Scenery Layers and Priorities

[Captain Tom 3]

HELP! I'm finally getting around to reorganizing my 70 GB of FS9 Scenery. I have read a number of conflicting and confusing articles on how to prioritize scenery. Looking at the FS9 Scenery Library screen list, from top to bottom, I think this is the correct way. Is it?1. Global Mesh2. Regional Mesh3. Local Mesh4. 3rd Party Scenery5. Land Class - Local6. Land Class - Regional7. Object Libraries8. DefaultWhat works for you? How does FS9 look at and load scenery - from the top of the list to the bottom, or the bottom to the top? Can I assume that the lower the Layer Number in the Scenery.cfg file, the higher the priority (loaded first)?There are three numbers that are used - Area, Layer, and Priority. 1. Area is just a sequential number assigned to each scenery added. Once assigned it is never used again if that scenery gets subsequently deleted.2. Layer is ??3. Priority is what is shown on the Settings - Scenery Library screen and appears to have no relation to Layer(?).This is a large undertaking and I only want to do it once. Any help will be greatly appreciated! Once I understand all this I will develop a Tutorial to help others that may be as confused as I am.Thanks!

[N60JBravo 27]

Your layering setup looks OK.

There are three numbers that are used - Area, Layer, and Priority.

The Area=nn is of no consequence in terms of layer priority. The only rule is to not have 2 entries with the same value. FS handles this fine by itself.Layer and priority are the same thing.Scenery priority is controlled by the Layer=nn line.Some get confused because Layer=1 is the lowest priority, not the highest.

How does FS9 look at and load scenery

With the exception of mesh, FS will display the scenery with the highest priority.Mesh is a little different. FS will display the mesh with the highest resolution available for a given area, regardless of priority. If 2 meshes of the same resolution exist for a given area, FS will display the mesh with the lower priority.So why put the global mesh at the top?All addon mesh is of higher resolution than default (one would hope) so FS will display the addon mesh.Some local scenery addons include their own mesh. Even though it may be the same resolution as your global addon, the developer may have tweaked his files to fit his scenery better than the global addon mesh. In that situation you would want the local mesh to have a lower priority than the global mesh.Hope this helps.regards,Joe

[Captain Tom 3]

Your layering setup looks OK.The Area=nn is of no consequence in terms of layer priority. The only rule is to not have 2 entries with the same value. FS handles this fine by itself.Layer and priority are the same thing.Scenery priority is controlled by the Layer=nn line.Some get confused because Layer=1 is the lowest priority, not the highest.With the exception of mesh, FS will display the scenery with the highest priority.Mesh is a little different. FS will display the mesh with the highest resolution available for a given area, regardless of priority. If 2 meshes of the same resolution exist for a given area, FS will display the mesh with the lower priority.So why put the global mesh at the top?Thanks Joe, appreciate your post. Layer=1 is lowest priority. Very confusing to say the least.All addon mesh is of higher resolution than default (one would hope) so FS will display the addon mesh.Some local scenery addons include their own mesh. Even though it may be the same resolution as your global addon, the developer may have tweaked his files to fit his scenery better than the global addon mesh. In that situation you would want the local mesh to have a lower priority than the global mesh.Hope this helps.regards,Joe

[scott967 62]

The reason why there is conflicting advice, and problems, is that FS has what I would call implicit priority and explicit priority. In this context "priority" means what does the user see in the sim? "Higher priority" will be seen and "lower priority" will not. "Priority" only has meaning in the relative sense, and only among specific scenery types. The most basic explicit priority mechanism is the "scenery exclusion" As a general rule we can state that a scenery exclusion will prevent view of any scenery of the excluded class in a lower priority scenery area. But there are so many variations on this scenery priority concept that it becomes almost hopeless to try to enumerate them all, let alone prove a hard and fast rule to ensure we don't violate some obscure priority mechanism. Here's just a few things off the top of my head -- I would hate to have to create a canonical list of them all:Scenery object exclusion -- (as discussed above)Airport facility data deletionImplicit scenery object autogen exclusionTerrain vector layer numbers Photo terrain vector suppressionMesh resolutionResample data replacementscott s..

[Captain Tom 3]

The reason why there is conflicting advice, and problems, is that FS has what I would call implicit priority and explicit priority. In this context "priority" means what does the user see in the sim? "Higher priority" will be seen and "lower priority" will not. "Priority" only has meaning in the relative sense, and only among specific scenery types. The most basic explicit priority mechanism is the "scenery exclusion" As a general rule we can state that a scenery exclusion will prevent view of any scenery of the excluded class in a lower priority scenery area. But there are so many variations on this scenery priority concept that it becomes almost hopeless to try to enumerate them all, let alone prove a hard and fast rule to ensure we don't violate some obscure priority mechanism. Here's just a few things off the top of my head -- I would hate to have to create a canonical list of them all:Scenery object exclusion -- (as discussed above)Airport facility data deletionImplicit scenery object autogen exclusionTerrain vector layer numbers Photo terrain vector suppressionMesh resolutionResample data replacementscott s.Thanks Scott. Wish there was a full blown tutorial on this subject as there are so many variables. When I get through, I will have to draft one and post it for comments.