John Venema Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 At the very, very, very last minute just as Ed was uploading the RTM-B build to the server, Eugene (our lead developer on FTXG) told me he had solved the issue of the 3D lights staying on during the day, and also made them brighter and deeper. Naturally I did not want to make this a patch; this is too important a feature to not have in the initial release. So we've shoved it into the RMT-B build just now. So for release we will have a fully automatic new 3D lighting system, and you won't need to use the FTX Day and FTX Night apps to disable the lights during the day anymore. I've made a quick edit to the user guide and what we believe to be the retail candidate of FTX Global will be uploading to the servers overnight. All going well with final testing we are now aiming for a Saturday release, which is excellent news! Meantime, I took some happy snaps with the new lighting system for your enjoyment. This really does look stunning in the sim, especially for eye candy shots with bloom activated I cannot stop flying at dusk now, it's that nice. You can really see the blue, orange, white and yellow lights clearly now. So Saturday it is, I will let you all know if there is any delays at all ok? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orgasmatron Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Thats awesome news! Bring on Saturday! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhysb Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Sweet! I take it you will still need to use the day/night switcher in the Full FTX areas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Todd Harrell Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Hello!! But, how dare you release it while I am out on vacation. I guess I'll have something to look forward to when I return! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted July 25, 2013 Author Share Posted July 25, 2013 Sweet! I take it you will still need to use the day/night switcher in the Full FTX areas? Yes indeed you will. We have reverted back to the old apps which are still needed for the full FTX Regions. At some point in 2014 I will start a project to add the new 3D lighting system to all our FTX Regions so we have a single system in use. That's a big project but I do promise you all it will happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cabnz Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Truly amazing. Looking forward to this. Thank you so much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anfield ace Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Thanks for update JV, will look forward to Saturday! Mal... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cabnz Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 I hope the servers can handle all the downloading that's going to be happening Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoLonger Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Looks great! So the lights will pop on at a certain time? Yes indeed you will. We have reverted back to the old apps which are still needed for the full FTX Regions. At some point in 2014 I will start a project to add the new 3D lighting system to all our FTX Regions so we have a single system in use. That's a big project but I do promise you all it will happen. I suppose (but could be totally wrong ) this new lighting system will be the default already for upcoming FTX regions like Norway...? And that the FTX regions you talk about are the regions which are released up to now? Would be a shame if this new system wasn't implemented into the new regions, it seems to me! EDIT Which makes me wonder... what if you use the hybrid mode... Will you see this new lighting system in FTXG only and as soon as you fly into an FTX region will you see the old system (or not, depending on the day/night switcher)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted July 25, 2013 Author Share Posted July 25, 2013 Because it is so new we have not yet been able to train our annotators working on Northern Ireland and Northern California how to use the new lights. That will happen in the coming week(s) and you'll see the new lights system in place possibly in those regions or perhaps Republic of Ireland. Certainly you will see it in Norway South, no doubt about that whatsoever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyyad Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 cant wait Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YoYo Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Cant wait for THIS! Hope - Sturday ok, but in the morning . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alan2 Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 This is incredible . You can see the extra depth given to the sim by the lights . Not long now , I think I can make it !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Dodger Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 This is great news. Really looking forward to the release. Your excitement is addictive John V Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockliffe Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 :D :D :D :D :D :lol: :wub: :smile: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OmarNg7 Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodsmajor Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Great news! Looking forward to my Global experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeaverDriver Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Sure is a lot of heavy duty talent over there. And, as always, good things are definitely worth the wait. Nice job people. Glenn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spirit_66 Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Great news and great shots too. Spirit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikee Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Thanks for the update , and thanks for all your effort Looking forward! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoLonger Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Because it is so new we have not yet been able to train our annotators working on Northern Ireland and Northern California how to use the new lights. That will happen in the coming week(s) and you'll see the new lights system in place possibly in those regions or perhaps Republic of Ireland. Certainly you will see it in Norway South, no doubt about that whatsoever. Great, thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Copp Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Congratulations to you and your team, John. This definitely is getting the "feel" of a very solid product release so far (hopefully I haven't jinxed anything by typing that just now!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jabloomf1230 Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Now if I only understood how the International Date Line worked... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airwolf Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Awesome news. Do the lights look good in ultra wide resolutions - I have three screen Eyefinity setup, and I have to use light scalar mods (plus halo.bmp) in my prepar3d.cfg file to make lights look small in size. Or this is completely different from runway lights Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnR Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Thanks for update JV, will look forward to Saturday! Mal... +1 with lots of anticipation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnkH Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Just out of curiosity: will your servers be ready to handle the downloads on saturday? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted July 25, 2013 Author Share Posted July 25, 2013 Awesome news. Do the lights look good in ultra wide resolutions - I have three screen Eyefinity setup, and I have to use light scalar mods (plus halo.bmp) in my prepar3d.cfg file to make lights look small in size. Or this is completely different from runway lights Those screenshots are taken using my Macbook Pro 2880x1800 resolution panel, then scaled to 50% of original size. As you can see there is no issue with the brightness or visibility at that very high resolution. You can make them even brighter using higher zoom levels but I always like to fly with 0.30 zoom. Just out of curiosity: will your servers be ready to handle the downloads on saturday? That is Jay's department, but he's not failed us yet. I am sure he has made the right preparations for this launch event. There will be a massive load of course and initially some slowdowns, but that is to be expected on a day-1 situation. The good thing is we have servers on every continent so if one is not working well for you, choose another. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf2grey Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 The download size is around 9.5 GB correct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EagleSter Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Wow that looks amazing!!! I can't wait to get this. So does that mean for those of us who use UTX for night lighting to disable it since it's done on a global scale all around the world now with FTX Global? For the lighting such as the street lights, is that being pulled from the halo.bmp file? Will we be able to edit and modify the size, intensity of the lights by using the ftx light tweaked? Would be great if we can customize how the lights look in the ftx world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dukester Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 You guys never cease to amaze. "ORBX not content to just produce outstanding FSX products, no we go about solving each inherent FSX issue as we develop more cutting edge products". Outstanding!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted July 25, 2013 Author Share Posted July 25, 2013 The download size is around 9.5 GB correct? No, the download about 4.8GB, as has been said numerous times before However, to do an installation you will need to have at least 20GB of free disk space because you have to unzip the archives, run the installer, then backup the Scenery\World\Texture folder. You can move downloaded FSS installer archives onto an external driver, and also backup Scenery\World\Texture onto an external drive, but as a minimum you will still need at least 12GB of free disk space where your FSX/P3D folder is just so you have enough headroom. Wow that looks amazing!!! I can't wait to get this. So does that mean for those of us who use UTX for night lighting to disable it since it's done on a global scale all around the world now with FTX Global? For the lighting such as the street lights, is that being pulled from the halo.bmp file? Will we be able to edit and modify the size, intensity of the lights by using the ftx light tweaked? Would be great if we can customize how the lights look in the ftx world. No, as mentioned before, the new 3D lights system do not use .fx, or halo.bmp and you cannot tweak them or change the sizes (easily). They perform very well though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Lehmann (FSS) Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Just out of curiosity: will your servers be ready to handle the downloads on saturday? The FSS CDN infrastructure that is in place would stand up to the onslaught as it is, but just in case, we have already planned to purchase a kind of steroid injection that will super boost the reliability of the service for a month from release. In the morning I'll be instructing our caped crusader Jay to switch that on in preparation for release. Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danterra Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 I've made a quick edit to the user guide and what we believe to be the retail candidate of FTX Global will be uploading to the servers overnight. All going well with final testing we are now aiming for a Saturday release, which is excellent news! By uploading to the servers overnight, you mean that its already being sent to FSS? I hope you release it in Australian time so everyone can get it sooner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf2grey Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Cool.......Thanks...............I finally did move all my installer folders to an external drive. Great idea on the Scenery\World\Texture files after install. That will save a good deal of space too. This is going to ROCK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew 737 Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Excellent news John Are they still as FPS Friendly as when they were first introduced or has there been some trade-off whilst tweaking? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eraser74 Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Excellent news....can´t wait for saturday. So....has the price been announced? I would like to know beforehand how much money to hold back for FTX Global! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted July 25, 2013 Author Share Posted July 25, 2013 Excellent news John Are they still as FPS Friendly as when they were first introduced or has there been some trade-off whilst tweaking? Thanks There has been a slight FPS impact through development but they are an order of magnitude more efficient than our previous FTX region lights. Excellent news....can´t wait for saturday. So....has the price been announced? I would like to know beforehand how much money to hold back for FTX Global! Thanks! Yes the price has been announced, but for the sake of communication it is AU$99, or at today's exchange rates - £55 / €68 / US$90 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eraser74 Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Ah thanks! That is great news! This is looking like a day 1 purchase! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor Hannant Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 Great news and the shots look superb. I'll have to miss the initial rush to purchase and download but as soon as I get paid... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekdog Posted July 25, 2013 Share Posted July 25, 2013 If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of ORBX users world wide doing The Happy Dance.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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