Earth Simulations Scilly Isles in P3D4

[kevinfirth 1,392]

1 hour ago, dabba said:

Hello Kevin

This may be of interest to yourself and others

5 BGL files I found to be troublesome in ES Guernsey

I decompiled them to XML with BgL2Xml and then recompiled

them back to BGL using the P3dV4 SDK bglcomp.exe

 

EGJB_Guernsey_ARM_ALT.BGL (scenery/world/scenery)

ES-Guernsey-SFX.BGL  (ES-CI-SFX)

ES-Sark-SFX.BGL  (ES-CI-SFX)

ES-Guernsey-Glass.bgl  (ES-CI-3D)

ES-Hanois-Place.bgl  (ES-CI-3D)

After plenty off issues with CTD and P3d V4 freezing at startup I now have a working ES Guernsey, not fully explored as 100% as yet but looking promising.

Having similar issues with Alderney but no luck isolating issues as yet

Regards

excellent work! :)

I may get round to doing the same this weekend..

The SFX files are sound effect placements I think..

[dabba 2]

I am not sure what the sfx files are for but  Now you come to mention it there is a distinct lack of seagull and church bell sounds when low and slow . So they may not have compiled well . I'll have to do some more checking

The other 3 I think are   airfield height . Light house  and all the many greenhouse placements. Which appear  now to be present and correct . 

 

 

[dabba 2]

As for Alderley . I have problems in most if not all of the season  ground scenery folders and terrain folder . Having any one of them active freezes the sim during the splash screen at the start .

I am not sure what to use to try and decompile these files and recompile .(this may or may not work I am just chancing )

Some more  Google searching I think 

 

[dabba 2]

Sorry to keep hijacking this thread, but it seems to follow well

I had issues with Earth simulations Alderney.

It appears the file ES-Alderney_DTM.bgl in the Channel Islands/Terrain folder

Does not like missing or corrupt season folders, and thus causing the sim to freeze.

I found issues with ground texture autumn files and the Night files.

Not being savvy with the scenery software utilities and unable to de compile.

I replaced the files with a copy of the summer files (renamed to Autumn & Night as required)

Crude I know but it seems to work (stopping the Sim from freezing at least), until a proper fix can be found.  I now do not get my autumn or night textures (for now I can live with to enjoy this excellent scenery)

I hope this is useful to others and maybe help towards finding a better solution

[kevinfirth 1,392]

On 6/19/2017 at 9:17 PM, dabba said:

Sorry to keep hijacking this thread, but it seems to follow well

I had issues with Earth simulations Alderney.

It appears the file ES-Alderney_DTM.bgl in the Channel Islands/Terrain folder

Does not like missing or corrupt season folders, and thus causing the sim to freeze.

I found issues with ground texture autumn files and the Night files.

Not being savvy with the scenery software utilities and unable to de compile.

I replaced the files with a copy of the summer files (renamed to Autumn & Night as required)

Crude I know but it seems to work (stopping the Sim from freezing at least), until a proper fix can be found.  I now do not get my autumn or night textures (for now I can live with to enjoy this excellent scenery)

I hope this is useful to others and maybe help towards finding a better solution

had a brief look at alderney today.

Noticed that there were 49 agn files for one season, but only 39 for the others.

The terrain folder didnt cause me any problems at all..

I cant see any reason why the photo bgls should cause any issues so one test will be to delete the associated agn files and see if the photoreal shows ok.  If so, I'll fire up the SDK and see what annotator tells us about the autogen there and any difference between the seasons.

It may be possible to identify the probable cause of the problem and amend the GUID of some of the annotations to something less problematic...possibly something else used in another ES scenery...

That might be a little fiddly but Alderney is quite small so shouldnt be an insurmountable task! :p

[kevinfirth 1,392]

Just a heads up a quick test shows the spring Alderney photoreal bgls work ok without the autogen...

But curious...on changing within the sim to summer, I get an OOM!

[dabba 2]

Hi 

Nov having had much time on this . But I do have the full Alderney working at the moment. to do this I copied the auto gen folder from p3dv3 to p3dv4 

I disabled the xml link to es autogen folder

The auto gen descriptions from v3 had been merged using the auto gen merge tool

Not sure why this works but was getting similar ooms using v4 versions. I was also getting others issues . Missing autogen at other sceneries . Orbx airfields. Now fixed.

I assume there is a conflict with auto gen descriptions files when having more than one set via xml addons

[dabba 2]

Hello Kevin

I think I have finally cracked it! I originally had been trying to add the autogen descriptions for each developer via the add-on XML, for example

<AddOn.Component>

<Category>Autogen</Category>

<Path>I:\Prepar3d addons\Addon Scenery\Earth Simulations\ES-3D\Autogen</Path>

</AddOn.Component>

However there seems to be a conflict and although it works to a fashion I don’t think this method plays too well with others or the default P3dV4 autogen descriptions. I had a lot of anomalies OOM’s and CTD!

I copied the Autogen folder from P3d V3 into P3d V4 adding the _Legacy flag, which had been merged previously with other developers descriptions using Fs developers Autogen Configuration Merger.

This method fared better with fewer anomalies but still with issues.

I then done a complete re install of P3d V4 (takes no time with the XML add-on scenery method)

I then tried to use the Autogen Configuration Merger V4 Beta but it was not working for some strange reason.

It appears that the  Autogen folders have to be added via the scenery manager from within P3d. (Autogen Configuration Merger does not see the folder if added via XML). So I removed all the XML links to Autogen,

I removed the _Lecacy flags from the files, run up P3d with Autogen Configuration Merger, this updated my files I then re added the _Legacy flags back to the files.

I now have the P3d V4 Autogen descriptions merged and sceneries working 100% (with Alderney having all the correct folders and files) with no issues anomalies or OOM’s (fingers crossed)

So it seems the method I was using for V3 (using FSDeveloper Autogen Configuration Merger) is the best method for me. (Albeit, having to juggle file names for it to work).

Hope this is of some help

[steve40 7]

I have IOM, IOS and Alderney working perfectly in P3D4 so far (Guernsey is in the mail). The only issue is that in Scilly, the greenhouses are rotated 90 degrees to their footprint on the photoscenery. I can live with that for now.

To fix the vertical waves and water splash effects issue, open the relevant fx files in Notepad and search for the line "Ground Detail=1" and add the line "Ground Decal=1" immediately below it if it is absent. You can use a utility such as Agent Ransack to quickly search all your fx files for "Ground Detail" and then open those files and check them, quite likely you have other legacy addons that may also have the vertical wave or vertical wake bug.

I use the add-ons.xml method for the SimObjects, Effects, Sounds, Textures and "Scenery\Global\Textures" folders, but I use the scenery.cfg method to add the ES "Scenery\World" folder and the rest of the airports, object libraries, and scenery folders.

Regarding custom autogen, like dabba says, the most robust method is to use a single merged autogen folder, not separate autogen folders. I found through extensive testing that having more than about 3 separate autogen folders added using the add-on.xml method will cause conflicts and the P3D won't be able to cope. I have one merged autogen folder for all my addons, added via add-on.xml. I did not rename it by adding "_Legacy" like dabba suggested, and it works 100%.

Here is a brief ES DVD installation guide for P3D4. Adapt as necessary for other sims.

1) put a copy of scenery.cfg into your root Prepar3d v4 folder. The installer looks in there for the file and might choke if it is missing.

2) download and install the latest version v2.5 of ESI from here. Do not install the one on the DVD it will be out of date.

3) unplug your network cable. You want to run the installer in offline mode.

4) run ESI as Administrator and choose your sim version. If you use any version of P3D then choose P3D2 (the last version that was supported before ES folded). If the program falls over at this point, simply browse to the "Earth Simulations\ESI Install" folder and run the P3D version directly from the exe in there, it should work.

5) in ESI, click on the Settings tab. Find the entry for the path to your sim and make sure it is correct (it's probably pointing at P3D2, so manually change it to the correct path for P3D4). Then click save.

6) in the serial number entry, click ADD and manually add the serial number for your DVD. I think it is case sensitive, and make sure to use zeros and not the letter O. Click save again.

7) in the entry for the path to the ESI packs, add a new entry and point it to the FILES folder on your DVD that contains the "*.esi" files. Save again.

8) now browse to the ESI Packs tab and you should see your product, unlocked and with an option to "mark for install" available. Click "mark for install". It might seem that nothing happened other than switching you to a blank web page.

9) Look in the Library tab and you should now see your product is listed there ready to install. Click Install and the installation should begin. Sit back and wait. In my case (I was installing Scilly Isles), only the "Scilly Isles" folders were installed but not all the libraries and custom autogen. I think maybe that was because I already had IOM installed, which uses newer libraries. If you are unsure if the libraries were installed correctly, simply click "repair" on your scenery and it will install the libraries and autogen again.

10) Copy the scenery.cfg file from the root P3D4 folder back to its proper location in your ProgramData folder, then reorder the ES entries as necessary using your favorite scenery library tool.

When I did my installation, I actually ran the ESI installer in a sandbox so I could completely isolate all the ES files and set them up using the add-ons.xml method. You could also try installing into a dummy P3D folder, but I didn't try to see if it works. These latter methods are advanced and 'm not going to describe how to do it this way. Cheers.

[steve40 7]

11 hours ago, steve40 said:

To fix the vertical waves and water splash effects issue, open the relevant fx files in Notepad and search for the line "Ground Detail=1" and add the line "Ground Decal=1" immediately below it if it is absent. You can use a utility such as Agent Ransack to quickly search all your fx files for "Ground Detail" and then open those files and check them, quite likely you have other legacy addons that may also have the vertical wave or vertical wake bug.

 

A small correction, it should be "Ground Normal" not "Ground Detail"

[anatol 0]

Hello, although the topic seemed to be a little bit old, I would like to ask if anybody knows how to use the wonderful earthsimulation sceneries in prepar 4.5. Is there any possibility to make for example the scilly scenery work with prepar 4.5.? In the moment I have an old copy declared in the scenery biblio but autogenvegetation is not visible and the textures of the houses are black. I have copies of the earthsim autogen/as well as an old so called compatibility autogen /perhaps to france vfr - But these autogenfiles doesnt alter the described problem.

Thank you 

Edited November 3, 2019 by anatol

[Kernow 0]

Yes, I have it installed in P3Dv4.5 and it looks fabulous. Just seem to be missing  texture(s) for the lights/light houses but everything else is looking spectacular. It was a cut and paste from an old installation and then I just searched around my back ups until I had everything covered.
Good luck, but it is worth the effort.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Kernow

[Skywolf 992]

Orbx got the assets for this one - they are making a new one

[Christopher Low 5,325]

I wouldn't hold your breath for ORBx versions of Guernsey/Jersey/Isle of Man/Isles of Scilly. I suspect that all of them are on hold, and (sadly) I get the feeling that they may never see the light of day. Thankfully, I have the ES versions of three of those working in P3Dv4, but I have been waiting for a super detailed version of Jersey for ten years!!

[Kernow 0]

Tried to put this up yesterday but I needed to read up on how first!
Flight1 BN-2 coming in over St Marys harbour P3dv4.5/ActiveSky/ESI Scilly Isles.

Happy Flights