answered MAJOR ISSUE : World textures add-on component does not replace default textures

[kmax59]

 

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Operating system:  Windows 10

Simulator:  Prepar3D v4.5 with Hotfix

Screenshot:  

Issue:  Major issue : World texture component does not replace existing add-on default textures

 

When Orbx central has been released I installed it and migrated all my orbx add-ons however it created a huge mess and left a lot of orbx files into my P3D folder. I then decided to perform a clean P3D install and reinstalling all of my orbx products using the add-on.xml method from Orbx Central v4, including FTX Global base.

 

After that, I've been struggling an entire day to get FTX Global products working properly, especially Global Base and OpenLC: I had some patchwork with mixed default textures and orbx textures as shown on this screenshot (Close to LFAV):

 

After making a lot of tests, I came to the conclusion that Prepar3D does not understand how to behave when a world texture supposed to replace a default one exists in an add-on component. 

It then create a patchwork with mixed default textures and add-on textures.

 

What I've done before concluding this:

- Changing orbx scenery layering without success

- Changing Add-on packages layering without success

- Creating a backup of the default P3D World textures

- Copying the Orbx world textures into P3D world textures folder, replacing the default ones: This seemed to solve the issue as shown on the picture below (close to LFAV):

- Reverting back the default P3D World textures: The patchwork issue was back as shown on the following screenshot (Close to LFAV):

- Trying to add Envtex water textures (which work when installed the "classic" way) using a World texture component as used by the orbx products: This created a patchwork in water textures, just like the terrain issue with orbx products. This is shown on this screenshot (close to KVPS):

- Reverting back to the classic Envtex water texture installation solved the water patchwork.

 

This means world textures (but may be also other component) supposed to replace default files actually needs to be installed directly within the simulator, just as it is done in FTX Central v3.

After looking again at P3D's SDK, I realized that add-on component allows to ADD new textures, but it's not being said anywhere that add-on components will REPLACE or take PRIORITY over the default P3D's files. Correction: Add-on.xml is supposed to be able replacing default textures, that being said, either P3D is not behaving as expected or something is wrong in the way Orbx's add-on.xml is telling P3D to use textures.

Whatever it is, this actually compromises the entire process of how Orbx central is working and I'm really surprised it was not observed during internal and beta testing.

 

Such issues may not be visible by users who only migrated their products as Global base cannot be migrated. However anyone who's starting from a fresh P3D and Orbx central install will probably see this issue, and this is a major one.

 

These are orbx products that are using a Texture component in order to add and replace World textures, all of them are potentially affected by this issue:

- Global Base

- Global Vector

- Global OpenLC EU

- Global Airport Pack

- NA Central Rockies

- NA Northern Rockies

- NA Pacific Fjords

- NA Pacific Northwest

- NZ North Island

- NZ South Island

- YRC Refuge cove

- Probably other products that I don't own

 

I hope I'll get some attention from the Orbx team (contrary to my initial post) now that I've detailed the entire testing process with precise conclusions.
I also hope for a short term solution.

 

Thanks for reading

 

The full process of my previous tests and reasoning is here: 

 

 

[MikeMarioR]

Hallo Maxime,
Excellent work. That would explain a lot. Many thanks.

 

Mike

[aeronauta]

"After looking again at P3D's SDK, I realized that add-on component allows to ADD new textures, but it's not being said anywhere that add-on components will REPLACE or take PRIORITY over the default P3D's files. "

from the SDK

Supported Categories of Add-ons

• Texture - Develop new texture files for the world, global, or user interface. These textures can replace Prepar3D's default textures depending on priority.

 

Jorge

[kmax59]

7 minutes ago, aeronauta said:

"After looking again at P3D's SDK, I realized that add-on component allows to ADD new textures, but it's not being said anywhere that add-on components will REPLACE or take PRIORITY over the default P3D's files. "

from the SDK

Supported Categories of Add-ons

• Texture - Develop new texture files for the world, global, or user interface. These textures can replace Prepar3D's default textures depending on priority.

 

Jorge

 

Missed it, where in the SDK did you find this one?

Here is what I see:

• Texture - Refers to a component that adds an additional texture directory that Prepar3D can use to resolve textures.

 

Anyways, this does not solve the issue and there is definitely something wrong, either in P3D’s bahaviour or Orbx add-on.xml structure

[MikeMarioR]

Possible solution: Global texture files without change remain in the P3D folder. The files to be exchanged and added 
are outsourced and integrated via xml.

 

Mike

[aeronauta]

kmax59, in the SDK search for Supported categories , I am agreeing with you , Central should not have been released , in my opinion it still needs a few month, I found that from fresh you have to download all files again, quite a task... ,the layerng happens because the xml add.on.component does not have a layer specified , also in the xml the file is read from the bottom up, so if you have 4 entries with layer 100 the top one will go to the bottom and so on.

 

Jorge

[aeronauta]

Mike , defeats the purpose of the ORBX Central...outside P3D root

 

Jorge

[GregSwiss]

Mike

 

This is the idea behind the approach with XML. To have the Addon-Sceneries self-contained and the P3Ds own folders untouched.

 

Cheers,

Greg

 

[MikeMarioR]

 I know. But ORBX goes deep into the structure of the P3D. I am afraid that for some interventions there is
 no SDK compliant solution.

 

Mike

[kmax59]

Agreed Mike,

While, as said by Jorge and Greg, this would partly defeat the orbx central purpose of installing everything outside the sim, it would be at least a good temporary solution.

This could be done using simulator resync in central, this would still allow to keep Orbx products outside the sim and easy P3D reinstall without uninstalling all orbx product: a simple sim resync in central would send again all the necessary textures into the sim.

 

There is something very important I forgot to add in my first post of this topic though:

 

The autogen displayed over the default textures was the orbx autogen, meaning the orbx autogen (*.agn) files are correctly taking priority over default ones.

[Nick Cooper]

1 hour ago, kmax59 said:

Thanks for reading

 

Thank you for doing all this research.

I will ping the developers to draw their attention to your results

 

@Mitchell Williamson  @Josh Koz

[Nick Cooper]

38 minutes ago, aeronauta said:

"After looking again at P3D's SDK, I realized that add-on component allows to ADD new textures, but it's not being said anywhere that add-on components will REPLACE or take PRIORITY over the default P3D's files. "

from the SDK

Supported Categories of Add-ons

• Texture - Develop new texture files for the world, global, or user interface. These textures can replace Prepar3D's default textures depending on priority.

 

Jorge

 

Hello,

Buildings HD works perfectly well in P3D v4 using this method of adding it to the simulator, replacing default textures completely.

I understand that there is no reason why this cannot be applied to all or any textures but it could be that there is a flaw in the present

method applied by Orbx Central which is why I want the developers to respond to this very helpful topic.

[kmax59]

4 minutes ago, Nick Cooper said:

 

Thank you for doing all this research.

I will ping the developers to draw their attention to your results

 

@Mitchell Williamson  @Josh Koz

 

Thanks a lot Nick

 

Just now, Nick Cooper said:

 

Hello,

Buildings HD works perfectly well in P3D v4 using this method of adding it to the simulator, replacing default textures completely.

I understand that there is no reason why this cannot be applied to all or any textures but it could be that there is a flaw in the present

method applied by Orbx Central which is why I want the developers to respond to this very helpful topic.

 

There is a difference between Buildings HD and the textures involved in this issue though: Buildings HD textures are read as a "Global texture" component while terrain textures are read as "World texture" component. I also tried to change the texture component type from world to global by the way, but as expected it didn't solve the issue.

 

Something important I forgot to add in the first post of this topic:

 

The autogen displayed over the default textures was the orbx autogen, meaning the orbx autogen (*.agn) files are correctly taking priority over default ones, but it's not the case of the textures.

[kmax59]

Hi,

 

Any news? It's been 3 days now that i'm asking for assistance and still not a word.

I continued my investigations a bit, playing with the add-on.xml, by using full paths instead of relative path, or by moving the add-on.xml into the Prepar3D v4 add-ons folder instead of the discovery folder created by orbx central but I am not able to get any consistent result and I'm stuck there with a total visual mess in P3D.

 

I think I've been able to run Global base on its own without texture issues. That said, I didn't explore the whole world so I can't be 100% certain.
What I'm sure however is that the issue is getting obvious as soon as OpenLC NA and EU are enabled.

 

I'm fully aware that some issues are inevitable shortly after a release, but Orbx central was released less than a week ago, it would be great if the development team could be a bit more responsive...

[EvidencePlz]

I'm having the exact same issue as has been described by @kmax59 (see the picture attached).

 

I think I've had enough. Just did a fresh install of p3d and everything else and now this? I'm going back to FTX Central. I thought about testing other areas of the world but I got better things to do and I don't think I as a customer should be put through this. Unfortunately this means I will not be able to buy any new ORBX scenery product until this issue (and others) related to ORBX Central is 100 percent confirmed to be fixed. This program should have been tested by devs and kept in closed beta for at least one more year before release. As much as I love ORBX and respect JV, they dropped the ball on this one major time.

 

Guide to find this particular area: Load up LFAV runway 29. Use chaseplane to go up about 500-600 feet. Now using your mouse turn approximately 90 degrees to your left and keep moving forward until you see the big wooded area with two straight lines going through them

 

Final edit: I must express my utmost gratitude to @kmax59 for his excellent research and the pictorial evidence

 

[Walter Almaraz Roca]

I was testing, migrating, installing everything from scratch and I had all kinds of problems. The tests performed by Maxime helped me to better understand what is happening. ORBX did a great job however I think that for now I prefer to return to the previous version of Central.

[kmax59]

Thanks @Dust2Dust for confirming the issue 

 

I'll personally wait until Monday for an answer and possible ideas for (at least temporary) solutions. Monday is pretty close for developers who are in Australia from what I understand.
Let's don't blame orbx for the issues, such things are normal after a release (well, such obvious issues should have been detected during testing though), however the lack of support over the last 4 days is much disappointing.

 

It seems there's a kind of conflict between OpenLC and Global base pack when both are installed using add-on.xml. May be because some of the OLC texture files have the same names as Global base World texture files, may be not. I must admit I'm not sure to understand anything in this issue, my last tests only learnt me that I could not make any conclusion about what is causing this.

Users who didn't migrate their products do not seem to get any issue, so it could have been the migration itself but reinstalling from scratch didn't help. I guess this means it's not the migration itself but probably how add-ons.xml are built.

The results of the tests I explained with water textures in the first post are very intriguing anyways and there must be a flaw either in P3D or Orbx central.

 

I don't want to go back to FTX central right now as I have a lot of batch files built from the compatibility forum instructions, they enable/disable the required files for compatibility with 3rd party sceneries and I already converted them all to work with the new orbx sceneries paths. Also I know how helpful it can be for developers to have users who are ready to do some tests to help them and I'd be glad to help...

 

However if there's no answer shortly I'll go back to FTX central as well and won't be testing anymore. I think I already did quite a lot of tests and don't want to spend days again if the development team don't bother reading these topics. It's the week-end for everyone but exceptional situations like an important product release sometimes deserves more attention.

[Mitchell Williamson]

Hi Maxime,

 

Thank you for your extensive feedback. Your post came in on around 8pm Friday night, hence why I'm only able to get back to you now

 

We're aware of this issue and are in the process narrowing down the root cause. It may be an issue with the way Prepar3D is resolving textures and we're working through a list of potential causes and potential solutions. This may also be responsible for a range of other issues that people may be experiencing.

 

We're aware of the frustration this may be causing the community and it is one of our highest priority items. We're working hard on getting a resolution to this as soon as possible.

[kmax59]

That's good to hear Mitchell

 

It would have been better to post a note about this important known issue however, several users probably spent a lot of time in this issue and a note would have saved us hours of testing.

Anyways, looking forward to a solution.

[Beldwick]

@Mitchell Williamson I have a suggestion that (I sincerely hope) might be actually very helpful in all mentioned problems.
Is it possible to implement additional feature that would make it possible for the user to choose an installation option (scenery based or xml) for (at least) all base and regions offered by ORBX?

I mean, for me it would be optimal to install ORBX Base, Vector, OpenLC and Regions (Norway, Germany South/North, etc.) as it was (even in P3D folder, Junction Magic worked just fine), and at the same time keep airports and cityscenes as xml based. Is it possible to be implemented, preferrably as soon as possible? I beileve this would significantly reduce loading times and increase stability. Then, all .xml based products can be layered as they are now in ORBX Central, by the time ORBX Base, Vector etc. would be layered as it was in FTX Central.

For reduction of reinstall time, I would find it very useful to have a 1:1 backup of those products that are installed in root folder using scenery.cfg which, in the event of full P3D reinstall, would be copied into the root folder without any need to redownload everything.

 

I believe, this is a possibility that would offer very quick solution to described problems, which is crutial for satisfactory experience in sim. ORBX Central is a great tool, very modern, nice looking. But at the same time, in current state, it makes it much more difficult to enjoy flight simming comparing to previous solution. I am looking forward to seeing a successful solution to all the problems as soon as possible,

 

Best regards

Marek Mysior

 

[Mitchell Williamson]

We did some in-depth investigation to identify the cause of this issue yesterday. Some of our openLC regions have certain landclasses that fallback to Global Base textures, and it appears that the Prepar3D add-ons system doesn't properly fallback to other add-on.xml based texture folders (which confirms what Maxime has stated in his OP). Therefore, some openLC landclasses are using default textures instead of Global Base which is causing strange looking textures and broken autogen placement. This may be an issue within Prepar3D itself. 

 

We've tested a few methods of working around the issue and haven't found a reliable solution yet. 

 

4 hours ago, Beldwick said:

I mean, for me it would be optimal to install ORBX Base, Vector, OpenLC and Regions (Norway, Germany South/North, etc.) as it was (even in P3D folder, Junction Magic worked just fine), and at the same time keep airports and cityscenes as xml based. Is it possible to be implemented, preferrably as soon as possible?

 

This is a potential solution. If Global Base is installed directly into the simulator as it was in FTX Central 3 this may alleviate the issues. If we cannot find another suitable workaround soon, what you're suggesting will likely be the road we go down for Global Base at least.

 

We'll be putting together a known issues and general road-map update with the information we know and what our plans are going forward to address them.

[kmax59]

Thanks a lot for the explanation Mitchell ! This indeed makes sense.

Marek's solution wouldn't be a big deal as we would only have to reinstall global base after a fresh P3D install.

 

@Mitchell Williamson Another similar solution would be to keep Global base installed outside the sim and only the required textures would be installed into the sim during the product installation, then when needed (after a fresh P3D install for example), a simulator resync from central would send again the required global textures to the sim.

This would prevent to redownload and reinstall the entire product when something goes wrong with P3D.

 

For now this is what I've done and it seems to be a good workaround.

[sim123]

Time to bring Global base as default textures used in P3D next version !  

 

no exchanges of basic textures anymore .

[salsero_at]

17 hours ago, Mitchell Williamson said:

We did some in-depth investigation to identify the cause of this issue yesterday. Some of our openLC regions have certain landclasses that fallback to Global Base textures, and it appears that the Prepar3D add-ons system doesn't properly fallback to other add-on.xml based texture folders (which confirms what Maxime has stated in his OP). Therefore, some openLC landclasses are using default textures instead of Global Base which is causing strange looking textures and broken autogen placement. This may be an issue within Prepar3D itself. 

 

We've tested a few methods of working around the issue and haven't found a reliable solution yet. 

 

 

This is a potential solution. If Global Base is installed directly into the simulator as it was in FTX Central 3 this may alleviate the issues. If we cannot find another suitable workaround soon, what you're suggesting will likely be the road we go down for Global Base at least.

 

We'll be putting together a known issues and general road-map update with the information we know and what our plans are going forward to address them.

I am glad that this has been looked into at last but honestly i am really dissapointed how such issues have not been detected in the test phase. It should really not be the end user who reports such problems....

[Beldwick]

Moreover it would be very, very good to know estimated time when those problems may be sorted out.

Any kind of summary/roadmap is very much needed now.

[Beldwick]

On 8/13/2019 at 1:05 AM, Mitchell Williamson said:

We'll be putting together a known issues and general road-map update with the information we know and what our plans are going forward to address them.

 

Is there any chance such roadmap will be published ASAP?
I would like to know if it is worth going back to FTX Central to keep things as they were or there is a solution being developed in the nearest time?

 

Right now, information provided by ORBX development team is very limited. I kindly ask for a post informing about current issues, known workarounds and estimated time for corrections.

 

Best Regards,

Marek Mysior

[GSalden]

Imho : either the old way or the xml way. Not a mix as that means still addon files in the P3D folder ...

 

The idea of FTX Central is to help with getting all addon scenery out of the P3D folder...

[B777LR]

They should pull v4 from the server. This is just an utter mess causing more problems than solving. The beta team must have been very small as the numerous problems reported here and at Avsim attest to. I for one will stay with v3 and not update or buy any further products as that requires v4.

[AKar]

If this is an fallback issue in the P3Dv4 itself, would it be a solution (for now, pending a proper one) to simply duplicate the files from the Global into the OpenLCs to remove the need of fallbacks? Or are we talking about tens of gigabytes or more?

[Mitchell Williamson]

For those following this thread who aren't aware, we've addressed this issue in the topic below.

 

[edpatino]

Just for clarification, this is not yet resolved, simply moved to another thread that talks about an ongoing work.

Additionally there's a suggested workaround for those who migrated (or installed Global BASE outside the sim using the addon-xml method) with instructions that are not clear enough, like uninstalling Global BASE from ORBX Central (and there's not such option in ORBX Central). In this case, more precise instructions are required and if it's necessary to roll back to FTX Central 3, please provide detailed instructions on how to re-install it and avoid eventual conflicts with ORBX Central.

In other cases, like mine and other users, and already reported on another thread, even for those who didn't migrate or installed Global BASE outside the sim, and still have it in the main/root sim directory, there are also display issues similar to the ones already reported by those who installed Global BASE outside the sim.

Ed

[Nick Cooper]

Hello Ed,

unfortunately there is no "Answered" tag for these forums.

I don't know why, I didn't create the forum and I think there should be one

to avoid misunderstandings like this one.

I also think it would be best to monitor the other topic.

[Nick Cooper]

Fixed.

I learn something new every day

[EvidencePlz]

I've just updated to the latest version of ORBX Central and no longer have this issue.