mburkhard Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 Dear ORBX. I've just installed the new ENGM scenery, and I like what I see! A good step up from the previous two UK releases Midlands and Edinburgh. Also a big thank you for providing multiple seasons config options so that it matches perfectly with the surrounding scenery in all cases. Here's a couple of issues I have found so far: I'm afraid the approach- and runway lighting is quite a mess. The runway lighting at the END of both runways is inconsistent with reality. It doesn't make sense for the centreline lights to continue past the REIL or that as in case of runway 14, the centreline lights switch from alternating between red and white to pure white towards the end. That is incorrect. Please also check the position of the REILs. I'm not sure if they indeed correspond to the position of the opposite runway's displaced threshold IRL, I very much doubt it. Also missing is the CAT2/3 approach- and runway lighting for runway 32. You modelled the same type of lighting as on the opposite runway, which is CAT1 only. RWY32 needs CAT2/3 approach lighting AND standard TDZ lights, which are also missing. You do advertise "realistic approach lighting" after all I see that the APIS parking system for stands 7 and 8 is missing. Would it be possible to create an optional config file for the SODE VDGS pack? That way people using that pack could activate proper VDGS for those stands in ORBX Central? I see there are no animated service vehicles. This is a bit confusing. As evidenced by other ORBX airports, you do have the technology. Why not include some on this airport, since it does feature service roads? Doesn't need to be a whole armada, just a few vehicles so that the airport doesn't look as lifeless as it does currently. That's all for the time being, thanks for listening! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Jones Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 Hi, We have animated service vehicles in the X-Plane version of the airport however the same functionality is not available for P3D. The only Orbx products that include animated vehicles are those which the the developer has made custom animations for. There are a number of dedicated GSE packages that can do a better job of this so we tend to stay away from it - unless of there are elements that are unique to the airport. The red/white alternating lights are taken from this entry in the CAA Visual Aids Handbook: "High intensity centreline lighting is provided in addition to edge lighting on runways equipped for low visibility operations. The centreline lighting is colour coded in order to warn a pilot of the approaching end of the runway. centreline lighting extends from the threshold to 900 m from the runway end, the following 600 m is lit with alternate and red lights, and the final 300 m lit by red centreline lighting" We are looking at adding an option to support the optional SODE VDGS soon. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mburkhard Posted February 16, 2020 Author Share Posted February 16, 2020 16 minutes ago, Greg Jones said: The red/white alternating lights are taken from this entry in the CAA Visual Aids Handbook: "High intensity centreline lighting is provided in addition to edge lighting on runways equipped for low visibility operations. The centreline lighting is colour coded in order to warn a pilot of the approaching end of the runway. centreline lighting extends from the threshold to 900 m from the runway end, the following 600 m is lit with alternate and red lights, and the final 300 m lit by red centreline lighting" Thanks for your response Greg. Your quote from the CAA handbook is perfectly fine, however that is not what I see for RWY14. In my sim (P3Dv4) I see the centreline lights correctly alternating between red and white, however, instead of ending in red, they are completely white until the end of the runway. It seems to be fine for RWY32 though. Having said that, what is not correct is the runway edge lighting for both runway ends. It does not make sense to have centreline lighting, but no edge lighting on any part of a runway. However that is the case on both runway ends right now. What is also wrong is for centreline lights continuing AFTER the red REILs, which also is the case on both ends of the runway right now. As I have said, I suspect that the REILs are placed at the wrong spot on both ends. Great to hear that you're considering adding optional SODE VDGS. They are of great quality and will enhance the scenery quite nicely. I hope you'll also add CAT2/3 lighting for RWY32? One more thing: I experience major stutters on this airport. Frames are perfectly fine (50-60 in my test case). But when moving across the airport I observe major stutters, almost in a regular interval. I do not have this issue on any other airport installed, ORBX or otherwise. It is unique to EGNM. Has there been anything like that reported by your testers or other customers? Thanks, Markus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Jones Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 12 hours ago, mburkhard said: Thanks for your response Greg. Your quote from the CAA handbook is perfectly fine, however that is not what I see for RWY14. In my sim (P3Dv4) I see the centreline lights correctly alternating between red and white, however, instead of ending in red, they are completely white until the end of the runway. It seems to be fine for RWY32 though. If that's the case, that is simply an error as they were intended to end all red for both runways. As far as the REILs are concerned, we can only place lights etc based on the information to hand and match it as closely as possible to the physical evidence (the imagery we have). We do try to get this to be accurate as possible but we don't always get it right! As it stands I believe this part of the lighting is as correct as we can make but I will review it anyway to see if there is anything that needs to be done. There were no performance issues reported during beta testing - which makes a nice change! Are referring to taxiing around the airport or slewing? Slewing will almost certainly cause a stuttering issue due to the volume of textures in use. It may be worth looking at the performance options in the airport control panel to see if that helps. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Carbin Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 16 hours ago, mburkhard said: I see that the APIS parking system for stands 7 and 8 is missing. Would it be possible to create an optional config file for the SODE VDGS pack? That way people using that pack could activate proper VDGS for those stands in ORBX Central? Ive created my own if you would like to PM I can send it across for you to try? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mburkhard Posted February 17, 2020 Author Share Posted February 17, 2020 9 hours ago, Greg Jones said: If that's the case, that is simply an error as they were intended to end all red for both runways. Indeed. As I've said, the red colour is fine on one end, but not on the other. 9 hours ago, Greg Jones said: As far as the REILs are concerned, we can only place lights etc based on the information to hand and match it as closely as possible to the physical evidence (the imagery we have). We do try to get this to be accurate as possible but we don't always get it right! As it stands I believe this part of the lighting is as correct as we can make but I will review it anyway to see if there is anything that needs to be done. I apologise for not making myself clear enough. What I was trying to say is that what you have modelled right now is impossible in reality. You have the centreline lights running PAST the REILs. This cannot happen in reality. Think about it, why would you continue parts of the runway lighting after marking the end of said runway? It's either a runway, or a taxiway, but there can't be partial runway lighting as you have it now. Anyway, the AIP has confirmed my suspicion. I'm a bit surprised that ORBX does not seem to check the UK AIP. See the attached PDF: You need to move the red REILs to the physical end of the runway, they do NOT coincide with the location of the green threshold lights. This also means that you need to extend the runway edge lights to reach until the physical end of the runway as well. (as a side note, please be aware that not all things on this AIP chart are to scale, they mostly have a schematic purpose only) And just to make sure, you will add the CAT3 specific lighting for RWY32 as well, meaning different approach lights as well as TDZ lights? Just asking because you have ignored my mentioning of that omission so far. 73112.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mburkhard Posted February 17, 2020 Author Share Posted February 17, 2020 10 hours ago, Greg Jones said: Are referring to taxiing around the airport or slewing? Both. At the hint of another user in another topic I have disabled parked cars, now stutters are completely gone. So those cars seem to have a pretty disastrous effect on my system. Something with their modelling or texturing technique causes major stutters. Just to reiterate, I'm not talking about a "bit of stuttering during movement" due to texture loading. But rather major rhythmic stutters that come and go during movement, even when moving past the airport and it is already located behind my POV. In other words, unusable. This does not happen at any other ORBX scenery I have, and I usually don't need to deactivate parked cars. And as I had said, it is certainly not an issue of low FPS. That's why I suspect that something specific to your cars is causing this. In any case, I can live with having parked cars disabled. But if me and another user has this issue, it does not seem to be specific to my machine. 10 hours ago, Greg Jones said: As far as the REILs are concerned, we can only place lights etc based on the information to hand and match it as closely as possible to the physical evidence (the imagery we have). We do try to get this to be accurate as possible but we don't always get it right! As it stands I believe this part of the lighting is as correct as we can make but I will review it anyway to see if there is anything that needs to be done. Sorry to bother you again with this. There is another inaccuracy with your REILs. They need to be placed across the runway, not past the edge of it. In fact the red lights do NOT feature wing bars, only the green ones do (as you have modelled correctly). Because you had incorrectly placed the red lights at the same location as the green ones, you assumed that you'd also need to model wing bars for the red lights. This is not so, the red lights only mark the physical width of the runway, they do not extend beyond the runway edge lights. This is taken out of the AIP. You may message me if you need further explanations on the runway lighting topic. It is all evident from the AIP, plus these things tend to be heavily standardised according to ICAO standards, which means guessing is not needed usually, one can simply apply ICAO standard. You mentioned above that you model those things according to the photos at hand, which I guess is not always sufficient when it comes to things related to runways, unless you fly to the airport yourself at night If you combine AIP information as well as knowledge of ICAO standards with your imagery, this could lead to more accurate results without the pain of guessing. But as I've said, message me if you need more info, I work for an air navigation service provider, airport facilities and ICAO are part of my day job. So I'm happy to explain things! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vieira12 Posted February 29, 2020 Share Posted February 29, 2020 On 2/16/2020 at 10:58 PM, Greg Jones said: Hi, We have animated service vehicles in the X-Plane version of the airport however the same functionality is not available for P3D. The only Orbx products that include animated vehicles are those which the the developer has made custom animations for. There are a number of dedicated GSE packages that can do a better job of this so we tend to stay away from it - unless of there are elements that are unique to the airport. The red/white alternating lights are taken from this entry in the CAA Visual Aids Handbook: "High intensity centreline lighting is provided in addition to edge lighting on runways equipped for low visibility operations. The centreline lighting is colour coded in order to warn a pilot of the approaching end of the runway. centreline lighting extends from the threshold to 900 m from the runway end, the following 600 m is lit with alternate and red lights, and the final 300 m lit by red centreline lighting" We are looking at adding an option to support the optional SODE VDGS soon. Greg Yes please vdgs a must these days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mburkhard Posted March 15, 2020 Author Share Posted March 15, 2020 @Greg Jones Can you give any time estimate for an update/fix to the EGNM product? And if yes, can you please confirm that approach & runway lighting will be aligned with reality? You having in the meantime released the next product already has me worried that fixing bugs is not a priority at Orbx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Jones Posted March 15, 2020 Share Posted March 15, 2020 The APIS will be added and the incorrect red/white lights will be fixed in a patch that will be available soon. Obviously, we can't release any patch until it has been fully tested. We have a large number of products in beta testing at the moment and that is a process that can't be rushed. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mburkhard Posted March 15, 2020 Author Share Posted March 15, 2020 5 hours ago, Greg Jones said: The APIS will be added and the incorrect red/white lights will be fixed in a patch that will be available soon. Thanks for the info, it was not my intention to suggest you rush things. I'm disappointed to learn however that you won't fix the rest of the runway- and approach lights. As I had stated earlier, there are several issues with them. And I did offer to explain things and help you with it, so I'm not sure what else I can do to make you realise, that what you have done in the scenery is wrong. So I ask you to be open about this. In addition to fixing the alternating red/white centre line lights, will you: - add CAT3 approach and RWY lighting as it is there in reality for RWY32? - Move the REILs for RWY14 to the correct place at the end of the runway, and add the missing RWY edge lights accordingly? If you say no, that's fine with me, I can get it over with and ask for a refund. Because you do advertise "realistic approach and airport lighting", which for me includes CAT3 lighting if it is there on the real runway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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