Hi Folks,I am new to scenery design and now have ADE9X. I fly into an airport using FS9 and have realised that it is not accurate as per the charts and Google Earth. I have made some adjustments to it and also discovered how to add static aircraft, which is a big thing for me to do. Anyway, this is a 3rd party airport and the custom made scenery does not show in ADE. I checked using a default scenery airport and all the buildings showed up, so I am puzzled as to why the custom built ones do not. I have tried using the various managers etc to add them to the library like I have done with the static aircraft but nothing works. Some of these buildings are situated wrongly and others have the textures halfway in the ground. I would like to delete them out and replace them with other library buildings. I have tried to make exclusion rectangles but the building still remain in the sim.I have a couple more questions later but if someone could help me with this one I would be gratefull. Regards...KennyOh...ps. Is it possible to change the default grass apron texture in ADE. No offence intended but I find it a bit too bright when compared with the grass texture around other airfields.Cheers

First off, ADE was mainly conceived as a way to work on the stock airports, like AFCAD was, but with more utility. It does have a few things, though, that can help with editing 3rd party airports. The problem is, there are many ways 3rd part airports can be put together, and you have have to have some idea of the "anatomy" of the 3rd party airport to really be able to work on it.Consider the typical airport consists of various custom objects and terrain, and then an "AFCAD" type file is added to provide the facility data. In FS9, the AFCAD can provide various visual scenery, but can be over-ridden by the designer. There is also the problem that with some tweaks, scenery that was designed for earlier versions of FS can work in FS9.For ADE in FS9, it only is going to work well if all the scenery is built using FS9 sdk-compliant means. That means that scenery objects need to be in FS9 mdl format and placed using xml compiled with bglcomp. If this is the case, than chances are ADE can assist. Here are basic steps to follow assuming the scenery is FS9:1. Open airport from bgl using the "AFCAD" bgl file from the 3rd party scenery.2. Go into the tools library object manager and add any bgl file that contains scenery object library data (collection of mdl). 3. Use the import bgl function to add the location data for the objects into your project.4. If the 3rd party "AFCAD" file does not contain approach data (go into approach mode and lists-approaches and see if they are there) use the tools-load stock data to load the stock approaches and waypoints. If the 3rd party scenery includes separate approach data bgl file, then import the bgl file with the approach data.That should get you pretty close to where you need to be, again assuming the 3rd party airport is designed using FS9 sdk.scott s..

Hello Scott.Many thanks for the reply, I appreciate it. I was getting a bit lost between all the various 'bits' that ADE has. This airfield came with an installer rather than just the simple folder option, so I was a bit uncertain if there were other files of a type that I was uncertain about lurking around. I have uninstalled the field and simply gone with the default FS9 version which was very different again from the actual airfield layout chart. I am up to speed with adding the proper aprons and taxiways etc and the navaids seem to be correct. Once I have finished modifying the stock field I will name it slightly differently and then reload the 3rd party one again and try out your suggestions.One thing you may be able to explain to me is the way in which the scenery files are placed. I am familiar with the use of 'Airport name' folder with scenery and texture folders within, which I would normally add to the Addon Scenery folder. However, since using ADE with this 3rd party field I have discovered that it also looked for a file named AP947150.bgl in the EurW folder within the main scenery folder, where, as you will undoubtedly be aware, there are lots of bgl's as with all the other folders. Can you explain to me what these are for?I know that scenery info is compiled into bgl files each one with a bit of different info. regarding the particular airfield, but why in differing locations? Hope this question makes sense to you.Cheers

AP files contain the stock airports. There are other files in those folders such as OB files or NV files. Each file contains information used at the airport. OB contains object placement information and NV navaids for example. It is important never to modify or replace a stock file. This is because they generally contain information for a wide area - some AP files contain many airports. Removing or modifying them could result in a whole load of unintended consequences including large areas of the sim losing airports. Second these file are MS copyright and so we should not really mess with them.When modifying airports it is useful to understand how FS handles these things. It all depends on the order in which they get loaded - this is specified in the scenery list. We would expect (and usually require) that stock airports get loaded first. Then any addon or modified airports created by third parties get loaded in the order of the scenery list. What is important is the information stored in an addon airport bgl file concerning what gets ignored in any copies of the airport already loaded. There is a special record that will usually tell FS to ignore elements such as runways, taxiways, aprons and so on in any already loaded copies of the airport (including the stock one). This means that the elements in your modified airport should replace those already loaded.This can cause all sorts of problems if the user does not know what is getting loaded in what order. We get a lot of questions about things not showing up or things in the original airport showing through. This is usually because there are duplicate copies of the airport and sometimes the user does not realize they are there. In your case you would need to be careful to ensure that your airport is at a higher scenery priority than the payware one - otherwise your good work may just not have any effect.

Hello Jon.Compliments of the Season and a Happy New Year to you and yours.Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.Firstly let me say that I have been simming a long time, since the days of the Sinclair Spectrum ZX in fact, although I have never really gotten involved with programming like yourself and Fr. Bill, Tom Gibson, and John Walker to mention but a few. I do have FS Panel Studio and FSDS and have also completed the GMAX tutorial for FS9 but never really persevered with scenery design.Your ADE9X prog. has given me a new lease of life. I fly with a VFR club and am keen to develop some airfields that we use. I have never really understood the hierarchy of the Scenery Library within the sim, ie FS9.Scott has said not to include the Libraries but perhaps you could explain how and why some designers are able to use an actual installer like Click Team which installs all of their custom made scenery in one zip file. I would like to be able to offer my fellow pilots the opportunity to look at my airfields using a zip file which includes all the bgl's and texture files both default, or Generic Buildings if that is the correct term to use, and the custom buildings from the scenery libraries that are available to download.I hope that this makes sense to you.

Hello Scott and Jon.Please forgive my error in saying that it was Scott who mentioned not to include the library files in case of texture errors. It was not Scott of course, it was Jim from my other post. Sorry Scott for putting words in your mouth!!Cheers

Hello Jon.Compliments of the Season and a Happy New Year to you and yours.Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.Firstly let me say that I have been simming a long time, since the days of the Sinclair Spectrum ZX in fact, although I have never really gotten involved with programming like yourself and Fr. Bill, Tom Gibson, and John Walker to mention but a few. I do have FS Panel Studio and FSDS and have also completed the GMAX tutorial for FS9 but never really persevered with scenery design.Your ADE9X prog. has given me a new lease of life. I fly with a VFR club and am keen to develop some airfields that we use. I have never really understood the hierarchy of the Scenery Library within the sim, ie FS9.Scott has said not to include the Libraries but perhaps you could explain how and why some designers are able to use an actual installer like Click Team which installs all of their custom made scenery in one zip file. I would like to be able to offer my fellow pilots the opportunity to look at my airfields using a zip file which includes all the bgl's and texture files both default, or Generic Buildings if that is the correct term to use, and the custom buildings from the scenery libraries that are available to download.I hope that this makes sense to you.

KenI think you have asked your questions now at FS Developer and we are trying to answer them over there. If not then let me know and I will address the issue of library bgl files, installers and so on here.

Hello Jon.Yes you are correct, I have been waiting a few days for my e-mail authorisation link for FS Developer so I posted here because I knew that this forum was very well monitored regarding new posts. However, I plan on using the Developer site from now on if that is okay.Regards....Kenny

Hello Scott and Jon.Please forgive my error in saying that it was Scott who mentioned not to include the library files in case of texture errors. It was not Scott of course, it was Jim from my other post. Sorry Scott for putting words in your mouth!!Cheers

not a problem as long as you get things sorted outscott s..