s0cks Posted March 18, 2008 Share Posted March 18, 2008 My industrial buildings have strange roof textures with FTX mode on. Is there a way to fix this without turning FTX mode off? Just incase I want to fly between FTX and FSX default. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwheeler Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Hi, yes I'm getting this problem too. Its just a couple of default buildings. Its no major problem but I didn't think FTX touched the default autogen. Can this be fixed? Other than this I'm finding no problems flying in the rest of the world with FTX switched on. Cheers Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 This will only affect autogen in Australia for the areas where there are no Orbx FTX regions yet. The offending texture sheet is \Texture\roof_Australia.dds You've discovered a bug in FTX, in that we don't backup that modified texture sheet. Our bad. I'll arrange for a hotfix asap. My apologies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwheeler Posted March 25, 2008 Share Posted March 25, 2008 Hi John, just to let you know that I've also seen this strange roof in other parts of the world, notably Canada. It might be that an Austrailian roof is used in other parts of the world too. I'll let you know if I still get them after I try the hotfix. Cheers Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwheeler Posted May 9, 2008 Share Posted May 9, 2008 Is there any resolution to this issue? I'm getting rogue roof textures all over the world with FTX mode on. Here's an example: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolter van der Spoel Posted May 9, 2008 Share Posted May 9, 2008 We are working on a solution of this lil annoyance, stay tuned Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwheeler Posted May 9, 2008 Share Posted May 9, 2008 Thanks for the update. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 The issue is actually the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Autogen\roofdescriptions.spb file. If you can find a pristine original copy of that file and place it into your: \Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\ORBX\Scripts\Backup folder, that will fix it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brendanstacey Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 Any chance you could post it John? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwheeler Posted May 11, 2008 Share Posted May 11, 2008 Its in the Orbx\scripts\backup folder. Hopefully this will fix this problem. Thanks John. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwheeler Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 Hi, Apparently, according to Holger, using the backed up roofdescriptions.spb means we lose all the FTX custom roofs. Is there any chance of getting a file with this issue fixed and still keep the new roofs? Or some halfway house? Thanks Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 Yes Paul, it's called FTX Mode. Sorry to be sarcastic but you're pushing this barrow ad infinitum and trying to find a way to make FTX work without using its custom files. Let me try to explain as best I can. In the case of the roofs, FSX changed the way roofing was implemented completely from FS2004. In fact, each autogen texture sheet has a dedicated area for 16 roof textures which are completely ignored by FSX! This also means that 20% of each autogen texture sheet is wasted on disk for textures that are never called. Likewise with many beautiful high definition trees which were callable in FSX RTM, were ignored from SP1 onwards. Another issue - we had mixed results creating custom autogen texture sheets with our own names and calling them from the annotator. This worked fine in FS2004, but broke from FSXSP1 onwards. This was a major drawback for us mid-way through the dev cycle of FTX, meaning we have a limited pallette of autogen textures we can now implement for the entire globe. These changes to the autogen texture structures, unused areas and the inability to reliably implement custom texture sheets really forced our hand further with going up the FTX Mode path. Most importantly, FTX achieves its unique look and feel through the complete reengineering of the meshing tiles and secondary slope calls, plus the introduction of completely new classes of landclass tilesets previous unexploited. Hard to believe, but FSX uses unmodified meshing tiles from FS9 which don't even match to the new FSX textures. This was a major design flaw in FSX which puzzled us from the start. Load up FSX default and see how those weird texture shapes carved across the landscape appeal to you. Secondly, default FSX adds secondary slope calls to almost every texture class, resulting in weird oval shaped clumps of forest in the middle of rural, urban and city tiles. To us this was a major visual impairment and we removed most of those slope calls. Again, this is why FTX is so unique and feels so "right", because we've worked very, very hard to try to squeeze the most out of the architecture to achieve these results. This requires lclookup.bgl to be modified, and will of course lead to some interesting results when flying outside FTX regions. Your comments about how FTX appears to function quite fine with a default lclookup leave us stumped, because it's patently clear that most of the visual appeal of FTX is immediately lost when doing so, and the visual integrity and cohesion is destroyed. Again, I suggest you're perhaps looking at the resulting landscape through rose coloured glasses and wanting to convince yourself it's all ok. If seeing pockets of desert textures dotted all over the landscape (to name just one symptom) is acceptable to you, then as I mentioned in another post, that's your prerogative and all power to you. If you are concerned about how this will affect the rollout of our USA regions, don't be, because there is inherently more flexibility in the US "B" region classes than the G/Y regions that we use for Australia. We may even be able to eventually find a solution that allows for minimal disruption to default textures with FTX Mode left on, and Holger is leading our R&D efforts on that front. We're in pretty safe hands there We desperately wanted to release FTX without the need to use any switchers or modes at all (I hate them too!), and yes I concede my earlier public design comments on various forums did suggest that would be the case, so please accept my apologies for not being able to keep that promise. I can assure you we tried hard to avoid it. But the FSX SDK and its limitations, plus the reliance on some key global files (which all developers need to share without a common API unfortunately) meant that we had no real choice but to switch files in/out. I know it's not ideal, but we're working with ACES on a solution moving forward to FS11. Also, don't misinterpret this post as an anti-ACES/FSX flame. We're just telling it factually and without BS. We are huge fans of FSX-SP2, it's an astonishingly scalable and extensible platform that we are only just beginning to understand. ACES have created a superb platform, but hey, even the best sometimes have warts don't they? In the meantime, please don't continue to persist in trying to "fix" FTX by making it use unmodified files and proclaiming that a satisfactory solution. It just won't work and will compromise the look and feel of our terrain and will place you in unsupported territory. Sorry for the rant-like post, but I felt you at least deserved an insight on why we made design choices which could be seen as an easy way out, when in fact it was our last resort to achieve our design goals. I trust you understand and will be patient while we continue the R&D process moving toward the USA PNW alpha build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dreamnugget Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 John...get off your high horse , just kidding mate ...so now your probably , but its all good... I dont know what some people are expecting out there....as FTX will be released regionally for logistical reasons, there will be a couple of 'flaws' (if you can call them that)......but one day they will take over the world (in simming ofcourse )and it'll be easier for them to make overall adjustments rather than a tweak for this region, and that region while still dependant on scenery to cover the default areas of flightsimX. Keep in mind people that Orbx provides an 'add-on' to FSX..they are not responsible for limitations of FSX.....they just want to 'make the world a better place in which to sim'. (Hey john,,,,,hows that for a corny advertising slogan) Cheers...peace to all....Jason (dreamnugget). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwheeler Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 Hi John, Thanks for your reply and thank you for going into so much detail regarding the issues you have faced. It has helped me to understand why you have made the decisions you did and helped to clarify everything. This explaination was all I was after in the first place. It is reassuring to hear that you have tried to get everything to work, that ACES have not been very accomodating and that the FTX mode switch was a last resort. Regarding the roof issue. I only questioned whether it was something you were going to fix as you said you were going to issue a hot fix at the start of the thread and then I assumed your suggestion of replacing the file with the original would fix things with out affecting FTX. Is there a chance of getting this hotfix? In fact I have been using FSX with FTX mode on happily since I bought FTX Blue on the day of release and I only found this problem the other day, so these issues are far from widespread. That is why I was so dissapointed to find them. Since most of FSX works fine I hope it might be possible to make all of the default textures work with your modified lclookup.bgl one day. I do alot of jumping around form country to country while using FSX, that is why I am so reluctant to use FTX mode. I have also spent alot of money on addons for other parts of the world. I have been testing using the default file and yes I am seeing the problems you are talking about (I guess it makes FTX look a bit more like the default). However, to me it doesn't seem as bad as I thought it was going to be, especially since I can't compare the two side by side easily. I still get the excellent coast lines and roads and most of the textures. Again this is personal choice and with further testing I may well change my mind and go back to using the FTX mode. As for FTX taking over the world as Jason suggested. I for one certainly can't afford to buy every single FTX pack that gets released. I already have GEX and UTX for the US and Canada and think they do a great job so I will save my money for FTX packs where the are no other sceneries available (like Austrailia). I'm still going to get Gold when you release it and I will complete Austrailia. I have spoken to Holger and I am reassured that he knows there needs to be an alternative solution for the US packs. I only hope this will mean you guys can find a way around this issue so FTX can sit next to other addons with no problem. Anyway, good luck with the release of Gold. My credit card is at the ready... Thanks Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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