Scenery Outside P3D - Doing it Right?

[B777ER 2,486]

Ok, so after reading numerous threads I think I am doing it right but have one question. I have P3D v3.2. I see how LM wants us to move stuff outside the main folder. I installed all the Free Mesh stuff I found via a forum here. I created a folder , "C:\P3DAddon". I have one 2TB SSD drive. Inside that folder I have "scenery", "effects", "SimObjects" and "sound". I plan on just putting my scenery in there, no aircraft as I just use two PMDG planes and that's no biggie to reinstall them. So having said that, for scenery do I use "Local=C:\P3DAddon....." or is it example 2, "Path=C\P3DAddon...."?? Or is "Path" for every other cfg but the scenery one? Thank you

 

 

 

[Area.124]
Title=MeshAfrica
Local=C:\P3DAddon\Scenery\Mesh\Africa
Layer=124
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

 

[Area.124]
Title=MeshAfrica
Path=C:\P3DAddon\Scenery\Mesh\Africa
Layer=124
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

[greggerm 312]

I would probably use the built in Prepar3D scenery library tool to add it in, and use the entry it creates as a model for any others you wish to add in by hand down the road. I'm not quite sure which is appropriate, but the system will create it correctly for you.

 

Good luck!

[Mickeyj 35]

Ok, so after reading numerous threads I think I am doing it right but have one question. I have P3D v3.2. I see how LM wants us to move stuff outside the main folder. I installed all the Free Mesh stuff I found via a forum here. I created a folder , "C:\P3DAddon". I have one 2TB SSD drive. Inside that folder I have "scenery", "effects", "SimObjects" and "sound". I plan on just putting my scenery in there, no aircraft as I just use two PMDG planes and that's no biggie to reinstall them. So having said that, for scenery do I use "Local=C:\P3DAddon....." or is it example 2, "Path=C\P3DAddon...."?? Or is "Path" for every other cfg but the scenery one? Thank you

 

 

 

[Area.124]

Title=MeshAfrica

Local=C:\P3DAddon\Scenery\Mesh\Africa

Layer=124

Active=TRUE

Required=FALSE

 

[Area.124]

Title=MeshAfrica

Path=C:\P3DAddon\Scenery\Mesh\Africa

Layer=124

Active=TRUE

Required=FALSE

 

 

Yes, that is correct you can do that. I do the same with my scenery add on and they are a lot.

[B777ER 2,486]

Yes, that is correct you can do that. I do the same with my scenery add on and they are a lot.

Which one is correct? Example 1? Lol...

[Poppet 710]

Your Scenery.cfg will have  Local=   as a "Pathway" 

All your other .cfg's in ProgramData\LockheedMartin\Prepar3D like effects,  Gauges and Simobjects.cfg  will have  Path= as a "Pathway" 

[B777ER 2,486]

Your Scenery.cfg will have Local= as a "Pathway"

 

All your other .cfg's in ProgramData\LockheedMartin\Prepar3D like effects, Gauges and Simobjects.cfg will have Path= as a "Pathway"

Awesome, I had it correct with the first example. Many thanks for your input!

[Poppet 710]

I have P3D v3.2. I see how LM wants us to move stuff outside the main folder. I installed all the Free Mesh stuff I found via a forum here. I created a folder , "C:\P3DAddon". I have one 2TB SSD drive. Inside that folder I have "scenery", "effects", "SimObjects" and "sound". I plan on just putting my scenery in there

 

 

I'm just curious about the way every body else does it ??  So if anybody else would like to share there methods,  i would really appreciated it,  after all there is no Instruction Manual for people with normal sized brains to figure this stuff out on there own. 

 

When i first started to learn about Path= outside the folder,  i was reading about people who would create folder called "Addon" and create sub folders inside of this folder like "effects"  "Sounds"  "Scenery"  and Simobjects and so on. 

 

I never figured out how this would work?  For example:  When i Point a Scenery Installer to the above structure lay out,  It doesn't Install to these Sub folders,  the odd time it will Install effects to the effects folder but that's it though.     

 

Do i install all my Sceneries to this 1 Folder "Addon" ?  What if the Installer doesn't Install properly to the Sub folders?  Do i Manually move things around?

 

Maybe I'm doing this wrong but i just create a folder and call it,  whatever I'm Installing,  For example  "UK2000 Heathrow Xtreme"  I just point the Installer to my new folder  "UK2000 Heathrow Xtreme" and then setup the Path= to this folder,  in this case the Installer will Automatically do this so I'm just using this as an example 

 

Scenery

 

[Area.132]

Title=UK2000 Heathrow Xtreme

local=E:\UK2000 Heathrow Xtreme

Layer=132

Active=TRUE

Required=FALSE

 

================

 

Effects 

 

[Entry.1]

Title= UK2000 Heathrow Xtreme Effects

Path=E:\UK2000 Heathrow Xtreme\effects

Active=TRUE

Required=True

 

The point is, I install each Scenery to its own specific folder and then connect up the .cfg Path's to point to that Scenery,  Am i doing this backwards to everyone else?   Are people using the Addon folder + Sub folder method? 

[B777ER 2,486]

Learning off another gent here in the forums (Lee), I have a copy of the Prepared.exe in a separate folder, C:\Tempinstall. For scenery that does not have a default P3Dv3.2 installer I install (or I should say, hope to install as I am still getting started with P3D and taking it slowly) the scenery into that folder and then will be manually moving it to the seperate P3DAddon folder that resides outside the core p3d folder, this in the future I won't have to mess with it again if I update P3D.

[ideoplastic 86]

There are certain sceneries that cannot be installed (not advisable?) outside P3D, such as FTX Global, Vectors, etc. However most other sceneries can be installed outside, even those that during installation may place files in the main scenery or world folders.

 

I have a dedicated 3Tb drive for sceneries where I have created folders with relevant country names to which sceneries are installed as required. Some sceneries won't install unless Prepar3d.exe is present so a copy of this executable is placed in the root folder of this disk. Take an Aerosoft scenery which under normal circumstances would be added to the Aerosoft folder, and let's say it's Barcelona. I will install it directly into the Spain folder and it would look like this: E:\Sceneries\Spain\Aerosoft\MegaAirport Barcelona\scenery+texture+additionafiles folders. Same method for any other sceneries for different countries.

 

Some sceneries in addition to creating the standard scenery/texture folders may also install other files to main scenery/world folders or others, in such cases they will be installed to the country folder and any files relating to other folders meant for P3D can easily be identified and copied to the Sim directories, including effects. The extra files I keep in the additionalfiles folder inside each scenery (when applicable) thus in the event a  reinstall of the sim is required all I have to do is copy those files again to the relevant folders in P3D and have no need to reinstall the sceneries.  My standard scenery.cfg file that contains the P3D default areas (and in my case FTX Vector and FTX Lanclass and Orbx Libraries entries)  in the Program Data\LockheedMartin\Prepard3d folder is where I add/remove sceneries using the Scenery Configuration Editor ensuring any entries are above the base entries in this config. The SCE can then renumber all entries in the scenery.cfg and have only those sceneries needed for my flight.

 

Granted that it takes a while to build this scenery system but it is a great time saver and you can always check very quickly which sceneries you have installed for any given country. From time to time I make a disk image as back-up. Just recently I had to rebuild my Sim PC due to a problem with contrails and other effects not appearing. Installed Win7 64 with full updates and P3D base installation (including FTX Global/Vector/LCs using a previously created image in minutes. Installed the aircraft and within the hour was ready to fly. I appreciate some users may find this confusing, but have been using this method since FS9 days without issues or having to restart the sim after adding entries to it. I'm not the best at explaining these sort of things but feel free to ask if you don't understand something I mentioned above.

 

Regards

[Poppet 710]

Great feedback,  Thank you