX scenery everywhere else?

That's it? No other fixes required?

Deacon

Yes, that is entirely correct.
There will be some small issues in the regions which very few will notice, as said above, it is a compromise.

Until now, the Hybrid mode has not been particularly useful as the regions have been so far apart.
So unless a flight between the UK and Australia or New Zealand or North America or Canada
was planned it wasn't really necessary to activate more than one region.

It's a different matter now that a region, the UK and Ireland, is very close to a huge area of OpenLC.

It might help to look at it as four regions,

1). North America
2). Oceania
3). Europe (just the UK and Ireland for now)
4). Global Landclass, ie everywhere else, (only Europe for now, more to follow).

Only the Global setting in FTX Central will activate "everywhere else" and only the Global+Hybrid setting
will activate everything else and the Regions together.

[Stan V.]

I suppose you are not aware of this (freeware) project: http://world2xplane.com/

IMO this is the best thing that happened to scenery.

Add some other freeware like HD mesh and custom world autogen - and you have the most realistic sim experience ever, at least in summer.

Alas, my computer can't handle XP, FSX or P3D - so I am sticking with FS9

Back to topic - from ORBX we now have:

- FTX Global

- FTX Vector

- FTX EU

- FTX PNW

- ORBX Regions

- EU Open LC

controlled through FTX Central or the various control panels.

At least that is what I understand from various posts.

But everthing only works with certain other products - no wonder there is confusion with newcomers!

Sascha,

It is true there is some confusion, especially among new simmers, but much is due to the customer's oversimplified expectations and lack of knowledge about the structure of FSX's original scenery structure as it exists out of the purchase box. One extraneous point: PNW and ORBX EU are both Orbx Regions, not separate items as you have them listed.

The original FSX has a defined multipart scenery structure constructed in layers that work together to represent what you see as scenery in the sim. These layers are textures, land class, vectors, mesh, and autogen. When you buy FSX from a store, you get all of them for the whole world but they are buried, so to speak, in FSX's one large scenery database, and you never notice the individual pieces. The scope of the data is worldwide as defined by Microsoft, but the scenery quality often suffers as a result of Microsoft having to provide the required massive quantity of data for the whole world. To keep things manageable from a software perspective, MS often used shortcuts such as using the same texture file to represent multiple places on the earth that are, in fact, quite different in real life.

Orbx's product line started out with the concept of designing replacement scenery components in very fine detail but only for smaller, very select regions of the earth. So far, they have designed detailed regions to cover Australia, New Zealand, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, large parts of the northwest U.S., and Southern Alaska but more are on the drawing board as we speak. Each region includes all of the scenery components I mention above. However, because their scenery is only for specific geographic regions, there had to be some kind of control software for the end user to control the merging of Orbx's detailed scenery components with the left-over FSX scenery components. This was done using the software you mention - which Orbx calls FTX Central. It comes free with each new region a user purchases. In producing these regions,Orbx adds value by showing completely new levels of detail never before made available to the public on this scale.

Always on the lookout for ways to make simming better (and make money at the same time), Orbx also branched out into new product areas not addressed by the detailed regions. They decided to tackle the vast reqions of the earth not covered by one of their regions. The first product they released was called FTX Global. It is simply a complete replacement for the each of the many worldwide texture files in the FSX database. In so doing, Orbx added more detail into many of the scenes represented by those textures including making individual textures specific to parts of the world that never before had such representation in FSX. As the end user flies his simulator, these textures form the very foundation of what is observed on the ground.

Textures themselves, however, go only so far. There are also, terrain features represented by straight lines such as roads, railroads, rivers, and lake and river shorelines. Orbx's next venture was to provide a product that replaced all the vector scenery for the sim. This was marketed as FTX Global Vector.

Next, Orbx is tackling landclass data. Landclass files control which texture file is displayed in FSX for any particular geographic rectangle on the surface of the earth. They call these Open Landclass products and because they are so voluminous, they are being developed in pieces corresponding to geographic areas. The first separate product line of this type was just released covering Europe.

You now should be able to understand that these different scenery files all play together in the sim to make your flight sim experience more enjoyable by making the scene out of your cockpit window more representative of the real world.


Having said all of this, you as a user now have many choices and you can tailor your purchase(s) to match the areas where you like to fly. If you prefer to fly in an area represented by a only couple of Orbx regions, then you only need to purchase those regions. Nothing else is required. On the other hand, if you like to go exploring in new areas, you may want some of the other products to cover those areas not covered by a region. It's a good thing. Don't complain about having choices.

[racartron]

What Stan V. said

[Sascha66]

Sascha,
Don't complain about having choices.

Thanks for this very informative post.

I am not complaining, I am confused. What I need is an explanation of how these ORBX products interact if eg I fly from London to Hong Kong, or Vancouver to Frankfurt. There are so many different claims about that I just can't make heads or tails of it, especially as some products need global to work and others FTX Europe.

Sascha

[Stan V.]

Thanks for this very informative post.

I am not complaining, I am confused. What I need is an explanation of how these ORBX products interact if eg I fly from London to Hong Kong, or Vancouver to Frankfurt. There are so many different claims about that I just can't make heads or tails of it, especially as some products need global to work and others FTX Europe.

Sascha

Please don't take offense - I wasn't trying to flame you, and confusion in this hobby is never something you need apologize for. We all get to that state at one time or other. I think you'll find there is no Orbx Region product called "FTX Europe" - only the individual countries, like England or Wales. There is, however, an Orbx landclass product called OpenLC Europe but that's it as far as the product names are concerned.

The problem you describe is really one of figuring out how you should set FTC Central if you want to fly from one of Orbx's full Regions, like FTX England, to a non-Region such as Hong Kong. This has been answered many time on the Orbx site but it still has not stopped confusing users who are overwhelmed by all the choices. I suggest you try to find the information you seek over at the Orbx site - but make sure you are reading a reply from a member of the team. Frequently, other users will attempt to be helpful and just end up spreading the confusion factor around, especially if they don't thoroughly understand the implications themselves. I myself am a little fuzzy on the correct answer but I don't usually make those sorts of flights so I've never been motivated enough to pin the answer down. I believe you set FTX Central to "Global" if you are flying completely out of a Region or if you are leaving a Region during your next flight. The Hybrid switch implies by its name a mixture of a Region and a non-Region but there are other implications that should be understood about this, and I am not knowledgeable enough to tell you about them. FTX Central's main effect is to move the entries around in the scenery.cfg file based on your input and in so doing, it affects which scenery files are actually shown by the sim when you are over a given area.

[Rimshot]

What I need is an explanation of how these ORBX products interact if eg I fly from London to Hong Kong, or Vancouver to Frankfurt.

Maybe the document in this link will help:

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/top...x-information/

[Deacon211]

Thanks StanV, that was very helpfully put.

Rimshot, that is an excellent link as it explains a lot of what I couldn't quite piece together about how this stuff interacted with each other (more complicated than I thought...go figure )


I think the most concisely useful part is this:


"To do this, FTX Global includes what is called a "Hybrid Mode".

Hybrid mode essentially creates an autogen, terrain effects and available texture library that can be
used across the globe. This does of course mean that some small compromises must be made and while
99% of the scenery in ALL areas of the world, including outside of the FTX Full region areas works and
looks exactly as intended, there is the 1% that still looks good, but not exactly how it was meant to look.

In other words, If you are planning to fly exclusively inside an FTX Full region, set FTX Central to that
local worldwide region.

If you're planning on flying exclusively outside FTX Full regions, set FTX Central to Global and uncheck
Hybrid.

If you want to fly into, out of or between FTX Full regions, set FTX Central to Global and check Hybrid
mode."


That cleared up my confusion of why you wouldn't just select Global Hybrid and have everything activated all the time.

Deacon

[Dimus]

For Beaufighter:

OK I got it and once installed in P3D v2 I took the Chippie to Lisbon. For some reason things seem to be a bit better now. No double bridges although a slight alignment issue is there between the bridge and the road. Let me know if you need more areas covered or more specific details.

[Stan V.]

I really don't mind flying in the UK OR the mainland of Europe. Why turn on Hybrid just to cross the Channel or North-Sea (i'll take a Ferry.. ). Flying in Europe mainland i'll select FTX Global in FTX Central. That'll work fine with OLC. Flying in the UK i'll select FTX Europe. According to the manual that will NOT work because Global OpenLC will only work correctly with FTX Global selected. ( see excerpt of the manual above )

I think i'll buy it anyway and see what FTX Global OpenLC will do with FTXGlobal UK. Forget about FTX Europe for now. If i don't like it, Like FTX Europe better, i'll put my copy of Global OLC up on eBay.

Jan,

You have the correct plan and by all means, check out FTX Open LC Europe with FTX Central set to "Europe". You may like it better based on your own perceptions. On the other hand, OpenLC Europe was designed to be used with FTX Central set to "Global" in areas outside of the full Orbx regions and one would assume Orbx made design choices to give the best result when Global was installed on your sim under those circumstances.

Note, however, if your FTX Central is set to "Europe" and you have the pertinent FTX Europe regions installed, the most accurate representation you can get of the scenery in those Regions from Orbx will already be in your sim - you do not need their OpenLC Europe product as long as you are flying totally within the UK. Even though OpenLC Europe is a newer and highly advertised product, that product is designed to give better scenery quality OUTSIDE OF Orbx's full regions. In the situation you mention, these comprise Europe's non UK countries.

[Javis]

Thanks, Stan, all understood, and yes the best thing one can do is to see for oneself of course so i did that.

First thing i noticed was that the slight 'panic' i was in re my beloved FTX/UK sceneries proved not necessary at all. As someone said 'much ado about nothing'.

Of course all clear on all European countries outside UK with FTX Central set at FS Global. Mostly very impressive indeed! But i have to agree with what others say about the area's they know from real life. F.i. to me it looks quite eerie to see massive 'urbanisation' bordering some of the Schiphol runways which was not the case with just the FTX Global scenery. I guess that's just something you have to get used to. For the most part it's pretty much fictional anyway of course.

On the other hand i have also to say that the overall appearance of my country (Netherlands) with FTX Global OpenLC looks very convincing. I'd say easily the next best thing to photoreal NL2000 and certainly the best thing if you can't fly without autogen (like me). Amsterdam doesn't look like Amsterdam but "'n kniesoor die daar op let" as we say in Amsterdam.

I still have no idea what looks best when flying over FTX UK. I tried all 3 options. FTX Central set to FSGlobal with and without 'hybrid' ticked and set to Europe as well. I have only seen a few minor anomalies with the latter setting but i seem to notice lesser fps. I am very content with UK in FSGlobal/hybrid setting so for the moment i'm sticking with that.

Glad i bought the package, had some of the most enchanting flights ever ! ( about 2000 ft AGL, 140 knots, super crisp ground textures, quite amazing ! )

cheers,
Jan

[Javis]

A fine water-rollercoaster somewhere near the French Pyrenees:



I know this is not the fault of OpenLC Europe of course but more like the terrain mesh add-on i am using, which is FSGenesis Europe. In addition a lot of airfields in mountainous area's are build on plataus as well. AFAIK nothing can be done about it for the time being. True ??....

I was wondering if there is a high def terrain mesh that doesn't show these anomalies ?

Any hints/tips highly appreciated!

Thanks,
jan

[Christoph_T]

That looks funny!!
I'd like to take a ride in the rollercoaster. Where do you get such a waterslide:-)

[Tim-HH]

Hi Jan,

I was wondering if there is a high def terrain mesh that doesn't show these anomalies ?

do you also use Orbx FTX Global Vector? I guess then Pilot's FS Global 2010 FTX Compatible mesh might be the right choice. At least FTX Vector seems to be designed around this mesh. So these water-rollercosters will most likely disappear And to fix the plateau airports FTX Vector offers a small tool that should fix most of them

Greetings
Tim

[Bjoern]

This looks like a vector data bug, not a mesh related one. Might be worth notifying ORBX about this.


(Looks like a roman aqueduct, btw.)

[TuFun]

Orbx makes some awesome scenery, but roads going thru buildings thou...

[Roger]

I have the morphing textures issue described by Holger in this post http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/top...ture-morphing/ however following his instructions, unfortunately has had no effect. I have posted in their support forum and will wait for a solution.
The situation is that I have Eu selected in Central and am flying from Dishforth within the UK. Ahead of the Wellington's nose you can see a patch of sand with water in it. This had changed from grass and changed yet again having passed over the area.

[Javis]

Hi Jan,do you also use Orbx FTX Global Vector?

Hi Tim. No, i don't have FTX Global Vector ( yet...). Next to FTX Global, FSGenesis Europe and now FTX Global OpenLC Eu i also use UTX Europe but only, more or less, half of it. F.i. i cannot live with all these roads ruining the beautiful ground textures and autogen as if they weren't there. Ok, so much for 'as real as it gets' but it's all more or less fictional anyway, isn't it. So i go with 'as beautiful as it gets'.

I guess then Pilot's FS Global 2010 FTX Compatible mesh might be the right choice. At least FTX Vector seems to be designed around this mesh. So these water-rollercosters will most likely disappear

Been reading up about it, thanks for the tip! Seems though that FSG2010 still has its own problems with elevation at certain area's. Wish i could try a demo so i wouldn't need to install the full 40 Gigs just to find out i like FSGenesis better...

I wonder if FTX Vector tracks FTX Autogen so you don't see roads and rivers running thru houses and buildings anymore. If that would be true i'd ask my grumpy cc about it immidiately.

Do you know if FTX Vector replaces UTX all together ?

And to fix the plateau airports FTX Vector offers a small tool that should fix most of them.

Yes, read about that too, AFM, right ? Seems it does work to some extend. I do find these elevation problems at airports the most distracting so i might go with FTX Vector.

Thanks, Tim.

[Javis]

I have the morphing textures issue described by Holger in this post

Why don't you use FTXGlobal/hybrid, Roger ? Don't you see a lesser fps too flying with FTXEurope ticked compared to Global/hybrid ? I do, certainly flying over London. ( all sliders max, no road traffic )

Maybe i still don't get it, but we still see FTXEurope (in this case England) when FTXGlobal is activated and Hybrid is ticked, right ?...

[Roger]

Why don't you use FTXGlobal/hybrid, Roger ? Don't you see a lesser fps too flying with FTXEurope ticked compared to Global/hybrid ? I do, certainly flying over London. ( all sliders max, no road traffic )

Maybe i still don't get it, but we still see FTXEurope (in this case England) when FTXGlobal is activated and Hybrid is ticked, right ?...

Hi Jan, When flying within a region and not intending to go outside that region I prefer to take advantage of the specific region's autogen and as we know the Global hybrid autogen is a compromise.

[Roger]

Hi Jan, When flying within a region and not intending to go outside that region I prefer to take advantage of the specific region's autogen and as we know the Global hybrid autogen is a compromise.

Holger has kindly replied to my support query and told me that I need to move all my eu lc entries to a much lower place in the scenery cfg. I had already done this but unfortunately they didn't stay there and on checking they were all back up close to the top. I need to understand the FTX Central insertion point tool which is a little confusing for me.

[P38man]

To those with morphing textures issues - I had this issue rear it's head when I used to have Orbx scenery - I found that my terrain file over time got worse with using the FTX scenery switcher thing

So maybe the issue is there. My posts about it may still be on the orbx forum under "shousa".

Hope that helps someone. It's frustrating when one cannot fly.