A Dilemma

There is an important rule about contributions to OpenSceneryX – we never accept models for unique buildings, for example The Eiffel Tower or The Empire State Building. Why? Because OpenSceneryX is a library for general use across many scenery packages, and objects that are unique would only ever be used in one place in the world. The place for unique buildings is inside that scenery package, not inside a general-purpose library.

So what’s the problem? Well, consider this nice model of an airport terminal just contributed by Nick Ward.

CYPA Terminal Building
CYPA Terminal Building

It is a model of a specific terminal building at a specific airport (CYPA). However, most airport building models are based on specific buildings at specific airports – all the hangars, all the offices, all the sheds – it’s just that those buildings can be described as ‘generic’ while a terminal is becoming rather more ‘specific’. So, does the terminal get added to OpenSceneryX?

I don’t really know the answer to this. I think the best way is to make a judgement on an object-by-object basis. In this case, I would say that the terminal is generic enough that you might find quite a lot of buildings around the world looking “quite similar” so there is a justification for adding it. In other cases – let’s say someone contributed a model of the London Stansted airport terminal building – then this would not be accepted because it is not generic. I think there is a bit of a fuzzy line here that may sometimes be difficult to call.

If you have any suggestions or opinions, please post a comment.

Vista vs The Installer

It turns out that the problem people are seeing with the OpenSceneryX installer is due to the security features in Vista (specifically, User Access Control or UAC).  This means that a program cannot, by default, create files and folders in areas of your hard disk that Vista thinks it shouldn’t, which can include the “Custom Scenery” folder inside your X-Plane folder. Unfortunately, this causes something of a problem for a program that is meant to install files and folders in there, such as the OpenSceneryX installer.

Run as administrator
Run as administrator

While I work on a fix for this, my suggestion to all Vista users is to run the installer by right-clicking it and choosing “Run as administrator”.  This gives it elevated privileges that means it can write to your X-Plane folder.

Site Slow

The website is responding very slowly at the moment.  I’ve raised this with our hosting provider and they are investigating.  Many apologies for any inconvenience this may cause, we will push to get this resolved as soon as possible.