John Venema Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Hello everyone, I just wanted to share the status of openLC North America and some new tech we've developed leading up to its beta. As you know, currently in FTX Central you need to manually select the area of the world in which you want to fly in, such as Europe, Oceania, North America etc. This is purely because we have in the past developed separate unique lclookup.bgl and autogendescriptions.spb files for each worldwide area to cater for the large diversity of landscapes and buildings across the world, far in excess of the original FSX engine's design. We're getting FSX/P3D to do things it was never designed to do in the first place. We will shortly begin testing a new approach; a completely unified lclookup.bgl and supporting core files that will completely remove the need to ever switch worldwide regions in FTX Central ever again. This is a huge breakthrough in flexibility of all Orbx FTX Regions and FTX Global working seamlessly together. So soon you will be able to start a flight in the UK, fly to Europe or the USA and never have to think about which worldwide region you're in because everything will work seamlessly together. You can fly from FTX Regions such as PNW, NCA etc then east to openLC USA without blinking or worrying about which area FTX Central is set to. So goodbye Hybrid Mode and switching. Hooray! The benefits of this new tech are substantial. We will have an unlimited set of textures, landclasses and autogen to now continue to develop FTX Global for every corner of the globe without fiddly switching, hybrid modes or other stuff getting in the way. It will all just work seamlessly. Developing this tech however, has come at the price of it needing to be completed before we continue towards the openLC NA USA/Mexico beta stage. We wanted to ensure this all works before continuing with openLC. The good news is that we have also found new ways to increase the speed with which we can roll out Asia and South America openLC areas so in the overall scheme of things we should recover lost time pretty quickly. We will complete testing of the unified lclookup system over February then openLC NA USA/Mexico/Caribbean will enter beta in March. Expect to see preview screenshots in late Feb/early March. I know the rest of openLC NA is highly anticipated by most of you, and I know it's been delayed several times - but I can promise you the benefits of reworking the foundation on which it sits far outweighs an extra month of waiting here and there. Thanks again for your support and your continued patience; the wait will be worth it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmb Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 That's the best news I have read from FTX for a long time (and there were several good ones). Hooray indeed! Thanks and kind regards, Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramonb Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Great news! Happy to wait, will be ready when it's ready. I for one am a very happy customer. Thank you ORBX team for allways working to improve your ptoducts, and squeeze whatever P3D/FSX have to give. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dominique Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Then again, this is the death of the support forums and putting Ben out of a job... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taph Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Great News John, hope the testing goes well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff974 Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 This is a huge improvement. Thanks ORBX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyAndFight Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Excellent news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Hamilton Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 1 hour ago, dominique said: Then again, this is the death of the support forums and putting Ben out of a job... The death of FTX Central perhaps... As for Ben, he's a coder. If ORBX no longer requires his services, someone else will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilstorm Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Thanks for the news and insight and hoping all goes well for release of this new tech. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Abernathy Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 23 minutes ago, Bruce Hamilton said: The death of FTX Central perhaps... As for Ben, he's a coder. If ORBX no longer requires his services, someone else will. FTXCentral will live long and prosper. There are many functions still available after we are relieved of Region switching. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TymK Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 10 minutes ago, Rob Abernathy said: FTXCentral will live long and prosper. There are many functions still available after we are relieved of Region switching. Precisely, which is why I'm not worried about Ben... I love the new layout with individual control panel lists, update notifications, and so on, and I believe there's room for more functionality in terms of synchronization/auto-update, etc. Tym Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airwolf Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 YES!!!!!!! Thank You. This is the most excellent news ever. Unified lclookup.bgl is just short of amazing here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
farman Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 2 hours ago, pmb said: That's the best news I have read from FTX for a long time (and there were several good ones). Hooray indeed! Thanks and kind regards, Michael This is a move I always was expected to find. Absolutely wonderful news; me too wanted to ask for this sevearl times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave302 Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Fantastic news! Thanks so much. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dominique Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 45 minutes ago, Rob Abernathy said: FTXCentral will live long and prosper. There are many functions still available after we are relieved of Region switching. Thats a real relief Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azkid Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 thanks for the great news.............eagerly anticipating but patiently waiting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikelab6 Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Wow ! Great news ! ORBX is always going forward with innovations and new ways to improve our so beautiful hobby. Thanks ORBX ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted February 3, 2016 Author Share Posted February 3, 2016 Ben is much more than just our coder. He's in charge of all our core back-office apps and the websites. He's also challenged with building a whole new support ticketing system for customers and a whole new beta testing management system for internal use. After that we have about three years worth of other tasks lined up FTX Central V3 is also in the early development stage, there is a whole lot of new functionality being added to it (can't talk too much about it yet), but essentially it will be the go-to app for all Orbx customers for a myriad of new things we're introducing over the coming years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmb Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 9 minutes ago, Mikelab6 said: Wow ! Great news ! ORBX is always going forward with innovations and new ways to improve our so beautiful hobby. Thanks ORBX ! Yep, that's what I judge about ORBX. They just don't try to repeat an already successful path, but innovate. Just imagine you can start at some Norwegian airport, fly via ESSA and into Germany, all this without any switching, hybrid or other ugly vehicle! Kind regards, Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holy Cheese Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Woohoo! Excellent news No worries about OpenLC NA being delayed, we still have plenty of other places to fly in. Cheers Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BBQSteve Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Bravo! Keep up the great work and I'll continue spending my children's AND grandchildren's inheritance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertPilot Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 This is great news! Among all the benefits already mentioned here, this will allow me to consolidate/simplify my SimStarter profiles! Am curious, are there any plans to achieve/ensure compatibility with FranceVFR's latest products, with the new unified FTX setup? I currently avoid the latest FranceVFR products (that use their own autogen) as I understand they are not fully compatible with FTX Global. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted February 3, 2016 Author Share Posted February 3, 2016 52 minutes ago, DesertPilot said: This is great news! Among all the benefits already mentioned here, this will allow me to consolidate/simplify my SimStarter profiles! Am curious, are there any plans to achieve/ensure compatibility with FranceVFR's latest products, with the new unified FTX setup? I currently avoid the latest FranceVFR products (that use their own autogen) as I understand they are not fully compatible with FTX Global. We reached out to the CEO of FranceVFR over 2.5 years ago but he stubbornly refused to share his autogen description definitions with us, even though Aerosoft, EarthSimulations, 29Palms and other companies were happy to do so. So in fact they have 'orphaned' themselves by not adding their definitions to our modified files. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airwolf Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Now I see total possibilities of FTX Regions completely blending in the rest of the world and hopefully brings the FTX Region textures to be used over Global areas. Pretty much makes the entire world a FTX region. This is epic level stuff of immersion for flightsim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spud Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 After years of switching between regions, first with VOZ v0.99 and into the present the new technology sounds fantastic. ORBX certainly remains as the leader in FSX/P3D scenery development. Keep up the excellent work John. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff974 Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 2 hours ago, John Venema said: We reached out to the CEO of FranceVFR over 2.5 years ago but he stubbornly refused to share his autogen description definitions with us, even though Aerosoft, EarthSimulations, 29Palms and other companies were happy to do so. So in fact they have 'orphaned' themselves by not adding their definitions to our modified files. That's a pity, i don't buy their products because of this incompatibility with FTX although i'm French, living in Paris. They are isolating them self, FTX being obviously a market leader. I wish somehow both companies could find a arrangement/gentlemen agreement in the future Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anfield ace Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Thanks for the info JV...& great news, well done, will look forwards to that! Cheers, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caaront Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Wonderful indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregmorin Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Thank you John! Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekdog Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 That is a great bit of news and more than outweighs any extra time being needed! Happy dancing like no one is watching..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 You had me at "Hello" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireRx Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 Thanks , John, Excellent news Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmb Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 As a German, I am tempted to call this a Reunification of the flightsim world. "Now what belongs together grows together" ( W. Brandt). Kind regards, Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taph Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 One question if I may John, will we need to do a reinstall of our existing products to implement this change? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Clarke Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 This is good news indeed but i have a question regarding exactly what switching regions does at present. I can see there is a difference in the "active" sections of the Scenery cfg when a switch is made but what else is happening. I am asking because i use a programme which will automatically adjust the scenery cfg to activate prescribed sceneries as per my selection for a particular profile. An example is one i have for Europe. I have as "active" all the UK sceneries (ENG, SCO, IRL etc) + Norway + OpenLC EU and Vector.This is not in Hybrid setting but a specific predefined scenery cfg of requested "Active" areas. My Europe profile has all NA regions set to False.Each specified Profile is then run through the AEC Vector tool and the vector profile saved. I then run the vector profile to suit my other programme's corresponding profile.I fly happily from one place to another crossing into different sections, e.g. ENG to France which is a defind Region to a Global region and can see no adverse effects at all. I must admit I could be missing some autogen details/differences and possibly textures which may not be correct(based on JV's above post regarding Central: " in the past developed separate unique lclookup.bgl and autogendescriptions.spb files for each worldwide area to cater for the large diversity of landscapes and buildings across the world,") but none of those aspects are "visible" to me. I don't think for example that i am seeing Norwegian buildings or textures in France. I would appreciate clarification if it does not impose on to orbx trade secrets which i would fully understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockliffe Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 John, this is fantastic news. As you say, a real big step forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bermuda425 Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 Impressive future plans for the business. Thanks for this great update! Greetings, Bermuda425 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard McDonald Woods Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 Very well done, John! Fantastic news. Made my day week month year. Will install as soon as it is available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neptune6 Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 Hi Falks before we continue towards the openLC NA USA/Mexico beta stage. We wanted to ensure this all works before continuing with openLC. in fine , cactus grow up in new scenery land, NA USA/Mexico Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexczarn Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 This is terrific news; great work again guys, you never cease to amaze. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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