• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
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    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

AFX By Flight1. Will this change you course Russell?

Mace said:
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.
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Flight planners have been payware for ages, and they all must include decompilers to be able to use BGL data. The same is the case with payware repaint tools etc. It seems that Microsoft doesn't have a problem with payware, otherwise they would have acted long ago (or maybe they have, and payware publishers have deals with Microsoft). They could have just encrypted BGL files to prevent unauthorized use, just like any street atlas program does, but apparently chose not to do so. The EULA also doesn't prohibit using third-party tools to generate BGL files. I cannot imagine that Flight1 stole the compiler from the SDK for use in AFX.

I find it interesting that some BGL files cause AFX crashes not when loading the file, but when converting it to FSX (they have workarounds posted in their forum). It means that AFX maybe doesn't "decompile" the file at all, but just keeps and manipulates BGL files in memory.
 
rfields said:
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.
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:confused: I didn't mean that it was new or unique, simply that it was a feature. I knew of the conversion tool and have used it a few times. And yes, there are too many differences in the FS9 to FSX scenery for the conversion to work correctly at all airports. However, with AFX this gives you the ability (or it should) to modify any problem areas and upgrade it with the new features for FSX.


Mace said:
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.
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It's not a problem and by now we should all be used to seeing payware products for Flight Simulator. The only issue I have with the price on AFX is the price for developers.


Anyways, I agree with what a few others are saying here. I like using FSXP and it does have a different feel then AFX. No offense, but one of the drawbacks to using FsX Planner is having to find the correct BGL, make the conversion to XML, and then delete the data that is not needed. Most of us that do design work and have used some of the XML/BGL tools and are familiar enough with what is required to make an XML for use in FXP have no problems with this. But, this leaves out a lot of users that do not have the experience. A major improvement would be being able to open right from the BGL. :twocents:
 
Legally this is a *very* difficult subject. Imagine the FSX installation only put 2 files on your harddisk: readme.txt and afx_kjfk.bgl . The same EULA (a license agreement grants you limited rights to use the software, not own it by the way) applies to both files. No one will say its a violation to open readme.txt in a hex editor. Ok we have now come to the point that we could say that it's legal to open afx_kjfk.bgl in a hex editor as well. To normal human beings, all the hexadecimal codes we see are pointless. But imagine we were superintellectuals who can instantly see the whole file structure just by looking it at it (83A89283D8F89238A98B : "you see that's the runway!") . What programs like BGL2XML do is actually just put it in a different format, nothing illegal either. (If you think this is illegal, it would be illegal as well to even look at the surface of your DVDs.)

I believe there's this sentence in every EULA "you are not allowed to decompile, disassemble or modify the code" . While the first 2 are not logical, the third one is. It is this word that legally protects software from being "cracked". (Well FSUIPC actually modifies code so it's illegal, but clearly Microsoft doesn't bother.)

This Flight 1 product reads and writes directly to BGL files. You could say they win here by knowing the file structure (even if they didn't decode it themselves, a PDF by a person whose name I dont recall has been published months ago.)

Freeware vs payware is very clear. Everyone decides for themselves what they need and what product they prefer to use. I hope the freeware developers continue their projects (and while they cannot ship the fsx sdk compiler with their products, im sure they will switch to writing directly to bgl's as well at some point). If they get to a point where their freeware is of equal quality as AFX, I hope flight1 will in turn improve its product. We can only benefit.

Joris
 
rf360m said:
We'll try to advertise it more. :) Word of mouth is great, but having reviews and ads always heps!

-Russell
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User's can help advertise by stating "Created with FSX Planner" or "Created with ADE" in their release notes (not to mention crediting all other programs used).
 
Mace said:
Freeware vs payware is very clear. Everyone decides for themselves what they need and what product they prefer to use. I hope the freeware developers continue their projects (and while they cannot ship the fsx sdk compiler with their products, im sure they will switch to writing directly to bgl's as well at some point). If they get to a point where their freeware is of equal quality as AFX, I hope flight1 will in turn improve its product. We can only benefit.

Joris
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The problem I have with AFX is not whether it can/can not do something, or the quality of it, it's that 95-99.9% of it's ability came about from freeware developers and the FS community and they took this information and charge for it. We the community had to figure out how FS works inside and out, it's abilities and limitations, etc. Taking this information and charging for it seems wrong to me. But it's no different than what the rest of the FS scene has done over the years where payware is starting to take over certain parts of FS.

I would prefer to use freeware tools developed by the FS communities input, and in return offer any knowledge I may have of FS workings to the community for free. But in the end, I'm sure the development tools will do the same as aircraft, etc. and eventually payware will take over these areas. It's very unfortunate.
 
Phantoms said:
The problem I have with AFX is not whether it can/can not do something, or the quality of it, it's that 95-99.9% of it's ability came about from freeware developers and the FS community and they took this information and charge for it.
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I think most of it's ability came from the FSX SDK. While I like AFX very much, I didn't see anything there that is not in the SDK (well, apart from the FS preview - and that stuff seems to be a speciality of that particular developer and was never available in any freeware). Looking at their forum, they seem to have no clue about many tricks commonly known among freeware developers, although they seem to be willing to listen and improve their product.

You can just as well say that zBlueSoftware is using the knowledge from freeware developers to promote it's business. True, they don't charge for FSXPlanner, but FSXPlanner is prominently featured on their page and will probably (and rightfully) be shown to their potential customers to demonstrate their abilities. A lot of consulting companies create freeware to promote their business these days. So from the moral point of view, I don't see a lot of difference to the way Flight1 is doing things and any reason to denigrate their product.

I find it very strange that some FS freeware developers are offended by their effort or work being used to earn money. Freeware is, well, free. It doesn't make money for the author, regardless of whether someone else earns money using it. I just get an impression that these developers are just willing to share their work for free as long as no one found a way to make money from it - and then they would suddenly want their share too. Nothing wrong with that, but this is very far away from the true freeware spirit, and it puts these people on exactly the same moral ground as commercial publishers.
 
Well, I've just downloaded the demo of AFX and was impressed - until I tried to find the approaches page. Apparently there's a little too much AFCAD 2.21 in there - it can't edit the approaches. FSX Planner (and I suspect ADE) allow this. I'll be keeping my money - although I'd pay for a fully developed FSX Planner or ADE!
 
I think most of it's ability came from the FSX SDK
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I agree and that is the very foundation that shows AFX is not AFCAD and will probably never be AFCAD2.

Lee Swordy did not have a SDK when he wrote AFCAD or AFCAD2 and everything about AFCAD2 is based on User Knowledge. The SDK is not a User Knowledge program

The SDK tells us how to block and build a new Airport Facility Data and Scenery by explaining what Attribute will be honored in a Element. If a program like AFX relies solely on the SDK to enhance an exsiting airport then problems start to surface and airports become corrupt.

The SDK was never designed as a learning tool and does not explain Aircraft Behavior once a XML is compiled and processed through a dll.

Only after years of study does one start to see what parts of the SDK effect handing of Aircraft in both the world of seen and unseen scenery. It does not take a computer wizard to mouse over a ILS symbol in AFX and see that the foundation of FS is no longer being used based on how files are read. AFCAD2 did it right based on knowledge and reads the default ILS properly without a User modified ILS overlayed on top of the default.

That is just one out of many errors you get if you try and enhance an exsiting default Airport using the SDK instead of using how FS works like Lee did.

What AFX did take from AFCAD2 is the way it looks. What it did not get from AFCAD2 is the knowledge on how it should work. That is not in the SDK!!
 
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