YMML V2.0 User Guide

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Orbx FTX AU YMML Melbourne International Version 2.0 User Guide November 2010 1

FTX AU YMMLMELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Version 2.0

User Guide November 2010


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INDEX

TOPIC PAGE

Thank You! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Orbx FTX Australia Required . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Manual Scenery Library Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

New Features and Enhancements in 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

YMML Control Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

The FTX Aero Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Scenery Coverage Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Airport Charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

YMML Quick Reference FSX Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Recommended FSX Slider Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

The Autogen Density Slider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Product Technical Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

FTX Community Forums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

The YMML Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

End User License Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23


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Thank You!

The Orbx team would firstly like to thank you for purchasing FTX AU YMML Melbourne International

Airport Version 2.0.

YMML version 1.0 was Orbxs first ever commercial payware airport product for Flight Simulator X, initially

released in August 2008, updated three times and now re-released in this brand new version 2.0

The original AU YMML was over 18 months in the making and introduced some very new concepts to airports

for Flight Simulator X, not least of which is the introduction of very high resolution ground polygons to depict

the airport precinct. With this new version 2.0, we've adopted a lot of the new technology learned during the

making of YBBN Brisbane International and applied those to this airport. The main benefit is improved frame

rates whilst adding even more complexity to the airport with new terminal expansions, large amounts of

ground service equipment and even static human characters around the airport.

Additionally, this V2.0 provides for a much improved dual runway implementation without any artifacts or

flicker, and the entire area around the main airport buildings is now in 7cm/pixel resolution, which really amps

up the realism and accuracy of this iconic airport.

A word about performance

YMML is a very large addon for a single airport disk space required is over 570MB, and that is mainly due to

the high resolution 7cm/pixel textures used in both the photoreal layer and also the runway polygon layer.

Due to the amount of video card memory YMML consumes, we strongly suggest that you fully read throughthis user manual to understand how you can tune the airport scenery to run best for your hardware

capabilities.

If you run FSX with all sliders maxxed and without being sensitive to the texture load requirements that YMML

has, you will more than likely get frames below 5 FPS and see a blurry sea of washed-out textures. However,

with some careful movement of the sliders, selecting a screen resolution appropriate for your video card,

disabling some options in FSX and also the use of the Orbx YMML Control Panel, our beta testers have

reported FPS in the twenties and above.


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Orbx FTX Australia SP3 is required for full functionality

This airport scenery addon is designed to work with Microsoft Flight Simulator X and Orbx FTX Australia SP3.

Here's what is required to run this airport scenery as Orbx designed it to:

PRODUCT Version(s) Why

Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX)

Standard Edition

Deluxe Edition

Acceleration Addon Pack (not a stand-alone product)

Gold Edition (which includes all three versions above)

If you don't have FSX already, the best version to

purchase would be the Gold Edition, which alreadyincludes all versions and service packs SP1 and SP2.

The base product required.

All Orbx products are made for

FSX and don't run by

themselves.

Orbx FTX AU BLUE region (Download)

This is a downloadable FTX region pack which you can

purchase from the Orbx fullterrain.com website. It's

designed to work specifically with FSX

The FTX region covering the

location of the airport

Orbx FTX Australia SP3 (DVD)

This includes all FTX downloadable regions BLUE, GOLD,GREEN and RED, plus a bonus copy of YSCH Coffs

Harbour Airport.

AU BLUE and GOLD (which are needed for for this

airport) are included on this DVD.

This DVD is the cheapest way to purchase all the FTX

Australia regions at once, and you save over 25% versus

purchasing the regions seperately.

(Optional)

An alternative way to purchase

FTX on a handy quick to install

DVD covering the entire country

of Australia.

WHAT WILL YOU MISS OUT ON IF YOU DON'T HAVE ORBX FTX INSTALLED?

- Blending of the airport photoreal into the surrounding terrain

- Moving traffic on roads, properly aligned to the photoreal ground terrain

- 3D light poles along roads and in urban/township streets and around the airport

- Orbx's modified houses and trees which match the Australian houses and trees

- The FTX Central application, which is used to launch all the Orbx tools and also switch FTX off

Please visit www.fullterrain.com to purchase your copy of FTX if you haven't already done so.


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Manual Scenery Library Configuration

If you do NOT have Orbx FTX installed you can still use this scenery by manually adding the scenery library

entry from within Flight Simulator X.

Here's the steps required to configure the scenery library.

1. Run Flight Simulator X, then selecting Settings | Scenery Library

2. Click on the Add Areabutton

3. A folder browser window will pop up.

4. Navigate to the ORBX \ FTX_AUfolder

5. Now select the FTXAA_YMMLfolder and click OK

6. You will then see two folders displayed, Sceneryand Texture. Now click OK*

*(Note: If you're using Windows 7, click anywhere in the white portion of the folder browser screen that shows

the Scenery and Texture folder, not the OK button- there's a bug with FSX under Windows 7)

7. You will now be taken back to the Scenery Library list of scenery added, and the airport will now be

displayed at the top of the list.

You can now load up a flight at the airport using the "Free Flight" menu.

If you have older versions of YMML installed

The installer is previous version aware, and will do all necessary file management to ensure no remnant of

previous YMML versions are left once the installation is completed.

So there's no special steps to take when installing YMML 2.0 over older versions.


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New features and enhancements in YMML 2.0

The following is a list of the new features which have been added to YMML in versions 1.1, 1.2, 1.5 and now

V2.0 since the original RTM release in 2008:

New Control Panel options to allow customization of many aspects of the scenery to gain FPS

Continual refinement and a much better implementation of the poly runways

Precision approach runway centre lights to closely replicate the actual lighting systems. All taxiway lights have

been hand placed for more refined alignment

Update of airport layout both landside and airside to reflect all new buildings, markings and aircraft control

Addition of the new terminal structure in the International Terminal and the newly completed T2 Extension which

extends out towards the main runway, including additional gates and provision of A380 aircraft.

Much improved APX (AFCAD) with finer parking spot alignment and full support of crosswind runways allowing

for simultaneous operations on runways 09/27 and 16/34

Addition of remainder of the landside office precinct buildings

Full perimeter fencing updated

Reworked maintenance area with additional buildings and improved night lighting

Four time the ground imagery resolution by moving from 15cm to 7cm, and this includes current 2010 markings

Improved texture and LOD usage across the scenery aiming to improve performance and texture loading time

Scenery density layers have been updated to spread the scenery load to help lower end users to tune the scenery

to their system

Autogen trees are more prevalent to improve performance over hand placed tree objects

Addition of more MAGS signs to guide you to your runway or gate

Nose In Guidance lights (NIGS) included at all gates for which the system is deployed

SP3-Certified to work seamlessly with the Orbx FTX Australia SP3 terrain scenery packs

Increased coverage area for the regional photoreal to include the town of Bulla and more coverage for all

approach vectores. Also the resolution has doubled from 1.2m to 60cm/pixel

TextureFlow optimized models for even better performance

New!ObjectFlowtechnology used on the runway lighting system


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The YMML Control Panel

After YMML is installed, a Control Panel icon is placed onto your Windows desktop. You can also use FTX

Centralto access the YMML Control Panel from the main FTX Central interface.

The Control Panel will enable you to disable or enable certain scenery features of the airport to allow it to

perform in accordance with the PC you have. By default, all scenery options are enabled by the installer.

To disable or enable any feature, simply click the tick box. Any changes are made instantly and there is no

Apply button required.


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The FTX Aero Tool

When you first install the YMML Melbourne Airport V2.0 scenery, the installer will automatically add a

Windows desktop shortcut to FTX Aero for you. There is also a shortcut in the Start Menu under the Orbx

program group. When you launch the Aero tool, its interface looks similar to this:

Its very simple to use. FTX Aero replaces three global FSX textures when you apply the choices from its

interface. These are:

Detail Bump Map This is an overlay texture which is designed to add noise and remove

smoothness from ground textures. FSX comes with its own detail1.bmp file which is very generic and

does not really enhance airport ground environments. The FTX Aero version creates three different

styles of bump mapping for asphalt or concrete surfaces. For YMML we recommend 'Cracked'.


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Runway 18 Texture Orbx GA airfields will generally have runway18.dds encoded in their APX files.

This is a runway used predominately in Australian smaller airports. The FTX Aero version has much

better detail than the FSX default. You can choose from 1024x1024 or 2048x2048 resolution. Note

that this setting has no impact at YMML since we provide photoreal poly runways

Taxiway Markings Again, Aero will provide two variants, the first being a yellow faded line suitable

for asphalt, the second being a yellow/black line suited to concrete. Again, this is more a feature for

Orbx (and any other) airport which uses the APX file to lay down taxiway lines. Our YMML scenery

does not do this, since the 7cm resolution of the aprons are sufficiently detailed to provide clear

taxiway lines.

Just make your choice and the texture appearance will be shown in the preview window. FTX Aero will

automatically make a backup of whatever textures you currently have installed. You can go back to your

default installed texture at any time by just selecting Your Defaultas the choice.

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD Settings in fsx.CFG

FTX Aero is quite clever in that it will automatically set your TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD= (TML)parameter in fsx.CFG

for you to allow the higher resolution 2048x2048 runway18.dds to be properly seen. Additionally, if you prefer

to use a TML of 1024, 2048 or 4096 (for addons like REX or a HD aircraft repaint), simply select the TML menu

option where you can choose to lock your TML setting to one of those values.

Alternatively, you can also choose to have Aero revert back to a TML of 1024 whenever youre not using a

higher resolution texture. In this instance, FTX Aero is a handy tool to quickly set your TML level regardless.

If youve installed an Orbx airport and not chosen any Aero textures and do not have Land Detail Textures

enabled in the FSX settings menu, this is what the ground details look like:


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Now enable Land Detail textures in the FSX settings menu, under the Scenery tab, as follows:

Here's how YMML's aprons appear with the FSX scenery Land detail texturessetting enabled, and with the

Crackeddetail bump map selected in Aero:

Notice how much more defined it appears?

We strong recommend that Land Detail Textures are enabled, and in terms of appearance for YMML, the

"Cracked" option in Aero produces the best results by far. It is also representative of the apron surfaces at

YMML which are now approaching some forty years old.


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Scenery Coverage Area

The image below shows the extent of the YMML region scenery coverage area.


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Airport Charts


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YMML Quick Reference FSX Settings

The table below lists in a handy reference the minimum recommended settings required in FSX to enjoyYMML Melbourne International Airport the way Orbx designed it. These settings run well on most PCs and

take particular advantage of the custom 7cm ground photoreal imagery and runway polys used in the scenery

area.

If you use the settings below you will be guaranteed the highest fidelity experience and the best balanced

performance.

Setting Value Why?

Level of detail radius Large Reduces blurring of textures

Global Texture Resolution Max Best displays photoreal textures

Mesh Complexity 100 Better terrain definition

Mesh Resolution 5m Best elevation resolution results

Texture Resolution 7cm Required for displaying the aprons in their native resolution

Scenery Complexity Extremely

Dense

How Orbx designed YMML

Autogen Density Normal Best FPS versus detail More discussion below

Airport Vehicles 0% Orbx has disabled the default FSX ground vehicles at YMML. A

future upgrade will add unique animated moving GSE to the

airport.

Aircraft AI Traffic < 51% Best balance

Road Vehicle Traffic 16% No need to set higher for FTX


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Recommended FSX Slider Settings

Firstly, like default FSX, dragging all your sliders to the right even with todays modern hardware, will for most

people result in very poor visuals and performance. We suggest that you begin your exploration of 1S2 using

the slider settings shown below, and then if you find performance to be acceptable, you can move certainsliders to the right, although we recommend you only move one slider at a time to gauge the effect.

The most critical slider in FSX is the Autogen Density slider. With the way 1S2 has been designed, it has the

single most critical performance effect in the simulator. We'll discuss the best settings for this slider later.

So before you begin your first flight, please change your FSX sliders to what is shown on the following pages.

You may think the settings are too low at first, but we're calling these the 1S2 BASE SETTINGSwhich is the

recommended settings for medium spec PCs.


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* Please refer to the Autogen Density Tablefurther in this user guide for specific information about this slider


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The Autogen Density Slider

Because FTX uses much denser, more accurately placed autogen objects in its annotation, having it set to

Extemely Dense in large cities like Melbourne or Sydney will bring even the most powerful PC to its knees. We

won't mince our words - FTX is not designed to give you a 60FPS experience with all sliders maxed.

The key thing to remember is that YMML is designed to be used both today and in the FUTURE, meaning that

we did not cripple the product on release to cater for a broad range of PCs, but rather created a standard

which will be enjoyed by most people as hardware catches up.

Here's a simple table which should be used as a guide for the Autogen Density slider. This has been indexed

to PCs as at November 2010, which means this table will become dated rather quickly. We expect the

'Extreme' spec PC to be the Entry Level by mid 2012, so of course as FSX gets older, your PCs are likely to get

faster.

That said, if you adhere to these slider settings in YMML you will get a good balance between visuals and

performance. Always begin your first YMML flight with Autogen set to Normal.

PC Specifications (Circa Nov 2010) Melbourne Urban / YMML Victoria Rural Areas

Entry Level

Core2 Duo = 2.8Ghz | 512MB+ GPU

High End

Intel i7 9xx < 4Ghz (not OC) | 1GB GPU

Extreme

Intel i7 9xx >= 4Ghz (OC) | 1-2GB GPU


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Product Technical Support

Orbx has a very simple support policy: No question unanswered . That means, should you have any questions

about YMML or its use, please feel free to register on the forums at fullterrain.comand then log a supportquestion in the FTX Payware Support Forum section. Orbx FTX experts will be available to review your support

questions and you will usually get a reply on the forums within 12 hours, often much sooner than that.

To visit the our support forums, click on the button shown above from the fullterrain.comfront page

or click on Help | Orbx FTX Support Forums from FTX Central

Please do NOT email support requests

Orbx provides world-class support on our forums, and it's the only way in which you can receive support for

YMML. Provided you adhere to the forum terms of use and have a legitimate copy of YMML, you will always

be offered our support at no cost as we work toward a problem resolution each time.

However, if you email Orbx asking for support, you will most likely not receive an answer at all, since ourpolicy is that all support is provided through our forums only.

Use the forum Search function

Before you post a question, please try searching for the answer first, using the forums built-in search function

located on the forum menu bar.

What to Include in Your Support Forum Requests

If at all possible, this is what wed like to see provided for each request you log:

A separate post on the FTX support forums for each issue (don't tag new issue reports onto others)

Include your ORDER NUMBER from your YMML purchase in your post or forum signature section

A screenshot to highlight what you are talking about

A descriptive post title which clearly states what the issue is

Detailed comments in your post about what you are reporting on

The Orbx support team is always on standby to assist you with any problems you may have, or will comment

on your issue reports. Please remember, our priority is fixing any urgent issues first, and addressing bug

reports second. Clearly though, any show stopper bugs will be given top priority though.


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FTX Community Forums

FTX already has quite a thriving and active user community on the forums, with nearly 9,000 members as of

November 2010. To visit the forums, just point your web browser to fullterrain.com and from the front page,click on the Forums menu item.

You dont need a user account just to view other peoples posts and information posted by Orbx staff, but if

youd like to join in on the discussion there, simply create an account. Its instant and no validation email is

required. We like to keep things simple

We hope to see you there soon!

Thanks for reading!

Youve stuck with me through all these pages of information, and I appreciate you taking the time to read the

user guide. I hope it gave you some tips and insights. See you on the forums!

John Venema

Orbx CEO


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The YMML Team

Lead Developers

Martin Henare, Project Leader 3DSMax modeling, ground poly models, texturing, object placement

John Venema Ground textures, object placement, building textures and autogen

Additional Orbx Developers

Graham Eccleston APX (AFCAD) development, cross runway support, AI parking tuning

V2.0 enhancements, object placement

Tim Harris Autogen Annotation

Holger Sandmann Custom flattens and shaping, custom vector roads and traffic

Beta Testing Team

John Dow, Tim Harris, Ken Hall, Butch Menchaca, Ed Correia, Alexander Metzger, Hugh Johnston, Braedon

King, Russ White, Rob Nieuwenhoven, Ross Casey, Ryan Mason, Brendan Van Loggerenberg, Jared

Charalambous and Wolter van der Spoel


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END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT (EULA)

END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR Orbx Simulation Systems Full Terrain Experience (FTX) Scenery Addon For Microsoft Flight Simulator X

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ CAREFULLY: This End-User License Agreement (EULA) is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or

a single entity) and Orbx Simulation Systems Pty. Ltd. ("ORBX") for the ORBX software product identified above, which includes computer softwareand includes associated media and online or electronic documentation (SOFTWARE PRODUCT). The SOFTWARE PRODUCT also includes any

updates and supplements to the original SOFTWARE PRODUCT which may be provided to you by ORBX. By accessing or otherwise using the

SOFTWARE PRODUCT, you agree to be bound by the terms of this EULA. If you do not agree to the terms of this EULA, do not use the SOFTWARE

PRODUCT.

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The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is protected by copyright laws and international copyright treaties, as well as other intellectual property laws and

treaties. The SOFTWARE PRODUCT is sold as a single user license and no ownership is transferred, only the right to use the license software. The

SOFTWARE PRODUCT may not be re-distributed, sold for non-profit or profit or subscription fees, repackaged, delivered on CD or DVD media or

any other form of electronic media by any other persons or party, website, organisation or entity, other than the official e-commerce seller

website(s) as contracted or authorised by ORBX.

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a. You may install, access, and run a SINGLE copy of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT on a SINGLE personal computer for your personal, non-commercial,

non-profit use. Any party or organisation seeking to use the SOFTWARE PRODUCT under license for commercial use should contact ORBX at

www.orbxsystems.com

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Aerial imagery licensed by Orbx from Aerometrex Pty. Ltd.

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