WebMaximus Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 For whatever reason I get winter textures (trees with snow etc) already the 1'st of November when I'm located at ESSA. Still looking in P3Dv2.5 it reports the season is fall. If I set the date to the 31'th of October the trees go back to normal green 'non-winter' mode. Other people also having the same global products I have don't see this happening. Any idea what could cause this? As seen in my signature I have FTX Global, openLC and Vector installed and they are all up to date. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holger Sandmann Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 Hi there, I often wonder why ACES decided to include the season selection option given that it's both inaccurate and confusing. All it does is pick a fixed date but whether that translates into the chosen season being displayed at the user aircraft's location is not certain at all. The seasons control file in FSX/P3D work on a monthly temporal resolution and a spatial resolution of ~1.5 sq km; for more information see http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/18695-pnw-textures/?do=findComment&comment=162697 I've checked the default seasons control file at ESSA's location and it does indeed call for hard-winter textures (=snow) for landclass and autogen. However, people that have FTX Norway installed will still see fall textures as ESSA is just inside the custom seasons control file that ships with NOR; see http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/89258-seasons-in-ftx-norway/ Cheers, Holger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WebMaximus Posted November 28, 2015 Author Share Posted November 28, 2015 Many thanks Holger for your thorough explanation! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TigerTigerM Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 On 11/28/2015, 11:32:48, Holger Sandmann said: Hi there, I often wonder why ACES decided to include the season selection option given that it's both inaccurate and confusing. All it does is pick a fixed date but whether that translates into the chosen season being displayed at the user aircraft's location is not certain at all. The seasons control file in FSX/P3D work on a monthly temporal resolution and a spatial resolution of ~1.5 sq km; for more information see http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/18695-pnw-textures/?do=findComment&comment=162697 I've checked the default seasons control file at ESSA's location and it does indeed call for hard-winter textures (=snow) for landclass and autogen. However, people that have FTX Norway installed will still see fall textures as ESSA is just inside the custom seasons control file that ships with NOR; see http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/89258-seasons-in-ftx-norway/ Cheers, Holger Holger I have a different query & not sure which Forum to place it in. But you appear to be the Seasons guru, so I'll start here. One of the things Orbx does really well is the Seasons. I am trying to understand the interaction between the FSX Season 'engine', which appears to be tied to the Calendar, Orbx areas, & non Orbx intensive countries, such as South America. Basically I can't get snow in Potosi, Bolivia at 12,000' with FSX set to Winter. in fact the scenery is showing as very Spring/ Summer like . Very green. I have FSX/DX10, Orbx Global Base & Vector & Pilot's America's Global Ultimate mesh. I am wondering if the Pilot's is interfering with the FSX 'Winter" setting, or if South America isn't part of the FSX Season engine?? Any thoughts?? Thanks TTM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holger Sandmann Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 Hi TTM, the entire globe is covered by the default seasons control file (seasons.bgl, in \Scenery\Base\scenery) and it can only be overridden by local replacements, like the ones included with the FTX Regions. No add-on can interfere with or exclude that file. Unfortunately, this default control file has quite a number of "quirks", one of them that it doesn't set any hard-winter (= snow on the ground) in the southern hemisphere other than in the southern Andes south of about 30 degrees latitude. Thus, you won't see snow anywhere in Bolivia unless you select a weather theme with active snowfall and then refresh the scenery library, which will force the sim to load the hard-winter ground textures. Cheers, Holger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TigerTigerM Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 Ah!! Many thanks. Need to head South. TTM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WebMaximus Posted December 2, 2015 Author Share Posted December 2, 2015 A follow-up question, would it by any chance be possible to come up with some sort of fix for a specific region to make the FTX Global textures match real world a little bit better? Sorry if I don't understand the complete picture how all this works in FSX/P3D but one thing I've noticed is how the FTX Global textures don't match the seasons at Stockholm (ESSA) as they are defined in P3D (v2.5). Below is a summary I made and as you can see it's quite a difference between P3D and FTX Global textures and it would be absolutely awesome if there was a way to make FTX Global textures match the P3D dates since they are much closer to reality for this region. Winter looking at FTX Global textures starts 1/11 Winter in P3D starts 22/12 Spring looking at FTX Global textures starts 1/3 Spring in P3D starts 21/3 Summer looking at FTX Global textures starts 1/5 Summer in P3D starts 21/6 Fall looking at FTX Global textures starts 1/9 Fall in P3D starts 22/9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WebMaximus Posted December 2, 2015 Author Share Posted December 2, 2015 After reading through this thread one more time what I still don't get is that unless you have a local replacement file in action the seasons will be set by the global file. In my case at ESSA with no local replacement files in action (and no FTX Norway installed) shouldn't then the textures match the seasons set by P3D which in turn relies on the global seasons file? Because as seen in my last post above that isn't the case...looking at the FTX Global textures they don't match the seasons in P3D at all which is a pity since the P3D as already mentioned matches the real world to a much higher degree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holger Sandmann Posted December 2, 2015 Share Posted December 2, 2015 Hi there, the textures and their seasonal variants don't know anything at all about the local season. The respective seasonal variant is selected based on the active seasons control file, which is defined on a monthly basis starting with the first day of each month. In other words, any landclass and autogen textures, regardless of whether they are default, Orbx, or some other product, will always display the exact same seasonal variant at the same date on a given location. It seems to me that you are still thinking that the function of the seasons menu is to select a specific seasonal variant to display when, in fact, it simply selects a date. The seasons control file that ships with FTX Norway is a much better representation of the seasonal progression than the default global control file, as explained in the thread I linked to above. To avoid unsightly transitions it does include parts of Sweden, hence the difference at ESSA for FTX Norway users. Cheers, Holger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WebMaximus Posted December 2, 2015 Author Share Posted December 2, 2015 OK, thanks again Holger and thanks for being slow and yes...you're right I thought the season in P3D was the trigger for that set of textures so thanks for clarifying this is not the case. So...then my final question is is there anything I can do to make the different season textures appear at more realistic dates in Sweden and around Stockholm in particular? I guess buying FTX Norway would be one way since that product includes the fix you've mentioned but would have been great if there were a less expensive option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WebMaximus Posted December 5, 2015 Author Share Posted December 5, 2015 Should have been 'sorry for being slow' rather than 'thanks for being slow' but I hope you realized that I'm still wondering if there's anything I can do to make the textures/seasons match reality in Sweden a bit better other than buying FTX Norway which includes this fix that has been mentioned? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holger Sandmann Posted December 5, 2015 Share Posted December 5, 2015 Hi there, I'm not aware of any third-party seasons control file for Scandinavia though that doesn't mean that none exists. Perhaps the Swedish flightsim forums (I assume something similar to flightsim.no exists) would be the best place to ask this question? Cheers, Holger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WebMaximus Posted December 5, 2015 Author Share Posted December 5, 2015 Ok, I'll do some searching. If a custom seasons file for Scandinavia doesn't already exist I think you guys could make money coming up with one. I know I would be happy to spend some $ on getting the correct seasons at the right time of the year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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