Is it possible to say exactly what we are missing?

[NoLonger]

I know the FTXG manual tells a lot about hybrid mode, but I would like to know more. If possible, of course.

 

When you have FTXG and (for instance) FTX England and you enable hybrid mode you can fly in and out of England and things outside and inside the region will look okay. With hybrid mode you will miss a few minor things in FTX England but you will hardly notice them. Afaik you will miss NOTHING in FTXG. (Right...? Or does hybrid mode already influence FTXG too?)

 

For a while I was under the impression that if you would NOT use hybrid mode but select a specific region instead, you could fly in and out of FTX England and outside of England you would still see FTXG in all its glory but after reading the manual I noticed that's not entirely true: you WILL be missing a few minor things in FTXG if you select a region and do not use FTXG's hybrid mode.

 

I presumed (don't know why) that hybrid mode ONLY meant you could fly from one FTX region (for instance Europe) to another FTX region (for instance Oceania) without having to exit FSX and switch regions (which is true) so I also presumed that if you would stay in Europe all the time, you would not need hybrid mode because you wouldn't fly to another region. You could simply enable the Europe region and enjoy everything in full glory. But now I understand that's not completely right. No matter what setting you chose, you will always lose something if you cross borders between FTX regions and FTXG, no matter what.

 

Afaik now it's like this:

- FTXG and hybrid mode off = perfect FTXG and no FTX regions active at all

- FTXG and hybrid mode on = perfect FTXG (?) and almost perfect FTX region (and you can fly to them all)

- FTX region on = perfect FTX region and almost perfect FTXG (and you can't fly to other main FTX regions like Oceania or Northern America if you have Europe enabled).

 

Ok, now (sorry for the long intro ) I would like to know: what exactly are we missing in the various modes? What are we missing in FTX regions with hybrid mode on and what are we missing in FTXG with a region enabled? (I hope someone still knows what I am talking about LOL) Are things as I said 'almost perfect' anyway or not?

 

Just curious. As usual.

[banjoman1960]

+1

[Wolter van der Spoel]

Hi JvE,

 

well you know curiosity killed the cat

 

it's pretty straight forward and you basically already answered it yourself 

 

there are limitations of what is possible within the fsX frame work, hence the options to choose which ever one you prefer, 

[NoLonger]

well you know curiosity killed the cat

 

it's pretty straight forward and you basically already answered it yourself

 

LOL

 

But er... I posted a few conclusions about hybrid mode but I certainly didn't answer the actual question itself...!

[John Venema]

Holger knows the specific differences, he engineered the hybrid lclookup.bgl for us. If he reads this he may offer to provide details.

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi guys,

 

actually, the answer is that it depends very much where you are flying and thus a specific list of differences isn't possible. There are 148 possible classes in FSX, each with about ten different parameters, that can utilize one of 170+ textures in the 26 default FSX Regions. In short: thousands of different possible combinations influence each sq km of ground.

 

The FTXG hybrid mode makes compromises in three scenery components:

 

1. Autogen textures: our regions have custom vegetation and building textures. Since any autogen object can only display one texture at a time we had to . It actually doesn't mean that you'll see European textures everywhere in New Zealand or North America

 

2. Slope textures: many landclass textures in FSX automatically change to another type (e.g., rock or forest) on steeper slopes. At which gradient and to what texture has been adjusted differently within each FTX region. Since for each landclass those slope changes are defined globally we had to find a single common denominator for each class.

 

3. Class-to-texture assignments: Since some classes in FSX have specific desirable combinations of parameters we've sometimes changed (from default) which texture is called by a specific class. However, most of these changes don't have global effect so you will only see them within a given Orbx region.

 

Given the multitude of tricky choices I'm actually surprised at how well the hybrid mode works within the existing Orbx region products and the "outside world". Still, if you're planning a flight within a specific FTX region, like New Zealand, the UK, or western North America, I suggest you select that in FTX Central because only then will you see it exactly as it was designed. 

 

If in doubt you can save a flight situation (in slew mode) in a location of your choice and then take comparison screenshots in different modes. The standard cockpit view will highlight any changes in autogen textures and slope classes while a zoomed out top-down view will highlight any differences landclass assignments.

 

Cheers, Holger

[NoLonger]

Thanks for the detailed reply, Holger! Much appreciated. It seems one sentence ends rather abruptly: "Since any autogen object can only display one texture at a time we had to ." Although I can guess what you were trying to say there (having to choose or limit textures?) maybe you can tell what you were trying to say exactly. But anyway, I know understand what's happening in the background!

 

Just one more thing: does this work exactly the same the other way around? So if I have an FTX region enabled, will FTXG show changes in the exact same three scenery components? Or will FTXG show other 'anomalies'? Hope you don't mind me being so curious...

[macca22au]

Apart form our part of the world (sorry AU and NZ), I have decided to go with hybrid.  Saves fuss, and I don't know what I am missing anyway.

 

But when LC Europe comes in, then I assume we will be able to select Europe in all its glory while waiting for the next regions to arrive.