Managing Addon Scenery Files

[Guest Hipper]

A typical Addon scenery file seems to have three components: scenery, texture and a DAT file called 'Scenery'.What is the function of this DAT file and how can it be opened?If I have two or more addon scenery packages and I want to put them in one folder so that the textures and scenery files are combined in their respective folders with no duplication, how can I do the same for the two DAT files (they can't both be placed in the overall folder as they are named the same?).For example, I have six addons for the Dunstable area of the UK from VFR addons. There's a lot of duplication and updating of these files and I thought it would be the best solution to put them all in a 'Dunstable' scenery folder. How can I do this with regard to the DAT files?

[Guest Hipper]

OK, I'll answer my own question. I did try to find the answer before posting but I searched for the wrong things! A search for 'scenery.dat' would have got me the answer.DAT files are created as FS9 builds the scenery on starting up; 'building scenery database' as it says in the window. They can be safely deleted when FS is not running as they will be renewed again on FS start up.In other words, I can combine all my scenery files in one folder, texture files in another, put them both in another folder and use this to add to the Scenery Library. I don't have to be concerned about the DAT files as they will look after themselves.I don't know how to open theses DAT and a serach on Google shows no-one really does, but I don't see the need anyway.(I've always talked to myself so there's nothing new here!)

[Guest wji]

"DAT files are created as FS9 builds the scenery on starting up; 'building scenery database'"Each time a new scenery is added, FS9 appends the entry to the scenery.CFG file.This is useful information if one wants to add or edit Flatten and/or Exclude switches for a specific location. Scenery.cfg file can be opened using Notepad. See-alsohttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=22131&page=

[scott967 62]

I don't think anyone has worked real hard on understanding the .dat files. They seem to be geographically sorted, I guess going back to some of the older FS concepts of "latband". If you run filemon util when loading FS, you see it does a pretty good job of just searching the right bgl files for scenery. But in some cases, I see this mainly in object library related addons, the bgl file is always accessed, no matter where in the world the current view is constructed.The database also manages priority, since the design of FS is that scenery is sequentially assembled from low priority to high, with each piece of scenery given the option to "add to" the previously loaded scenery, or "replace" part of the previous loaded scenery. Textures are accessed by file name, so all that's needed is to know the order in which FS creates full pathnames in searching for texture filenames.scott s..