What normally causes a tree to be planted on the apron or a runway of an airport? I mean, if that is happening what should I be looking to remove/move?Mark

Hi Mark, Unless I am mistaken, each airport in the (FS9 ?) default AP xxxx.bgl(s) contains a exclude, as well as a flatten. Frequently these are not entirely accurate and don't cover the proper areas of a airport. Everyone has found misplaced objects such buildings,telephone poles,trees, and airport facility buildings / objects where they shouldn't be. The easiest and most reliable way to fix these things is a small program called " ExcBuilder " by: Paavo Pihelgas. I think V2 is the most current version. Here is a portion of the readme so you'll know what is required: Installation-------------1. Copy ExcBuilder.exe to the folder of your choice.2. (Optional, but recommended.) Download FSConnect from some major FS site (like avsim.com) and copy FSConnect.dll to Flight Simulator 9\Modules directory. You may skip this step if you have already installed FSConnect.3. Run ExcBuilderV2.exe, press "Settings" and locate bglcomp.exe. Bglcomp.exe is a program that compiles source files to .bgl files. Bglcomp.exe comes with BGLComp SDK which you can be obtained from http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimul...wnloads_sdk.aspPublishing of this program is allowed only in sites listed below:www.scenery.orgwww.scenerydesign.orgwww.avsim.comwww.fsnordic.netwww.fscentre.comwww.estscen.netThe above will allow you to remove the unwanted objects.Hope this helped and best regards,MelP.S. In case you don't have them the SDKs are available at: http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/downloads...o=cat&id=10

Thanks Mel...good explanation. So let me see if I've got this right...a little recap. When building an airport, (weather on top of a default FS9 airport or not), an "exclusion zone" might need to be created. The primary function of this exclusion zone would be to prevent FS9 default objects from bleeding through the airport scenery and appearing in unexpected and possibly unwanted places. So if you don't add/create an exclusion zone when creating your scenery, you run the risk of having FS9 default objects appear in places such as a tree in the middle of a runway. Does that sound about right?Mark

Just to expand on the subject, trees and buildings are autogen scenery. Their placement is actually controlled by the ground textures, which are defined by the active landclass file. The default airport background textures contain no autogen. These are placed by the AB9nnnn0.bgl files. So when a developer modifies an airport that extends beyond the default FS9 airport background we get trees on runways, etc.There are a couple ways to deal with this. By far the easiest is to use ExcBuilder to create an exclude that tells FS to not display autogen in a user defined rectangle. These are then compiled into .bgl files, so you can have as many of these as you like/need for a given scenery.Another way to do this is to add an exclude statement to the scenery.cfg. This is limiting in that you can only add 1 exclude statement to each scenery area entry, however you can add an exclude to any active area, not just the entry affected by the exclude statement, and it will work.Another method is to use Afcad and create an apron, using any of the material choices available, to include areas that you need to exclude autogen. This is limited in that you have no real control of the textures used and they can be quite obvious when seen in the sim.Yet another way to do this is to use SBuilder to expand the airport background using one of the airport background textures that contain no autogen.These are methods that I have used in the past, I am sure there are more, as I am not up to date in the use of current scenery design tools.One small correction to Mel's post, default airport flattens are contained in the FL9nnnn0.bgl files, not the AB9nnnn0.bgl files.Hope this helps,Joe

Ah, interesting...thanks Joe. So to refine the recap...A scenery designer might need to create an exclusion zone to prevent autogen objects from appearing in unexpected places like a tree on a runway. Does that sound right?So if I ever do run into a tree on a runway, (ha!), then it sounds as if it might fall within the realm of the scenery designer...but only to a point. Because we can change land classes in FS9, the original scenery designer might not expect trees in a certain area and thus not create an exclusion zone because nothing was expected there? Now I'm trying to figure out why someone wouldn't automatically create exclusion zones around all areas which need them in an airport. Areas such as custom texture defined runways, taxi ways, aprons, and building areas? Is it that much extra work, is it a frame rate hit?Mark

A scenery designer might need to create an exclusion zone to prevent autogen objects from appearing in unexpected places like a tree on a runway. Does that sound right?

Yes

So if I ever do run into a tree on a runway, (ha!), then it sounds as if it might fall within the realm of the scenery designer...but only to a point. Because we can change land classes in FS9, the original scenery designer might not expect trees in a certain area and thus not create an exclusion zone because nothing was expected there?

Yes

Now I'm trying to figure out why someone wouldn't automatically create exclusion zones around all areas which need them in an airport. Areas such as custom texture defined runways, taxi ways, aprons, and building areas? Is it that much extra work, is it a frame rate hit?

I personally try to limit time spent trying to figure out why someone did/did not do anything, I have found it saves on medical expenses caused by me pounding my head on hard surfaces.I think that designers don't create excludes most of the time because they don't see anything that needs excluding. Reasons for that could range from having different landclass than the end-user, to not having their scenery complexity slider far enough to the right, to something else entirely.In terms of truly custom ground textures I believe they will not display any autogen unless the designer annotates it, I could be wrong about that. I believe this is why you see no autogen through photoreal scenery, such as all the nice BlueSkyScenery stuff.If you look in FS9\scenery\world\texture you will see a bunch of files with similar names that have different extensions. As an example the first one on the list in my install is 004b2an1.agn. You will also find 004b2fa1.bmp,004b2su1.bmp etc.The last 2 are the same ground texture for different seasons, in this case fall and summer. If the local landclass calls this texture for a given area (or tile), the file with the .agn extension will define the autogen for that tile. So if a custom texture is being called for, there will be no autogen, unless the designer creates it.As an end-user I am just happy that I can fix these kinds of issues rather easily when I run across them.Hope this helps,Joe

"One small correction to Mel's post, default airport flattens are contained in the FL9nnnn0.bgl files, not the AB9nnnn0.bgl files." Thank you for the polite correction Joe. I apologize for the error. Always something to learn; that is what I enjoy about this hobby.Mark you have pretty much got a good understanding. I would also suggest checking the scenery forums here at AVSIM and at FSdeveloper, lot of good stuff to be found.Best regards to all,Mel

Thanks Mel and Joe. I was just trying to get my head around a couple of concepts here. I try to be proactive when ever I write software. I do a bunch of error checking and attempt to predict data errors such as typos, non-printable characters and the like. Try to figure out where things will fall down before they do so my app never stops working. So not being a scenery designer and having no idea what those guys go through in order create all of this fantastic looking stuff for us, lends to the idea that I might be doing something wrong with the sim when I see trees on a runway. I believe that they are the experts so I automatically assume that it's me and not them.That's why I pursued this one a bit more then usual. The scenery designers obviously have done a tremendous job and should be commended and praised. If I do need to help out a bit by creating flattens or exclusions then that's no problem. I mean, that's the least I can do to help out. I just needed clarity on when the issue stops becoming my fault and when I need to simply take the bull by the horns and finish the job myself.So thanks for the help guys...it was excellent as usual!Mark