....Oh, during your wanderings in the Tongass see if your windsocks and the icebergs in front of the glaciers are there.
They're missing for me - probably another comma out of place on my set up - I've only had it for about 3 weeks now so guess I'm not doing too bad.
Bob
Hi Bob,
On the RTMM Object Libraries download page, under Tongass Fjords X (TFX), there is a zip button to download the TFX Ice Floe & PAWG Patch 6-1-14.zip file which brings the ice floes (where glaciers meet the water) and some missing buildings at PAWG back for those who use P3D. They work fine under FSX, but, since the objects were built using FS9 models, they do not display in P3D which does not display FS9 models without conversion. The zip file provides the files and installation instructions.
The Tongass windsocks are not visible for same reasons as above.....however, fixing them would be really complicated and no one has done that at the present time. See below for a detailed explanation on the windsock problem if you have nothing to do and want to read a bit more technical explanation on the missing or non-working windsocks.
Rod
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Here is the story on the Windsocks in TFX as well as the windsocks in many other scenery addons, including RTMMs scenery and ORBX full fat regions:
Back around 2005, when Microsoft ACES was updating FS9 to develop the new FSX version, one of the things they changed was how the models in FSX would work. Performance had been a big issue with FS9 and, possibly to improve performance, ACES reduced the parameter set for the new native FSX 3D objects (MDL files) and removed the ability to implement conditional display of MDL files. The ability to show wind direction (e.g. a windsock) as the simulator changed the current wind direction requires conditional display as does opening or closing a gate when a vehicle approaches etc. The full impact of this decision was not felt immediately because ACES also included an object processing module in their new release that kept FS9 compatibility. So, the loss of the conditional display parameter was noticed, but scenery developers simply used the FS9 models when they needed conditional display. Since, FSX was the last version Microsoft and the ACES team produced, we will never know if they had a different plan for FS11 to address conditional change.
Time passed and Lockheed Martin produced P3Dv1 which was still based on the FSX objects and still had the FS9 compatibility module. Lockheed then developed P3Dv2 which retained FSX object compatibility and introduced P3Dv2 native objects. Just like ACES used to do with each version, Lockheed then dropped compatibility with objects that were 2nd generation, in this case, FS9 compatibility.
This change had a huge impact on the flight sim scenery world since many sceneries used FS9 based objects which became invisible with the intro of P3Dv2. The solution for RTMM and some other scenery developers was to convert their object libraries (containing the MDL files) to be native FSX objects so that their sceneries would work with P3Dv2 as well as FSX. At this point, the loss of the conditional change parameter became very problematic. All conditional change objects (like windsocks etc.) would no longer display in P3Dv2 and, when converted to be FSX objects so they could be seen, they lost their ability to react to conditional changes like wind direction. Today P3Dv3 still supports FSX native objects as well as P3Dv2/3 native objects, but Lockheed, as far as I know, has not added a conditional change parameter.
ORBX is now using their Object Flow module to control windsocks at their payware airports. However, as far as I know, many of their windsocks at small airports in their full fat regions still do not work since it would take a lot of effort to go back and make each one work with Object Flow.
A few developers are using P3D's SimObject API to achieve conditional display but this requires a set of complexities that RTMM has not delved into at the present time.