Custom Scenery missing in 10.25 or perhaps after V2 Mesh install?

[Blaze 102]

Did something change in 10.25 that would prevent custom scenery that was previously installed from displaying?  I have a number of airport add ons installed and when I go to their locations what use to be populated with buildings etc is now back to being empty. :Thinking: The folders are still present in the custom scenery file and the entry is included in the scenery .ini file but nothing is being displayed in the sim.

 

Changes recently made to my system include resetting my rendering options for max performance and building back up to take into account XP Mesh V2 and SkyMax pro.  I also deleted my scenery.ini file and allowed it to rebuild after installing v2 mesh for the west half of the US.

 

I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this sort of thing. Is there a utility or something I can use to run an integrity check on my custom scenery?  Being able to tell an airport isn't displaying correctly is pretty easy since the buildings are missing etc. but now I am second guessing if the V2 mesh is being displayed since that would be harder to tell.

[Longranger 148]

Dcustom scenery?  Being able to tell an airport isn't displaying correctly is pretty easy since the buildings are missing etc. but now I am second guessing if the V2 mesh is being displayed since that would be harder to tell.

This is probably your problem. If a mesh or a phototexture has a higher priuority in your ini file, X-Plane won't use Airports in the same location but with a lower priority.

[Old_As_Dirt 160]

Blaze,

 

After installing V2 mesh in Custom Scenery, click on the Custom Scenery main folder and delete "scenery_packs.  It will reinstall when you start up X-Plane with all your folders in the correct order and you will see your "stuff" again!

 

John

[Blaze 102]

Thanks, but I don't think that's it I installed the mesh in ZZZ as per the instructions and was able to do a little more trouble shooting.  What I gather is this has nothing to do with the mesh install because I have some missing scenery in place that I have not installed mesh for, as well as a few places where airports are displaying properly that are covered with the new mesh.

 

Nothing telling in my LOG file got any other ideas?

 

I suppose I'll try dragging stuff out of my custom folder next and let the scenery .ini rebuild again and put them back and see if that helps but maybe there is a simpler way I don't know about? 

Blaze,

 

After installing V2 mesh in Custom Scenery, click on the Custom Scenery main folder and delete "scenery_packs.  It will reinstall when you start up X-Plane with all your folders in the correct order and you will see your "stuff" again!

 

John

I deleted the file and let it rebuild again for good measure just in case but didn't work. 

[CarlosF 1,235]

Same thing happened to me with my custom airports, couldn't figure out why, this is when 10.25 went final.

[Brazen 5]

There's a huge thread on x-plane.org called something like "Lego bricks". Iirc, in the first 10 pages, there's a solution. Sorry I can't be more specific. It has to do with all the new airports being added and exclusion zones or something like that. Might give that a try.

 

Good luck!

[Blaze 102]

OK thank's guys!   I don't surf at the .org so I didn't know this was an issue.  I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it here so far.  I was just about to ask you guys to try the files for a sanity check.  If anyone wants to two west coast airports were KELN and KALW both by Chars and KHXD Hilton head on the east coast.

 

I'll go try to find out what the solution is...

[belimi 0]

Blaze, I have a similar problem to you but can't be sure its the same cause. Is it just a coincidence that 10.25 was when community-created airports were introduced?

 

Here's what Ben Had to say when I enquire about my problem:October 17, 2013 at 11:59 pm

"Ben,

 

What happens if we already have a custom airport installed which is the same as one of the 250 new airports? Let’s say, for example, we’ve already edited that existing airport and prefer it to one of the new ones in 10.25. Will they complete for the same real estate, or will one prevent the other from loading?

Ben Supnik says:

October 18, 2013 at 10:57 am

If the third party pack has higher priority (which it should, or which you can set) and the third party pack has an exclusion zone (which it really, really should) then you’ll just see the third party airport.

Kerbaugh says:

October 19, 2013 at 6:34 am

Hi Ben,

 

What kind of exclusion zone will exclude these lego-brick airports? You’ve stepped on payware scenery of mine. I’ve tried excluding facades and objects but nothing seems to prevent the lego-bricks from stepping on my scenery. I even tried deleting corresponding DSF files in Global Scenery but that didn’t help.

–

Gary

Ben Supnik says:

October 19, 2013 at 10:25 am

That probably means your scenery prioritization is borked. Facades + objects will do it, but honestly you should probably exclude _everything_"

 

The only solution to my problem so far has been to delete the community global airports folder altogether.

[Blaze 102]

After a lot of reading and some testing I could not get the custom airports I use to enjoy to show back up.  I even tried removing the entire Global Airports folder to no avail. 

 

Looks like LR will have to get this sorted before crowd sourcing airports gets out of control.  I like the idea behind crowd sourcing and there is some really gifted freeware authors out there but QA/QC has to be enforced at some level and it remains to be seen how LR will address this.

[MarioDonick 752]

This is one of the things that I find problematic in X-Plane -- the constant development brings both very good things, but also problems when stuff has changed and does not work anymore like expected.

 

Here are my observations and what I did about it:

 

1. The newly introduced default airports in 10.25 are ALL (hundreds of them) in one folder, Global Airports. First thing to prevent conflicts with custom scenery is to give this global airports folder the lowest priority among all airports (BUT a higher priority than meshes, if installed). You can do this by moving the Global Airports entry in the .ini file down, after your last custom airport.

 

2. Far too many custom airports do not yet have the proper exclusion zones. Ben Supnik says that such sceneries have bugs, but some authors see it not this way. As the exclusion system is a bit cumbersome (only rectangular exclusion zones are possible), many developers simply did not want to add exclusion zones at a time where no problems were visible. Instead some are hoping that Laminar reconsiders the whole Global Airports concept or makes airport boundaries work as default exclusion zone. Currently, what you can do, is to open the airport with OverlayEditor or WED and add your own exclusion zones. You will need exclusions for facades and for objects.

 

 

And here's a future problem that already comes upon us with the HD mesh:

 

3. In the future (with the scenery-recut, and already today with the HD mesh), many airports will have roads crossing the aprons and taxiways, because Ben Supnik and Andras Fabian decided that this way scenery developers have more flexibility. If the developer of a scenery does not create an update, the users can get rid of unwanted roads by adding exclusion zones of the type "roads, railroads, powerlines".

 

4. Also already visible in the HD mesh are airports where lots of trees are growing on the apron. Here the scenery developers have forgotten (or: Did not see the need for) exclusion zones for "forests". Again, users can add their own exclusions here.

 

 

To summarize: Since XP 10.25, and even more when the scenery recut is released, all scenery developers need to check their sceneries for the proper exclusion zones for objects, facades, roads and forests. Given the very high number of available scenery, this is a tremendous task ...

[Blaze 102]

Mario have you or anyone else been able to remove the Global airports folder from your custom scenery rebuild your scenery .ini file and have previously downloaded airports show back up? 

[jcjimmy 150]

Mario,

 

Many thanks for mentioning " First thing to prevent conflicts with custom scenery is to give this global airports folder the lowest priority among all airports (BUT a higher priority than meshes, if installed)." It cleared up some of my scenery problems.

 

I didn't pick up that tip before, so it pays to read the Forums. Maybe a protocol will be divised so that the various files go to their proper order automatically in the scenery packs.ini.

 

Thanks again.

[JonRD463 146]

I think what's needed is a utility to sort scenery based on type. Not sure how that could be done-- maybe have some way of detecting the presence of terrain mesh to automatically sort it lower in the ini file. Would also need to have the ability to detect scenery libraries like OpensceneryX and distinguish them from airport scenery packages. Honestly, I don't even know if this would be possible, but if I could program, this would be something I'd try to do.

[MarioDonick 752]

Mario have you or anyone else been able to remove the Global airports folder from your custom scenery rebuild your scenery .ini file and have previously downloaded airports show back up? 

 

It really depends how you organize your scenery!

 

Do you actively edit the .ini file to prioritize your scenery?

 

Or do prioritize your scenery based on the folder names?

 

 

In the first case, you have move down the "Global Airports" entry in the .ini file to be at the bottom of the airports list, but above any mesh changes.

 

In the second case, you can rename the "Global Airports" folder (e.g. to "ZA Global Airports"), delete the .ini file (and let X-Plane re-create the .ini file the next time you start X-Plane).

 

You also have to take care of exclusions, as explained above.

 

If all these things are taken care of and your scenery still does not show up, something else is messed up in your Custom Scenery folder. To solve that, more details are needed (e.g. posting your .ini file and a screenshot of your Custom Scenery folder).

[alpilotx 505]

In the second case, you can rename the "Global Airports" folder (e.g. to "ZA Global Airports"), delete the .ini file (and let X-Plane re-create the .ini file the next time you start X-Plane).

 

The only problem which I see with this approach is, that when you run the X-Plane Updater, it might do some unexpected things. For example create "Global Airports" again, and re-download all the content and put it in there .. .and you would end up with two "Global Airports" .... Thats why I would highly recommend to rather do the "abstract" scenery_packs.ini editing approach (that way you don't need to "mess" with folder names).