active Orbx LFLJ compatibility with Sky Story - Alps part 1 photoreal

[JoeKerr]

Hello, 

First of all, congrats on this LFLJ Courchevel altiport, it is truly a gem worth every penny and on par with Orbx very high standards. 

 

I love to fly in the Alps with the excellent freeware Sky Story - Alps part 1 photoreal.

When I heard of Orbx LFLJ, I knew I would soon have a favourite altiport in the Alps. Alas !

 

Unfortunately, Sky Story - Alps mesh is not fully compatible with LFLJ one :  

- 1st option : if LFLJ mesh is well above SSApt1, then the altiport looks great but all the mountains in the surroundings look like default XP11 ;

- 2nd option : if LFLJ mesh is just above SSApt1 mesh, then the surroundings looks great, texture mesh and all but LFLJ looks wrong : the tunnel is above the runway, flagpoles are barely above the ground.

 

Would you know how I could manage to enjoy both those products at the same time ? 

Would I have to merge files 

 

Best Regards,

Joe

 

Sky Story mesh folder : 

 

 

1st option : good looking runway but dull mountains in the distance

 

 

 

Settings.ini : 

I
1000 version
SCENERY

SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/LFHM_Megeve_2_0_0/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/LFLB Chambery-Aix/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/LFLG Grenoble-Le_Versoud XPFR/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/LFLL - Lyon St Ex/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/LFLY Lyon Bron/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/Orbx_A_LFLJ_Courchevel_Airport/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/Orbx_B_LFLJ_Courchevel_Mesh/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/LIMF Turin Caselle - convert FSX/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/LSGG - Geneve/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/LSZA Lugano by Aerosoft v1.0/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/EXT_BritishIsles_lights/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/EXT_france_lights/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/Obstacles_et_Reperes_VFR_FRANCE_1_Custom/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/Obstacles_et_Reperes_VFR_FRANCE_2_Pylons/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/Obstacles_et_Reperes_VFR_FRANCE_2_Pylons_Exclude/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/Obstacles_et_Reperes_VFR_FRANCE_3_Base/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/Obstacles_et_Reperes_VFR_FRANCE_3_Exclude/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-Europe-1-extras/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-Europe-2-scenery/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/simHeaven_X-Europe-3-network/
[... LIBRARIES...] 
SCENERY_PACK_DISABLED Custom Scenery/yOrtho4XP_Overlays/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/A Sky Story Sceneries - Alps part 1 photoreal/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/A Sky Story Sceneries - Corsica photoreal/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+43+003/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+43+004/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+49+000/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+49+001/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+49-001/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+49-002/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+50+001/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+45+007/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/zOrtho4XP_+45+008/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/A Sky Story Sceneries - Alps part 1 Mesh/

 

 

2nd option : goodlooking mountains in the distance but wrong looking runway

 

 

 

 

 

PS : pardon my english, not native speaker

 

[Jon Clarke]

I am going to have to forward your question to the developer as I am unable to answer. I do not have the Alps addon. 

@razgo for your input please regarding compatibility.

[Bulva]

I have the same problem + problem with neighboring airports.

[ikbenik]

I have them both installed without issues. Orbx_A_LFLJ is on top, Orbx_B_LFLJ Mesh has it situated(by the system self?) between A,B,C LOWI and D_LOWI_Orthos a bit lower in my scenery-pack and 'A sky Story Sceneries' somewhat in the middle of many adds via 2 files in follow order:

- Alps part 1 photoreal/

- Overlay/   --> I don't see this file in your scenery-pack,  maybe that missing file causing the issue?

and both above all Ortho4XP and Mesh-files, the last file is Orbx_OrbxlibsXP/

 

Or maybe any of your 'VFR-France-Obstacles et repères' files are in conflict with Courchevel by Orbx?

 

[Jon Clarke]

@ikbenik Hi. Maybe you would be good enough to attach your scenery_packs.ini so that @JoeKerr could follow your layering example?

[ikbenik]

Hey Joe,

 

As Mr. Jon Clarke indicates, you can find my scenery_packs ini-file hereby and see for yourself where in the large list the sceneries involved are situated. You will see maybe an unusual sequence but all shows fine worldwide in XP11. Did not fly yet over all installed sceneries but sofar no anomalies encountered, certainly not in the Alps regio.

 

scenery_packs.ini

[Bulva]

Unfortunately, @Ikbenik, Your mountains presented in the picture are mountains that come from ORBX mesha, not from the A SKY STORY ALPS scenery.
At the bottom I took pictures to compare the mountains.
Unfortunately, if the mesh of the A Sky Story Alps mountains has a higher priority, then scenery ORBX LFLJ looks bad, as @JoeKerr wrote.

 

# 1 Orbx_B_LFLJ_Courchevel_Mesh higher in scenery_packs.ini than A Sky Story Sceneries => LFLJ airport looks good, ugly mountains:

 

 

# 2 Orbx_B_LFLJ_Courchevel_Mesh lower in scenery_packs.ini than A Sky Story Sceneries => LFLJ airport looks bad, mountains OK:

The same principle applies to the display of neighboring airports (LFHU, LFKX, LFKR) - either ORBX works well and others airports wrong, or vice versa ;-(

[ikbenik]

OK, I will also reorganise scenery_pack.ini as indicated that shows anomaly and see what happens to Courchevel(and Méribel by LLH-Creation) when I fly there. Posting later on.

[Jon Clarke]

5 minutes ago, ikbenik said:

OK, I will also reorganise scenery_pack.ini as indicated that shows anomaly and see what happens to Courchevel(and Méribel by LLH-Creation) when I fly there. Posting later on.

Appreciate your assistance.

[ikbenik]

Now made a flight with prononsed 'A Sky story Alps' in favour to the Mesh from Orbx now put underneath shows indeed the same error. so admit having the same issue:

 

Méribel altiport(LFKX) on the other side of the ridge(is at the right location of the photo above) shows ok but I have made mistake: not from LLH Creation here, I have it in P3Dv4 and fine working in this Sim(should be of coarse fine if they make it also for XP), sorry...

 

My conclusion: the Orbx-Mesh file isn't compatible with 'A Sky Story Alps' or vice versa. The French alps in the regio that Orbx-Mesh includes should show this detailled mountains:

[Bulva]

"My conclusion: the Orbx-Mesh file isn't compatible with 'A Sky Story Alps' or vice versa. The French alps in the regio that Orbx-Mesh includes should show this detailled mountains:"

 

My conclusion: the Orbx-Mesh file isn't compatible with 'A Sky Story Alps' and  or with any other mesh - for example, created by Ortho4XP. 

[Caruso]

As far as I know there is no general solution for this.

 

X-plane allows only one active mesh per tile (1° of longitude x 1° of latitude). Every thing below that mesh is not being rendered (meshes, overlays, sceneries etc.)
LFLJ is on the tile +45+006 which is also covered by Alps 1. Only one of them can be active. The active one is the one that is listed higher up in the scenery_packs.ini file.

 

This is a general "problem" with X-plane. There doen't seem to exist tools that allow a scenery designer to change the active mesh only on a specific area thus leaving the rest of the area untouched. That's why certain sceneries ship with a custom mesh for the whole tile and by doing so override any other mesh that a user usually has for that tile.

[JoeKerr]

Thank you all for your participation in trying to solve this. 

Caruso, with my knowledge of how the layers works in XP11, I tend to agree : same meshes excludes one another. 

but my 

 

as far as i'm concerned, I'd be willing to pay a few bucks if Orbx would make a LFLJ mesh compatible with a Sky Story.

 

Also, what is the use of the "New folder" one can find in : 

Orbx_A_LFLJ_Courchevel_Airport\Earth nav data

Orbx_B_LFLJ_Courchevel_Mesh\Earth nav data\+40+000

 

 

[Caruso]

33 minutes ago, JoeKerr said:

Also, what is the use of the "New folder" one can find in : 

Orbx_A_LFLJ_Courchevel_Airport\Earth nav data

Orbx_B_LFLJ_Courchevel_Mesh\Earth nav data\+40+000

 

I was asking myself the same question. It may contains a previous version of the .dsf that was created earlier in the process and left behind?

[Bulva]

It seems to me that mesh Orbx should not interfere in such a way that other airports or other scenery look bad. LFLJ should work with the standard Orho4XP mesh.

[Caruso]

13 hours ago, Bulva said:

It seems to me that mesh Orbx should not interfere in such a way that other airports or other scenery look bad. LFLJ should work with the standard Orho4XP mesh.

 

Unfortunately there is not such a thing as a standard Orho4XP mesh. Orho4XP allows for lots of different settings for mesh creation resulting in different meshes depending on what a user has chosen to set.

There are not even standard Orho4XP patch files for specific airports.

[Bulva]

That's right. I meant that  the scenerie of neighboring airports interact with the mesh created in Ortho4XP, and the LFLJ mesh causes errors with them.

[Trustdesa]

Hi Guys, just a clarification on how the mesh system work in Xplane.

 

As mentioned there is no "standard", only what's ships with Xplane is "Standard" many people use Ortho4Xp, for that region I use UHD Mesh 4 as the resolutions is impressive so there are lots of different cases. Xplane mesh works "per area" hence you cannot just modify one bit without affecting whatever is in that area, again to add this is linked to whatever mesh was used for the airfields of the area (Ortho, HD/UHD Mesh 4 / Laminar / ORBX) we are talking about. 

 

Chec this article and search for MESH https://www.thresholdx.net/article/afsdix to get more insight by a way more experienced developer than me  

 

Probably is more noticable now with regions etc... prior to this point you rarely had regions covering big areas or many airfields near each other (excluding freeware as often these are developed without custom mesh).  Anyways read the above article as it touches the point.

[Caruso]

Totally agree @Trustdesa, that's exactly the point. Developers do not know what mesh a user has installed and why he may have another than X-plane vanilla mesh. Therefore IMHO they should not ship a mesh with a secenery representing a single airport because they change the whole 1x1 degree area for the user.

 

If a developer still decides to include a custom mesh it should be clearly stated in the product's description that this will modify the whole 1x1° tile. Not many users are aware of this.

 

In the case of LFLJ the studio decided to model the runway slope and airfield surroundings by modifying the mesh. Why not improve the mesh in the whole tile and ceate a scenery for the region, starting with a higher resolution similar to alpiloitx's HD-Meshes and finishing by incorporating all the altiports in the area? This would have been a much better and complete solution leaving less frustration for the users that now wonder why all of a sudden their french alps don't look the same after they have installed Courchevel...

[Trustdesa]

1 hour ago, Caruso said:

Totally agree @Trustdesa, that's exactly the point. Developers do not know what mesh a user has installed and why he may have another than X-plane vanilla mesh. Therefore IMHO they should not ship a mesh with a secenery representing a single airport because they change the whole 1x1 degree area for the user.

 

If a developer still decides to include a custom mesh it should be clearly stated in the product's description that this will modify the whole 1x1° tile. Not many users are aware of this.

 

In the case of LFLJ the studio decided to model the runway slope and airfield surroundings by modifying the mesh. Why not improve the mesh in the whole tile and ceate a scenery for the region, starting with a higher resolution similar to alpiloitx's HD-Meshes and finishing by incorporating all the altiports in the area? This would have been a much better and complete solution leaving less frustration for the users that now wonder why all of a sudden their french alps don't look the same after they have installed Courchevel...

 

I use HD Mesh for the whole Europe and USA and for the alps UHD Mesh 4 and I lost the count of the default airports that is has ruined, some unusable and canto really be fixed with Wed either... the problems is with Xplane as it does not allow for local mesh change modification and realistically it is impossible to cater for an X amount of products, that is a huge problem laminar has ignore for too long and still do unfortunately. 

[Caruso]

11 hours ago, Trustdesa said:

... the problems is with Xplane as it does not allow for local mesh change modification and realistically it is impossible to cater for an X amount of products, that is a huge problem laminar has ignore for too long and still do unfortunately. 

Yes and no...
The fact that in x-plane the mesh can only be modified for a whole 1x1° tile is well documented by laminar. You can call it a limitation. Other sims have other limitations. Every addon developer should know the properties of the sim they develop for and thus choose an apropriate way to do things. It  does not help when you blame laminar for the negative results an addon is knowingly creating for the enduser.

[JoeKerr]

Hello all, 

Thank you for your input, it helps understanding how it works. 

 

So if using two mesh is impossible, maybe I could use help for a workaround : 

how could I use the mountain textures from ORBX around LFLJ and the Sky Story textures all around it ?

 

I'm trying to build a new tile with Ortho4XP, i'll keep you posted if I can manage to use the three of them : LFLJ, tile +45+006 and a Sky Story

 

the LFLJ textures are in : 

[install]\X-Plane 11\Custom Scenery\Orbx_A_LFLJ_Courchevel_Airport\New Ortho

 

Tile is +45+006. 

 

 

edit : nothing is working so far, back to square 1 : as long as I use LFLJ mesh, I have generic textures all around the airport and bad quality mesh. 

It seems the mesh directory prevents XP11 using the ortho tile beneath

[Adrien_67]

Hi guys,

I expect a solution from ORBX to be able to use both LFLJ scenery (I paid it!) and my ortho4xp scenery. I really like flying in french alps and now, whole tile is back on laminar scenery.

We are many guys waiting for a solution!

If its not possible... (I don't believe that) I want to get my money back because this beautiful scenery become useless!

Best regards.

 

Adrien

[Jon Clarke]

12 hours ago, Adrien_67 said:

Hi guys,

I expect a solution from ORBX to be able to use both LFLJ scenery (I paid it!) and my ortho4xp scenery. I really like flying in french alps and now, whole tile is back on laminar scenery.

We are many guys waiting for a solution!

If its not possible... (I don't believe that) I want to get my money back because this beautiful scenery become useless!

Best regards.

 

Adrien

 

Orbx doesn't make addons that are specifically geared to be compatible with ortho4xp imagery. Orbx will make addons compatible with Orbx ortho like TEGB/Washington/Oregon, or like in Courchevel, include a tile of of authorised ortho imagery in the download.

[Adrien_67]

So I have a beautiful Courchevel scenery, with a runway not so beautiful (steep slope changes with a jumping aircraft between flat part and 18%) and finally I loose my 1 degree tile with photorealistic scenery and accurate relief...

I'm sure this scenery is below the ORBX standard.

Very disappointed!

Thank you.

[Jon Clarke]

19 hours ago, Adrien_67 said:

So I have a beautiful Courchevel scenery, with a runway not so beautiful (steep slope changes with a jumping aircraft between flat part and 18%) and finally I loose my 1 degree tile with photorealistic scenery and accurate relief...

I'm sure this scenery is below the ORBX standard.

Very disappointed!

Thank you.

It has been mentioned several times now that the developer is working on a fix at least for the sloped runway. I suggest we wait for that to be released. Regarding the compatibility with anyones imagery from sources offered with Ortho4XP, I think that this aspect has been explained. 

[Jumtri]

It's a shame there is no possibility to use this airport with Ortho..or even an update without mesh to do so

who wants to fly in such a beautiful area with original xplane mesh around ? Not me ! 

[F-DFLY]

Hello.
I totally agree with you Jumtri Jumtri, I was planning to get LFKX Meribel but I gave it up !!!

[Bulva]

Unfortunately also ...

[JoeKerr]

same. i will continue to buy england products but as far as France's located ones, I will sadly pass. 

Unless Orbx will soon announce a product for XP11 covering all of France ?? (in this case, instant buy)

 

 

edit : meanwhile, if someone finds a solution permitting LJLF to coexist with SkyStory mesh and/or ortho, many people are interested