FTX Old Warden. Beta screenshots.RELEASED

[speedbird591]

Looks like Old Warden will be the next EU England airfield to be released. One of the beta testers has posted some screenshots here:

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/ ... ld-warden/

Ian

[DaveG]

Looks good. Wonder if it can be persuaded to install without ORBX England

[speedbird591]

There's no general technical reason that the FTX airfields need to have the scenery area installed although it doesn't seem to be standard practise. I did read a reply to a similar query on their support forum a while back and the CEO said that most airports should install OK over default scenery. They won't support incompatibility problems, though, as they do advertise the airfields as add-ons to the ORBX scenery. The main problems would be blending at the boundary and the richer colour pallette compared to default FSX. And I suppose elevation problems could arise in tricky areas - I can't find the post now so don't take it as gospel!

You could always try one of their freeware Aussie, US or Canadian airfields to see what to expect. They're easy to get rid of as the uninstall procedure for all ORBX stuff is to simply to delete the ORBX folder and then any ORBX annotated BGLs in the Scenery\World\Scenery folder.

http://www.fullterrain.com/freeware.html

Ian

[DaveG]

I'd probably dump most of the actual terrain & just use the buildings etc.

I see from the product page for Shoreham, it states:

This is an Orbx FTX airport, and as such a copy of Orbx FTX EU England must be installed prior to use.

so was wondering if the installer performed some kind of check, & would only install if FTX England was found.

[DaveB]

The main problems would be blending at the boundary and the richer colour pallette compared to default FSX.

I can't see that being much of an issue Ian as I reckon the majority of folk don't use default FSX. I'm sure someone skilled enough with the various FSX tools could make it fit just fine. An expensive exercise if they can't though!

ATB
DaveB

[speedbird591]

so was wondering if the installer performed some kind of check, & would only install if FTX England was found.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't check that because I've definitely seen support questions where this has cropped up. I'm pretty certain it's a legal way of supporting a refusal to give support if such an installation went wrong as they can't guarantee that it will work OK outside the region.

I'm not particularly technically minded with scenery but I do have a few ORBX/FTX sceneries and airports installed. If it's any help here are a couple of screenshots of the installation. As I said, most of the files are placed in a created ORBX folder within the Sim (in my case Prepar3d - all new FTX sceneries are dual install). Inside the ORBX folder are sub-folders for Regions such as FTX_NA (North America) or FTX_EU (Europe).

Inside the Region folders are sub-folders for area sceneries (such as CRM Central Rocky Mountains or ENG England) and add-on airports. For instance, FTX_NA_PNW05_SCENERY is the folder containing scenery for North America region, Pacific North West area updated to Patch No.5. So it's all very logical. The airport folders are on the same level, but not inside, the area scenery folders. The only other files are in the scenery\world\scenery folder and are clearly shown as FTX BGLs with the airport code included in the file name. I hope this is of some help but let me know if I can show you anything else.

As I said, the official uninstall procedure is simply to delete the necessary folder and then the required bgls from the global scenery folder. So I don't imagine that there are any registry entries.





Ian

[speedbird591]

I'm sure someone skilled enough with the various FSX tools could make it fit just fine. An expensive exercise if they can't though!

Yes, it would be. Which is why I wondered if a dummy run with a freeware airport might be worth a punt.

Actually, I've just remembered Peter has grabbed a lot of objects out of the ORBX libraries to enhance McLeland Field. So if he comes along I'm sure he'll be able to give much more reliable advice than I can!

Ian

[DogTailRed2]

Would be interested to hear of anyone that has installed this scenery onto VFRX.
If it works I might get it. Then I can fly display flights from Duxford

[petermcleland]

I've just been reading the manual for CEF4 Airdrie Airpark in the Northern Rockies...There is a page on Manual Scenery Library Configuration for "If you do not have ORBX FTX installed you can still use this scenery by manually adding the scenery library entry from within FSX"....You run FSX and go Settings > Scenery Library...Click Add Area...in the folder browser window that pops up, Navigate to the FTXAA_CEF4 folder and click OK...etc, etc.

So I imagine you can use any of the individual FTX airports that are sold separately by installing them...That will create the ORBX\FTX_** folder and in it will be the individual airport folder (like the FTX_CEF4 folder mentioned above) and that is where you navigate to when manually installing just an FTX airport into the scenery library without its FTX Region being present.

As Ian has mentioned the edge joints will not really blend as the texture tones are brighter than the surrounding default scenery...However, the manual says you can do it. It may be that you even get the Desktop airfield control panel to enable or disable various aspects in the scenery.

It really needs someone to try it but I really am not keen to risk my own FTX installation by installing an airfield in OZ which is the only region I don't have.

[petermcleland]

With regards to grabbing objects from the ORBX libraries...I have done quite a lot of that for my own scenery and it all works just fine...even the animations and sounds work faultlessly. The libraries are expanded as each new product is released containing the latest library...However, all you need is just one ORBX product to have access to the libraries...I know those libraries very well and I can assure any scenery makers that is absolutely wonderful value for money