NL2000 for X-Plane ( conversion )

[bc55]

Dear NL2000-Team,

I assume you will be aware of X-Plane. It is available in V9.22 presently, and there is a nifty little tool called FSX2XPLANE available, that can convert MSFS sceneries into X-Plane format.

I have converted some of my own sceneries ( EBBL, ETNG, ETNJ ) with it, with spectacular results, and would like to ask you to consider allowing me ( or the X-Plane community in general ) to convert your scenery for use in this fabulous sim.

The grounds are simple : it remains YOUR WORK, the original documentation etc. will be included in the file, and there will be a disclaimer stating that you approved this conversion for freeware, non-commercial use only, and all the same restrictions apply that were relevant to the original FS2004 version.

Thank-you for considering this !

Kind regards

Sven

[pnauta]

We thank you for your offer. We are still short of hands, as you may have read on our website.

We are always considering ways to please our user community. Support for X-Plane, as it is still supported by an active development effort, may turn out to be such a new goal. However, that being said, there are good reasons not to take you up on your offer at this time:
- We are bound by license agreements ourselves, which means we can not let 3rd parties publish a derivative product which contains such contents,
- We do not have a finished product which we would like to see published, as we are still in the development and testing phase for version 4,
- As publishing a X-Plane version has to be a NL2000 team effort, it would further delay the release of version 4, and this release is the only goal that we will commit ourselves to at this time.

[bc55]

How about version 2.91 ?

That one should work fine in X-Plane ?

[Zyprexia]

FlightGear (A open source flight simulator) also uses the same sceneries as X-plane. MS FS2004 (of FSX) won't install under Vista 64 bit versions, so i changed to FlightGear.

I like to fly in the Aerostar Super 700 plane in Europe. Howevery I miss the detailed scenery I had on my (too) old XP installation.

Like bc55 pointed out there's a very good scenery converter available. I have tested the conversion with one section and the results were very good.

For my day-to-day work I'm a professional programmer so maybe it's possible to use an intermediary format (a bit like docbook does for documentation) that can produce output for both MSFS and X-Plane.

I think it would enlarge the NL2000 user base as it would also enable also Linux and OSX users to fly over a detailed Netherlands.

(My native language is Dutch, but because this thread is in English, I've kept it that way)

[johanc]

As was said, we are not converting the scenery to x-plane or any other fs-software, because we do not have the time to do this and also other restrictions apply.

[Zyprexia]

Well, can you (and others) live with a 'add-on' installation converter? So the X-plane user downloads the 5 MSFS (+ 2 updates) downloads, but does not start to the install, but the conversion tool which would install the scenery for X-plane (or FlightGear).

That way it doesn't take precious time away from the core tasks of the NL2000 team. I have downloaded a single scenery file for FS2004 and FSX and except for some format changes, the data itself remains intact.

A exclusion list for objects from authors who have problems that their work is used in other simulators than FS2004 would be part of the tool. I could also live with a opt-in instead of a opt-out list.

[johanc]

We had a dialog about this in the team when the first question was posted, and we do not want to allow this. We have to pay a penalty of several tenthousands of euro if we give this permission.

- We are bound by license agreements ourselves, which means we can not let 3rd parties publish a derivative product which contains such contents,

We are bound to several contracts, and the largest part of the scenery is bound to these contracts. We can make the scenery like this because of those contracts. Also, we want to have control of any releases of the scenery.

I surely understand your point of interest and your help that you want to offer us and the community, but for now we have decided not to give permission and support. At this moment this is the best choice for us to continue our scenery so users get the best quality as possible.

I hope your understand our position in this.

Kind regards,
Johan Caljé

[Arno]

MS FS2004 (of FSX) won't install under Vista 64 bit versions, so i changed to FlightGear.

Going slightly off topic here, but the 64 bit issue is non-sense. Microsoft Flight Simulator works fine on a 64 bit OS.

[Zyprexia]

MS FS2004 (of FSX) won't install under Vista 64 bit versions, so i changed to FlightGear.

Going slightly off topic here, but the 64 bit issue is non-sense. Microsoft Flight Simulator works fine on a 64 bit OS.

When I start the installation program I get a InstallShield error which even Microsoft cannot solve (I have used a Technet issue).

On topic: I understand the reasons behind the denied permission. I keep the tool to myself (as I like to fly over a detailed Netherlands).

If you ever need help converting the scenery to x-plane or just need a pair of fresh eyes on development just drop me a note.