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FSX News

J

Jens Peter

Messages
11
Hej

Wonder if any of you scenery magicians :stirthepo have heard ore concluded how FSX will influct on future scenery design with program like Nova, Airports for windows etc. and what the evt. changes might demand of our FS9 construction.

Any hint,link etc. are most appreciated

Take Care
JP
 
jens, in honesty I thought those placement programs were already obsolete for fs9.

I'd suggest you learn the bglcomp xml style of scenery placement as described in the fs9 sdk for now. That concept is being carried over as the code style for placing mdl files into fsx. The mdl file itself will be changed, those of us that are gmax users have had to wait...no sdk yet...but fs9 mdls will be supported in fsx for the most part. You'll want to have control of the source file for importing fs9 mdls, because the old style of using gmax to "color" a polygon rather than texture it is no longer supported.

An idea would be for you to attend Arno's livemeeting on Friday. It will introduce you nicely to this type of scenery placement.

Bob
 
Hi Jens,

Those old tools you mentioned will probably still work for the biggest part due to the backwards compatibility that is provided. But even in Fs2004 they do not allow you to use all options of the scenery engine. So it is strongly encouraged to switch to the modern techniques as described in the SDKs. For FsX the situation seems to be about the same.

So unless there are good reasons to not use the latest techniques, I would not use the tools you mention anymore. But that is already what I try to do for Fs2004 as well.
 
To Bob & Arno

Thanks for your Replies, and i kind of expected to be beaten over this subject :duck: but the question is ofcourse ::Time Avail :: to learn new "longhaired" teqniques and in basic, scrap a major project like my EKRK and start all over again. I have found the tools mentioned to work splendid creating my Photoreal AD's, even they are difficult and time consuming to use.
I know the trend placing standart obejcts after blueprints, but does prefere Photoreal realism instead.
 
Jens Peter said:
I know the trend placing standart obejcts after blueprints, but does prefere Photoreal realism instead.
Click to expand...

The new techniques also work fine for photorealistic scenery, the sceneries I work on are also always photorealistic.
 
Jens, perhaps you think you'll not be able to place objects "by eye" using gmax or object placer. Not true.

Gmax has a learning curve, but also gives you power. Your choice. If you wish to just place library objects (and fsx has many), there are still xml based tools to use, such as object placer designed by Arno.

You may find that saving time by not learning new tools really wastes time because you'll be dealing with being out of step. Plus, isn't the learning of new tools part of the fun?

Best,
Bob

ps...my hair is short!
 
To Bob & Arno

Hej Again

I WILL look at the new tools, but again its a choice of spending time on projects or reading manuals, but indeed i share your point by saving time by using better tools. Anyhow, still get fantastic FPS in a large project like EKRK scenery with the good old tools mentioned.


ps...my hair is short!
Click to expand...
Ha ha, mine to

Take Care/JP
 
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Yes, it's better that we ALL switch to modern tecniques (aka SDK 2004), since the 2002 no more works in FSX. This include also the groundpolys made with SDK 2002 (layer tec).
 
ras78 said:
Yes, it's better that we ALL switch to modern tecniques (aka SDK 2004), since the 2002 no more works in FSX. This include also the groundpolys made with SDK 2002 (layer tec).
Click to expand...

Where did you learn that? ;)
 
Well thats abut half the posts gone from the scenery forum

.
This include also the groundpolys made with SDK 2002 (layer tec).
Click to expand...

Well thats about half the posts gone from the scenery forum :rolleyes:

.
 
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If it were true, but it isn't...
 
But they are bringing out a new one in FX

But they are bringing out a new one in FX to deal with all
of the problems with ground poly's that are in FS2004 :confused:

Surely they dont want new developers to rat around trying
to find a copy of fs2002 :confused: :confused:
 
That is something that I can't really say yet at the moment. FsX does offer some new ways to add higher resolution ground images, but I am not sure if this is flexible enough to fully replace the Fs2002 ground polygons as well. Time will have to tell that.

But for the backwards compatibility you can be sure that your Fs2002 style ground polygons are still working fine.

Your point about needing Fs2002 is a good one, I guess it will become more common to capture the X file in the future and run that through the Fs2002 MakeMDL. In that case you don't need to own Fs2002 anymore.
 
arno said:
But for the backwards compatibility you can be sure that your Fs2002 style ground polygons are still working fine.
Click to expand...
No, the ground polys made with SDK 2002 and layer tec, won't work anymore. At least, with the current FSX SDK. I've a couple of friends who works in a company that create payware soft for FS and they tested very well the SDK (be sure! no fake). You have to use SDK2004 for a good compatibility. But I still hope that in the final version, FSX will support again the "old-style" groundpolys
 
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I just had a look at my ground textures and one of my ground polys
and to get the the same quality the ground texture would need to be
2048x2048. :yikes:

Allowing I saw 1024x1024 in the demo I suppose that sort of
resolution might be possible. Would certainly beat putting a ground
poly over the top. :D
 
Ras78, what you are saying makes little sense.

What Arno has said has been proven, althought there are a few issues, there is also nothing yet available to provide the same features as fs2002 polys, especially if you are trying to lay them over photoreal scenery.

In your post, you referred to the fsx sdk. Of course fs2002 polys are not made with the fsx sdk, they're made with the fs2002 sdk....is that what your friend was talking about?
 
Hi Bob, sincerly I thought we're talking about groundpolys made with sdk2002 in fsx enviroment. My friend simply triyed to use a groundpoly-2002 in FSX and it didn't work. Nothing more. There're also other few issue about the retro-compatibility with the "old" sdk-2004 and sdk-2002. What I mean is this: if you plan to model a new scenery for FSX you cannot use that old tech for groundpolys as we used for FS2004 instead.
 
Jens Peter,

It should not be impossible to load a big part of your scenery into the tools we use to create what is now known as "Copenhagen City Scenery" (I guess it will change name soon as we are now going to include objects thoughout all of Denmark as more designers take part - after all it is rather redicilous more than one scenery should be needed to cover a country like Denmark).

While I would not deny that the tool sucks, I would claim it sucks less than the alternatives, and it does provide a decent set of tools like automatic ground polygon generation (change between FS2002 and FS2004 format by setting an option) and automatic LoD generation. Unfortunately I do not have the time to do everything I would like, but if you have urgent requirements I am sure we can work something out - or worst case the tool can be bypassed by adding BGL files directly to the project structure if required.
 
If FSX doesn't suport fs2002 ground polys I wouldn't even concider buing a copy, and be sure that there are a lot of people that share my opinion. I must also say that forcing developers to use xml (afcad) style ground is not a smart thing to do. Simmers just don't like that kind of ground polys. Wake up Microsoft!!!!
 
IF FSX doesn't support FS2002 ground polys, then perhaps it will support something better. We ALL have to move on as things develop, none of us are using FS2 or FS4 except for nostagia reasons. If we want a better sim, we have no choice but accept change and stop getting silly about it!

I would suggest that if Microsoft have changed the ground polys they have done so for a reason and getting angry with them isn't going to change that.

For myself, if this has changed then I will have to learn the newer method and carry on. Your not buying the product for such a reason? Simmers don't like that kind of ground polys? Who told you that?
 
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