A new version of OpenSceneryX has been released. Run your current installer to install it… Expect to download over 900 new files.
As always, the release notes are here. There are a few corrections to existing objects and a bunch of new ones for you to play with.
Enjoy!
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.
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.
Here’s the final part of a mini-series on how the OpenSceneryX library is built, covering the whole process from the initial contribution of an object all the way through to the moment it appears on the end user’s machine.
This post will cover the final part of this process – How the library is released for download.
Continue readingHere’s the second part of a mini-series on how the OpenSceneryX library is built, covering the whole process from the initial contribution of an object all the way through to the moment it appears on the end user’s machine.
This post will cover the process of building and testing the library while it is still under development.
Continue readingHere’s the first part of a mini-series on how the OpenSceneryX library is built, covering the whole process from the initial contribution of an object all the way through to the moment it appears on the end user’s machine.
This post will cover the first part of this process – The initial contribution of the object.
Continue readingAirlines change their liveries from time to time, but why should this bother us? As I mentioned in a previous post, some collections of aircraft are published to shared paths and some are not. If an author uses a path that several aircraft are published to then X-Plane will pick a random aircraft each time the scenery is loaded. For example, most b747-400s are published to /objects/aircraft/jets/heavy/b747-400.obj but some one-off liveries (Air Force One, for example) are not included in this, so you will never get a randomly placed Air Force One – the scenery designer has to explicitly choose to place that aircraft for it to appear.
One specific category of aircraft that is excluded from random placement are those aircraft that are in historical liveries. Historical liveries are present in the library because some authors may want to use them under specific circumstances, however when randomising we don’t really want old liveries appearing, as it would look strange in a modern airport.
So when does a livery become historical? Well, you may say, surely it becomes historical when the airline starts painting a new one on its aircraft? Well, I say, but what if no-one has contributed the new livery to the library yet? Should all British Airways aircraft simply stop being placed randomly the moment BA change their colours, until some generous person contributes a new livery?
The answer is no. The old livery remains active and current until a new one is submitted. At that point the old livery is moved into a sub-path (e.g. /objects/aircraft/jets/heavy/b747-400/british_airways.obj would move to /objects/aircraft/jets/heavy/b747-400/british_airways/historical/1984-1997.obj and the new livery would replace the old aircraft).
I’ve had a few comments about certain objects in the library “not being very good“. There is definitely a range of quality in there and nowadays I’m a bit more strict about what gets in and what doesn’t, but to be honest I think a basic object is better than no object at all.
Anyway, here’s a call out to everyone who has a bit of skill in 3d modelling (or wants to learn), and perhaps isn’t quite ready to build something from scratch – why not choose an object from the library and spend 20 minutes / an hour / a day improving it? Send it back, and you’ll get credit for your work.
Just grab something from inside your X-Plane/Custom Scenery/OpenSceneryX/ folder, but please copy it to somewhere else on your hard disk before working on it, otherwise the OpenSceneryX installer may overwrite it with an older version from the web, wiping out your work. Also, let me know what you plan to work on, just in case someone else is planning to make changes at the same time.
Jonathan Harris has written plugins for Blender and Sketchup and Ben Supnik has written a plugin for AC3D. If you’re happy with your work, send it back by using the OpenSceneryX contribution form. Please mention in the notes field on that form that you have modified an existing object.
Don’t be scared, give it a go!
As many of you will know, X-Plane 9 supports the DDS graphics format, which has been optimised for use with 3D graphics cards and gives a number of key benefits. Take a look at this post in Ben’s Scenery Blog, where he discussed the future of DDS in X-Plane in August 2007, before it was implemented.
So, what’s the future of DDS in OpenSceneryX? Well, DDS is an X-Plane 9 feature, so as soon as we start including DDS textures in the library then we are potentially cutting out XP8 users….
“But I’m sure I read somewhere that the library already does include DDS textures?!“
I hear you cry, and yes, it turns out you read it here in the release notes for version 1.7.0.
“But I’ve been short changed then because why are there are no DDS textures in my copy?!“
you wail once more… and of course there’s a good reason – I forgot to update the build script to copy DDS textures into the release versions! So, I’ve decided to refund everyone’s money.
… 🙂
That didn’t take very long, so back to the future of DDS in OpenSceneryX… Instead of distributing two textures to every user, a better solution is to upgrade the installer to be more intelligent about which textures are installed on a particular user’s system. If a user has X-Plane 9, they get DDS, otherwise they get PNG. So, this is something that will be coming soon.
I’ve just finished adding all of alpilotx‘s USA forests to the library. This gives us a huge increase in the number of forests available, so hopefully you’ll be able to get the exact tree type you need, wherever you need it.
The USA forests will be available in the next release.
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