Gable-roof bug, Supercity

[russhart]

Hi Robin,

I have read in one of your posts about a gable-roof bug caused by Orbx (I assume NZSI/NZNI?) and that there is an easy fix, but I cannot find any further reference to this fix.

I have had to re-install FSX and all my addons and now have this issue with Supercity. It wasn't there in my previous install. I do not have Obrx NZSI/NZNI installed only VLC and all Orbx aussie regions.

I am positive that Orbx Central was set on standard FSX scenery when I installed Supercity. Please also note some buildings have no roof at all.

How can I fix this issue?

Russell

[attachment=569:Gable_ro...upercity.jpg]

[toprob]

Hi Russell
Take a look here for the patch.

EDIT: Oops, just noticed that you don't have NZNI, in which case the patch here won't work. I'll post the fix here shortly. However I think that setting the FTX Region to 'default' should fix this. It doesn't matter what area you have active when you install Supercity, only when you are flying in New Zealand.

[russhart]

Robin, I have VLC switched on and FTX Central is on default FSX when I fly in NZ. The roof issue appears under these conditions.

I have just checked other Real NZ sceneries and the issue is in these as well.

Thanks

[toprob]

Setting FTX Central to default should always fix this, it sounds like FTX Central isn't actually returning FSX to default. I'm not sure how you'd fix this, but someone here might have dealt with this before.

[russhart]

Robin, you are correct. I have just carried out some more tests with FTX Central set to each option and have found that when it is set to "Australia" the roof issue goes away (well mostly as some appear to still have no roof at all). VLC settings make no difference except when FTX is set to Australia then VLC's autogen setting becomes unchecked (I assume FTX Central does this?).

Could the insertion points in the Scenery library make any difference as I currently have all my UTX sceneries first, then all my Real NZ, then VLC, then all the Orbx ones.

For some reason I didn't have this issue until I re-installed everything?

Unless someone can explain what has happened here I guess I will be flying in NZ with FTX Australia autogen switched on.

[dbcunnz]

Hi Russell try placing your NZ scenery above your FTX see if that helps

[russhart]

Hi Doug, FTX only adds its scenery if you select 'Australia' in FTX Central otherwise its not shown in the library. It also adds it below any addon scenery that I have installed. I did move all NZ scenery to the top but made no difference.

[toprob]

I don't think that this is a priority issue, as the autogen is almost entirely global -- the textures are located in the main FSX texture folder, and the defined in the main FSX Autogen folder, they don't rely on any Real NZ or Orbx scenery being active or not.

When you set FTX Central to default, it should swap out the FTX autogen textures and autogen descriptors for whatever it considers 'default'. I think in your case the 'default' textures may actually be FTX textures. When you switch FTX Central to Australia, it swaps the descriptor files properly, but not the textures.

Or not. The way it's meant to work is that with the FTX Region set to Australia (or Oceania with NZNI/SI) the damaged roofs should appear in non-FTX areas, such as Supercity, but setting the FTX Region to 'default' should return everything to normal. You should really check to see what FTX Central is actually doing when you switch regions. I'm not too sure what to look for, though, as I don't have any FTX Australia scenery. However to test what is broken, you'd need to open the FSX\texture folder onscreen when you switch FTX Central back and forth, and see what files change based on the file date stamp.

You could do this with the autogen descriptors as well, in FSX\autogen, in particular the RoofDescriptions.sbp -- default and FTX versions should have different dates with and without FTX active.

[russhart]

Robin, you are on to it. I have just found that the problem is caused by FTX not correctly switching the RoofDescriptions.spd file. In my case the original file was never saved to Orbx/Scripts/Backup.

I have restored the original RoofDescriptions.spd file (from another forum in South Africa) but details of this issue can be found here http://www.simforums.com/forums/ftxgex-use...topic32331.html.

So it is not a Supercity or VLC problem. I did look on the FTX forums but found no messages relating to this issue.

Having fixed the gable issue I now find that I still have some buildings with no roofs at all and my tests seem to indicate this is caused by GEX/UTX as when I run FSX in its raw state (all addons unchecked in the scenery library) and all original textures installed from backups then this problem goes away. Oh the joys of.........

Thanks for your quick help on this anyway.

[Timmo]

Yeah I recently had to un-tangle this on my machine.....Orbx caused it and it was a bit of a PITA to try and track down what to fix (although at least the installer did back up the default files so I could put them back)....I could only find a couple of posts on the Orbx forums about it, neither of which seemed to acknowledge the problem?

[russhart]

Guys, I may have solved the 'gable roof' problem but now I find that all my commercial buildings have no roof at all (or sunken roofs as some call it). Holger at FTX claims it is a well know FSX bug that cannot be fixed.

My issue is that I was never aware of these sunken roofs in my previous installation. Can you advise if all of you do in fact have issues like this.

[attachment=570:Roof_issue.jpg]

Thanks
Russell

[toprob]

I'm sure this isn't a bug, these are what FSX defines as 'walled' roofs, however they don't really work well in much of the world, including NZ. FSX doesn't include a suitable 'warehousing' autogen, so this is what we get instead. Here in NZ most buildings of this type have a low pitched roof, but there is just no way to display this type of roof using FSX autogen. You'll notice that Orbx 'fix' it by limiting the autogen to flat-roofs only, but it is partly this 'fix' which breaks the autogen everywhere else. Their all-flat roofs are just as unrealistic as the walled roofs in NZ.

For smaller areas, it is possible to replace the autogen with custom models, which is what I've just done for Real NZ Tauranga to fix the broken roof problem close-by the airport. For larger areas, though, it is probably best to just ignore it. This was an interesting exercise, as it certainly shows how unrealistic the autogen actually is, size and shape-wise. I started out replacing just the buildings with the damaged roofs, but in the end I've had to get rid of much of the autogen buildings so that they don't tower over the models.

The Vector Land Class libraries could easily include a lot more building types to represent this, but custom models are a lot trickier to place, as their dimension ratio is fixed, and autogen buildings resize themselves to fit any ratio.

[russhart]

It's amazing after all the years I have been using FSX I never noticed this problem until now. Because of the extent of the flat roof problem (as evidenced in my screenshot over Manukau) I still think that there has been an installation issue/conflict between FTX and GEX despite my ensuring that FTX was switched to 'default' before installing GEX.

My reason for this belief is that when I restored my backup files from within GEX EU & NA most of the roofs have reappeared. Some buildings still show sunken roofs but it is now not so apparent. I think it is these that could be the building autogen that both you and Holger are referring to as FSX design faults?

Not understanding the backup routines of FTX and GEX I cannot workout which ones I installed first and whether or not they are backing up each others files rather than the default FSX ones. Not sure whether uninstalling and re-installing will help either.

Appreciate your feedback as it has helped my understanding on this issue.

Cheers
Russell