Just a scenery user - not a designer, but I'm curious about how FSX treats scenery hierarchy so I thought I'd ask the experts:

 

Does FSX treat scenery files located in the Scenery\Global\scenery or Scenery\World\scenery folders any differently than other add-on scenery I would install say the addon scenery folder or elsewhere? I'm curious because in a few of cases, the installer places them in in Global or World (Orbx FSX Global, PW Caribbean scenery to name a couple) and wondered if there's a compelling reason for this.

 

I always thought that FSX basically  'flattened' everything placing priority in a top-down manner and sorted out the conflicts.

 

Thanks!

Sometimes it matters sometimes it doesn't.

 

Here's a list of some things that need to go into default folders (and the folder they go into):

effects files (Effects)

autogen building textures (Texture)

airport stubs to reset airport altitudes (must be read by FSX first to avoid a bug so these can end up in Scenery/World/Scenery)

landclass tiles (these can go into addon scenery folders or replace the existing textures, like FTX Global does. When FSX comes across a landclass bgl it searches the texture folder associated with the scenery folder first and then falls back to the Texture folder) 

Thank you Anthony - Very informative! I have a follow-up for you. Lately I've noticed that I can see landing strips (not in all their glory, just as grey polys) through mountains under certain conditions (maybe clouds also). Do you know what could cause that? I've been adding some freeware & experimental scenery lately and started noticing this. Is there a culprit I should be looking for?

Ummm . Never heard of that problem before but I'm thinking there is a bit of a problem with FSX generating the Z buffer rather than something wrong with the scenery in particular. Now, the Z buffer is a copy of the next frame to be drawn that every 3D program uses to store the depth of each pixel. As the program is generating the next frame it goes through the list of objects it needs to draw, works out all the angles and then it checks each pixel to be drawn against what is already in the Z buffer to see if the new pixel is before or behind whatever is already there. 

 

I do know that FSX does have some slight bugs with Z buffering particularly when you have set the visibility to less than unlimited. The fog that FSX creates can create anomalies at times. In particular, with things like the Lotussim style landing lights.

Thanks again. This airstrip issue has me stumped. I have tried everything I can think of (visibility settings, starting with a clean fsx.cfg, disabling scenery, uninstalling add-ons, switching DX9-DX10, changing NVIDIA drivers and NI settings...) but no joy. Oh well.