noted Comments on Central layering

[borisvp]

Devs,

 

I read quite many topics regarding scenery problems in conjunction with ORBX in this forum, and I have the impression that you, the developers, think of us users as dumb creatures who simply should run your tool and otherwise not touch their sim internals. Many of us are (out of necessity, because we want a working sim) very experienced in organizing their sim configs, and I for my part do not like tools which try to act as a guardian over me as the sim's user and which I do not fully understand in their way of working in my sim. Unfortunately, ORBX Central is such a tool. It is intransparent and poorly documented with regard to what it does in detail in the sim.

 

As long as Mr. Venema hasn't gained world supremacy in the scenery addon business, there are other addons with their specialties which need to be maintained, often by manually moving files around or deactivating them or shifting priorities in the scenery layering. This means that the scenery library (both scenery.cfg and add-on.xml method) has to be structured and clearly laid out. Statements like "this shouldn't cause any conflicts" do not help. And your tool messing up a freshly installed sim (see my other recent posting) is a no go.

 

I use SimStarter as a configuration tool, but I am very careful about what it does, always check config files and adjust them where necessary. What you call the "legacy method" works very well so far, and as long as LM does not introduce a totally new scenery concept there is no reason to change this. From a user perspective, I see no need whatsoever for altering the layering in the scenery.cfg for putting add-on.xml entries between them, as ORBX Central does. Example: Assigning layer 2 to all elevation corrections organized via add-on.xml puts them all in the correct position without messing up the scenery library. They are simply put into the order the add-on.xml files are being read during startup.

 

 

Trevor, As for the greyed-out entries in your scenery library: These are entries which are organized via add-on.xml with a specific layer (like the dark green ones in the SimStarter screenshot above). As such, you cannot move them  around with the P3D tool, only via changing the layer entry in the respective add-on.xml. But you don't want to do this, because when you change one, you would have to change others, too. A general tool for scenery organization, however, should be able to do this (SimStarter is).

 

Whch brings me to the closing point of a posting I didn't intend to write: ORBX sceneries are an integral part of many, many simulators out there, and oh yes, I will keep spending money on them. Why don't you (the devs) design your tool in a way that it is able to handle all possible scenery and not only ORBX's? This would make other organizing tools obsolete for all users who have any ORBX scenery in their sim. Think about it.

 

 I still want to know what the unified lclookup migration does in detail in my sim.

 

Boris

 

 

[Ben McClintock]

Hi Boris,

 

I have split your post into a new topic. It is good etiquette to avoid "piling on" to another user's support post.

 

8 minutes ago, borisvp said:

It is intransparent and poorly documented with regard to what it does in detail in the sim

Have you read our user guide? Specifically the section "Insertion Point (FSX/P3D)". It goes into detail about exactly how Orbx Central will order scenery library entries. More importantly, it also explains how power-users like yourself can adjust that to your own liking.

 

Any time a user has asked a question about the internals of Central, we have been extremely transparent in providing details on how it works. In most cases, we even add it to the Central User Guide.

 

Is there anything specific that you would like more information on?

 

12 minutes ago, borisvp said:

I see no need whatsoever for altering the layering in the scenery.cfg for putting add-on.xml entries between them, as ORBX Central does

What if a user has some add-ons installed using scenery.cfg and some using add-on.xml, and the airports MUST appear above certain regions to display correctly? The only way to handle this is to intersperse the add-on.xml and scenery.cfg entries. This is a limitation of the add-on.xml system. If you wish to avoid using add-on.xml packages, do not use libraries in Orbx Central.

 

14 minutes ago, borisvp said:

Why don't you (the devs) design your tool in a way that it is able to handle all possible scenery and not only ORBX's? This would make other organizing tools obsolete for all users who have any ORBX scenery in their sim. Think about it.

That is our goal. If we only had to worry about Orbx scenery, we would have been finished many months before we actually released

 

We try to support as many users as we can with our tools. Unfortunately, there are many people who do not take the time to understand how their simulator internals work like you have - so we have to compromise.

[borisvp]

Hi Ben,

 

Thanks for looking into my posting and for your serious reply. Yes, I did read the user guide. It explains how OC is designed to work and describes the user interaction. It does not say what OC actually does in the sim. This is something I would like to know - if it can be disclosed at all. Which files go where, and which of the sim's files are altered how.

 

Let me refer to my other posting "total installation fail". I am now back on FTX Central (which installed everything without issues, BTW), so the next time I will have the opportunity to work with OC will likely be P3Dv5, or if ORBX discontinues FTXC, which I hope will not happen too soon. I observed several things (we can go further into detail, just not now):

 

1.) The layering order of Vector and region components is different from the FTXC installation.

2.) The layering of Vector is not consistent. The default scenery "Africa" is between the components. 

3.) The terrain.cfg is different from the one which FTXC generates.

4.) FTXC does a migration after initial installation, which takes a while. OC does no such thing. It installs the scerenies and that's it.

 

And here is another thing I would like to know: what the migration does. I have asked this question already quite some time ago (I think when the unified lclookup came out), but got no detailed answer. Again: Which files go where and which of the sim's files are altered how.

 

Regarding the layering: I do understand the logic behind OC's layering both in the scenery.cfg and in the add-on.xml files. But as I wrote: Leaving the scenery.cfg as it is and moving add-on.xml sceneries in between with a layer argument works fine. Sceneries with add-on.xml without a layer argument are placed at the top of the scenery library, in the order of their processing during the sim startup.

 

I give an example:

 

The default scenery library of a P3Dv4.5HF2 installation has 131 layers, with the city of Sharurah (wherever that is) as the top layer. I have FS Global mesh, which consists of 7 folders, which I install first. Because I had enough hassle with meshes in my flightsim life, I do not use the add-on method but register it in the scenery.cfg, between the base and the continental sceneries. This gives me layer 138 as the top layer in the scenery.cfg. 

 

Addon airports with their own elevation correction get a "layer 2" entry in the xml. All of them. The top layer of the scenery.cfg is still 138. The airport scenery itself gets no layer entry and is loaded above layer 138. 

 

Now it is different, of course, because Vector is back in the scenery.cfg.

 

What is the reason for interspersing the layers in ORBX Central? If for example Vector AEC must be loaded between Default Scenery and 0000 Base, why is it not assigned layer 3 in the add-on.xml and everything else is left as it is? Same with all the Elevation Stubs. And so on.

 

I could keep writing for hours  But I'll rest now and look forward to an answer.

 

Boris

 

 

 

 

 

[gaab]

And now appears 4.5 HF2 which ignores elevation correction bgl (last airport file defines the altitude, at last - mentionned recently also by Nick Cooper) !

 

Will it be taken in consideration in a near future (i.e. no more "world" sceneries, AEC...). AND as traffic files can be positionned everywhere, would give the opportunity to get rid of a lot of folders and files now useless.

 

Gérard

[Doug Sawatzky]

Hi @borisvp

 

Are you opted into FastLane and using the newest version of Orbx Central?

[Nick Cooper]

Hello,

P3D version 4.5.13.32097 has introduced some changes which have not yet

been addressed by Orbx Central.

It is on the list of things to do.

 

@borisvp

 

Your in depth questioning is appreciated, however in the light of your decision to use FTX Central,

any answers given now will very likely be out of date by the time you decide to return to Orbx

Central and therefore of no value to you.

 

[borisvp]

Hi,

 

@Doug Sawatzky No, I have not opted into FastLane; I used the version I downloaded from the website.

 

@Nick Cooper My goal was and still is to separate the addon scenery from the sim folder (well, except for FTX Global, maybe). This is in view of a future installation of P3Dv5. I currently take a lot of effort to do this with other addon scenery which I install, and some are really tricky. Drziewiecki and Aerosoft for example insist on installing into the main folder. FSDreamTeam allows for a different location, but still throws files into the main folder. I have to rename the P3D folder and put a dummy in place to find out if and what goes where. 

 

So yes, I'm still interested in making this work for ORBX, too. AFAIK, OC has the option to move all scenery from the main sim folder to a library later. But I will not put my installation at risk to have to start all over again, and before trying anything with OC, I want to know what has happened, why it has happened and that this root cause has been eliminated. 

 

I could test on another PC, however. Would a FastLane version address the problem and if so, how?

 

Boris

 

[Nick Cooper]

The "Fastlane" version is the open beta version released to the customers,

as clearly explained on the Account page of Orbx Central, which you have

apparently studied in depth and rejected in favour of FTX Central.

 

I would refer you again to the Orbx Central User guide which contains the

answers to the majority of your questions.

[borisvp]

Nick,

 

I really appreciate the amount of support you are providing in this forum, but you frequently give "standard catalog" answers, as above. Obviously, you have also not read my postings in detail and I feel that you (and others from ORBX) are not interested in a technical dialog but rather leave the customer alone wneh his problem is off-standard. I have not read a single line what the root cause of my original problem might have been. This disappoints me - but I am used to it in the commercial flightsim world, so no hard feelings.

 

At last:

 

I know that FastLane is an open beta, and I have rejected it, because I think that the official version shoud do its job, and a beta only be used in conjunction with the technical support, when the official tool does not work, as in my case. But sorry, just the advice "use the beta" is not sufficient, and I have said, why.

 

The OC user guide provides a general overwiew of the functionality of OC and does not provide any technical details regarding simulator configuration. All what is said about layering is basically that OC manages it "automatically". The least I would expect is a description how exactly the scenery library should look after the installation, showing in a list which scenery entry sits where. 

 

I will keep trying to figure it out on my own.

 

Boris

 

[Nick Cooper]

Hello Boris,

I am not qualified to enter into an in depth explanation of Orbx Central.

Ben is and perhaps you can persuade him to devote some hours to

explaining it to you and how it relates to your own special case.