AFX By Flight1. Will this change you course Russell?

[rf360m]

What's the link to your FSX Planner post on avsim Kael?

Thanks!

-Russell

 

[Helli]

Hello there,

Converting FS2004 AFCAD files has never been a problem - we've had Burkhard Renk's solution since last October/ November

Well, that is just not good enough, if you want to help promoting Russell's package.

I don't know about "Burghard Renk's solution" - and I bet, nor do many others like me.

Moreover neither a search here at FSDeveloper for Burghard Renk (zero) nor at Google (nothing with relevance) produced any result.

So please be more specific!

And the claim of ADX, that it can do for FS9 several things, which AFCAD has only on its whish-list, is a big swinger - at least I think. One of Russell's problems could be, that for many designers FS9 is not dead yet.
Can Russell wait, till this is the case?

Helli

 

[meshman]

withdrawn.

 

[Helli]

Hello Lance

thanks for the info on Burghard. I surely will dig into it, well buried or not.

On your last two points - well, there is not much more I can say or can I?

Helli

 

[Timmo]

Here is my input: Anything that makes the default FS world better, and for free is going to be the 'best' for the majority...in an 80/20 rule kinda way

All my scenery ive released, and will release, will be free- partly as payback to the freeware aircraft and scenery that i have downloaded, partly because i dont rate my skills high enough to charge and partly because the agreement i have for some of the data I use doesnt extend to me charging for it...

I only have 4 payware products: four of Robin Corns excellent New Zealand airports, a helo and MytrafficX which i won.....(and personally dont rate very highly anyway). The airports I bought were local to me (so i visit them often)...they were also for research into my own development of Whakatane Airport

Scenery development for me and possibly for Russell is for personal satisfaction, learning FSX's in and outs and for procrastination when i should be studying for my PPL My job pays the bills.

So yep, free for me....and a HUGE thanks to Russell for all the time that he has spent on this so far.

 

[KaelO]

What's the link to your FSX Planner post on avsim Kael?

Thanks!

-Russell

This should lead you there...

http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=121&topic_id=410683#410740

Kael

 

[rfields]

Well, that is just not good enough, if you want to help promoting Russell's package.

It's not whether I want to help or not help promote Russell's program.

I was just noting that the statement about AFX supposedly being unique in it's ability to 'convert' FS9 airports to FS10 formats.

It's not new, it's not unique. My Traffic X has released almost 2,000 modified airports done with Burkhard's tool - most freely available to the public even if they don't buy My Traffic from their support forums.

There are somewhere between a dozen and two dozen airports 'converted' by Burkhard's tool available for download on the Avsim library.

But I stand by my statement about the undesirability of converting FS9 airports to FSX.

It's not a good idea and if you want to take full advantage of the capabilities of FSX, you need to build your FSX airport from the stock FSX airport - not from the stock FS9 airport.

Any conversion is going to use the stock FS9 airport as the base. If the stock FSX airport is substantially changed from the FS9 airport - you are going to have issues.

Some will be small - such as your taxiways not matching up with your taxiway sign locations - and the ILS not aligned with the runway.

Others just annoyances like aircraft parking in buildings and jetways not working, no fuel trucks, etc.

Some will cause the approach system to not work because the FSX runway has a different designator than the FS9 runway.

Russell is on a good path - his program, and Jon's ADE, have already much greater potential and flexibility than I've seen in AFX.

I've thought from the start that Russell needed to get an interface to directly open files from the APXnnnn0.bgl file - as a much higher priority.

AFX as payware will limit it's acceptance and usage.

However the requirement to have FSX Deluxe with the SDK will limit FSXPlanner and ADE.

Many people with FSX Standard (which is apparently out selling FSX Deluxe by a slight margin) will choose to buy a $35 addon rather than shelling out $65-70 for a second copy of FSX, I'm sorry to say.

 

[planesp0tter]

As a long time lurker on fsdeveloper, I just want to share my observations.

I have FSXPlanner, SDE and just got AFX mainly because of the live preview in FS. I used AFCAD in the days of FS9. I am not an expert airport designer, but just like to tinker with my airports now and then.

I agree that both SDE and FSXPlanner allow adding more airport features than AFX, and it is very nice that these tools are sticking to the SDK. FSXPlanner has a much cooler look too, in my opinion. It really feels like a new program.

But when it comes to the ease of use, I must say that I find AFX in its present form much more convenient for most tasks than both SDE and FSXPlanner. It already starts with opening the airport file, where AFX allows to search for an airport by name in addition to it's ID. It's insignificant for flight sim experts, but trust me, it makes a big difference for beginner users who don't know airport IDs by heart.

The AFX GUI is very well thought out and it looks similar to AFCAD, but it feels different when you start using it. For example, they have a very clever highlight system that always indicates the element you are going to click with the mouse. It's simply impossible to accidentally click on the wrong element, and I found that I am using the undo function much less often than with other tools. Their preview in FS is a big frame rate hit at busy airports, but it is a very big help when designing. It seems to me that they put the focus on making the product very user friendly, instead of trying to support the maximum range of features. And at least for a casual user like me, it works. Doing something in AFX takes much less time than with other tools.

Looking at their support forum, they seem to be listening to user input and working on improvements for AFX. Being a commercial company, they can certainly afford to do it at a much higher pace than freeware developers. Now FSXPlanner has an edge over AFX when it comes to features, but to be honest, how long would it take for a full-time paid developer to put background images, triggers, user-settable colors and other missing features into AFX? They can probably do all this in a week or so.

So as much as I would love to see FSXPlanner succeed, I am afraid that AFX has a lot more potential exactly due to it's commercial nature, and that in the long term, being freeware will remain the only advantage of FSXPlanner And maybe a few features Flight1 decides not to add to AFX because they would not attract enough new buyers to justify the effort.

I appreciate very much the huge amount of work work Jon and Russell put into their tools. Even more so because they do it without expecting any compensation. Thank you for that, guys! But I am just trying to look at things realistically.

John

 

[Mace]

I think another great thing about FSXPlanner and ADE is that we can all easily access the designers of the programs. I would say the Flight1 people are not quite so easily accessible.

Since the authors are so accessible, we can discuss new features quickly and easily.

 

[rf360m]

Now FSXPlanner has an edge over AFX when it comes to features, but to be honest, how long would it take for a full-time paid developer to put background images, triggers, user-settable colors and other missing features into AFX? They can probably do all this in a week or so.

So as much as I would love to see FSXPlanner succeed, I am afraid that AFX has a lot more potential exactly due to it's commercial nature, and that in the long term, being freeware will remain the only advantage of FSXPlanner And maybe a few features Flight1 decides not to add to AFX because they would not attract enough new buyers to justify the effort.

Just an FYI, FSX Planner is being developed by zBlueSoftware, and has 3 developers working on it. It's not a hobby or side effort, but rather part of their job. Of those three I am also the one who discusses everything on the forums. So even though FSX Planner is freely available it is still developed by a software company. I don't see a difference in the time or ability of the people developing FSX Planner or AFX. As for the commercial nature of either project, the only difference I see is that I assume that AFX has to make money.

-Russell

 

[planesp0tter]

I think another great thing about FSXPlanner and ADE is that we can all easily access the designers of the programs. I would say the Flight1 people are not quite so easily accessible.

The Flight1 people are quite accessible on the Flight1 support forum, they usually reply within minutes and are quite willing to discuss new feature requests.

Just an FYI, FSX Planner is being developed by zBlueSoftware, and has 3 developers working on it. It's not a hobby or side effort, but rather part of their job. Of those three I am also the one who discusses everything on the forums. So even though FSX Planner is freely available it is still developed by a software company. I don't see a difference in the time or ability of the people developing FSX Planner or AFX. As for the commercial nature of either project, the only difference I see is that I assume that AFX has to make money.

If the company is willing to invest money into the FSX Planner development, then I suppose this is not an issue. I meant that exactly because AFX is making money for Flight1, they could afford to invest a significant effort into it's development. Glad to hear this is also the case with FSX Planner

 

[Mace]

Hello Lance

thanks for the info on Burghard. I surely will dig into it, well buried or not.

On your last two points - well, there is not much more I can say or can I?

Helli

If you an extended search the AVSIM file Libarary for the author Burkhard Renk you will find his converter program. It is not a foolproof solution. The best way to convert is "by hand" and that takes more time and SDK knowledge than most casual interlopers in design have.

However, FSXPlanner and ADE allow the casual user to make modifcations to FSX airports the same way we did with AFCAD in the past.

 

[Mace]

So as much as I would love to see FSXPlanner succeed, I am afraid that AFX has a lot more potential exactly due to it's commercial nature, and that in the long term, being freeware will remain the only advantage of FSXPlanner And maybe a few features Flight1 decides not to add to AFX because they would not attract enough new buyers to justify the effort.

The very fact that AFX is payware is a major problem.

AFCAD was freeware decompiler. AFX is a payware decompiler. Uh-oh! That could come back to bite all of us down-the-line. Both users of FS and designers.

 

[n4gix]

The very fact that AFX is payware is a major problem.

AFCAD was freeware decompiler. AFX is a payware decompiler. Uh-oh! That could come back to bite all of us down-the-line. Both users of FS and designers.

Ah, keep in mind too that the price for AFX is for "freeware designers" only. I wouldn't even want to ask how much a "commercial license" would be...

 

[scruffyduck]

Ah, keep in mind too that the price for AFX is for "freeware designers" only. I wouldn't even want to ask how much a "commercial license" would be

$200 bar a few pennies..............

 

[jvile]

That $200.00 I think is per instance of use for the payware scenery designer.

Design 2 Payware scenery's using their utility and you must pay $400.00 if I read the forum correctly.

 

[planesp0tter]

From their product page, $200 buys you a commercial license allowing commercial development. It doesn't say you have to pay $200 for every commercial scenery you develop. I don't have a commercial license however, so I may be wrong.

As for AFX being payware being a problem... FSX costs money, and the hardware needed to run FSX smoothly costs even more money. A lot of FS add-ons cost money these days. The fact of life is, it takes a lot of effort to create a good product, and developers need a way to support themselves. I have great respect for freeware developers who are willing to give away months' worth of work for free, because I personally certainly couldn't afford to do that.

I cannot fault anyone for deciding to charge money for the work they do. Russell mentioned in this forum earlier that he might have to go payware as well. I would not have a problem with this either and would probably buy FSXPlanner. This would allow me to support the FSXPlanner team not only with kind words in this forum, but with money as well. Words are cheap.

 

[DanKH]

Words are cheap.

You are certainly correct, but you may also find that most if not all freeware developers takes kind words to their heart, so a mail or a kind word at a forum would be very good spend.

Most developers develop (no pun intended) a close "relationship" towards their product, and a kind word or shoulder clap will come in nicely, and I'm sure will be received with pleasure.

 

[Mace]

As for AFX being payware being a problem... FSX costs money,

That's not the point. The money itself is not the problem. The problem is the EULA and what Microsoft intends for us to be able to use their data.

As long as decompilers have been freeware, Microsoft has looked the other way with freeware decompilers like AFCAD. Payware is a different matter.

 

[scruffyduck]

That's not the point. The money itself is not the problem. The problem is the EULA and what Microsoft intends for us to be able to use their data.

As long as decompilers have been freeware, Microsoft has looked the other way with freeware decompilers like AFCAD. Payware is a different matter.

We should also be aware that there is a payware compiler in there as well that presumably bypasses MS who have made access to compilers part of the licensing/pricing deal in FSX. I think it safe to assume that AFX users do not need the SDK.