I keep having issues with scenery, and it's because I'm an ignoramus as to how it's supposed to work. Could someone please pretend I'm extremely stupid (which, at least in this matter, I am 😉 ) and explain it to me?

My understanding is that in the scenery tab, whatever's higher on the list takes priority over what's lower on the list. I would think this means that if I download an add-on airport from a freeware designer that doesn't have an installer which does everything for me, if I put that airport at the top of the list, it should negate that airport in the default (or orbx, depending) scenery so that I only see the add-on.

But what usually happens is that the airport ends up being layered on top of the default scenery so that I end up with 2 of each taxiway sign, 1 copy of which gets moved enough to be in the middle of the new taxiways. It's a total mess and looks terrible.

So the next thing that would seem obvious to me is that I should go and find the file for the default airport and rename the extension so that p3d doesn't load it anymore. But how do I do that? I look in the .bgl folder and I see a bunch of alphanumeric file names. What's the procedure for figuring out what to turn off and where to find it?

I'm sure the explanation is very simple, but I just haven't grasped it yet. Thanks in advance.

 

12 minutes ago, eslader said:

I keep having issues with scenery, and it's because I'm an ignoramus as to how it's supposed to work. Could someone please pretend I'm extremely stupid (which, at least in this matter, I am 😉 ) and explain it to me?

My understanding is that in the scenery tab, whatever's higher on the list takes priority over what's lower on the list. I would think this means that if I download an add-on airport from a freeware designer that doesn't have an installer which does everything for me, if I put that airport at the top of the list, it should negate that airport in the default (or orbx, depending) scenery so that I only see the add-on.

But what usually happens is that the airport ends up being layered on top of the default scenery so that I end up with 2 of each taxiway sign, 1 copy of which gets moved enough to be in the middle of the new taxiways. It's a total mess and looks terrible.

So the next thing that would seem obvious to me is that I should go and find the file for the default airport and rename the extension so that p3d doesn't load it anymore. But how do I do that? I look in the .bgl folder and I see a bunch of alphanumeric file names. What's the procedure for figuring out what to turn off and where to find it?

I'm sure the explanation is very simple, but I just haven't grasped it yet. Thanks in advance.

 

Hi,

a few quick remarks:

1. a scenery on a higher layer does not automatically "negate" everything below it. The developer of the airport must create an "exclusion" that covers the geographical location of his design, and that will then cancel whatever assets it has been designed to cancel. In your case, it looks like the exclusions are either not present, not working (=not compatible) or in the wrong place.
2. You cannot disable default airports just like that. Every BGL file can contain a multitude of airports at the same time, and the default files usually do. You can use ADE to find out in which BGL the default airport resides - but there can be 20 others in there too.
3. There is no rule for naming BGL files. You cannot rely on the APT, CVX etc. filenames from the default library. A developer can name a BGL anything he wants.

Best regards

 

Edited September 13, 20196 yr by Lorby_SI

The only thing that can result in such overlays is if the scenery is not designed properly and does not exclude the things you see twice. Without naming specific examples, it will be hard to provide you support, what airports are you talking about?

Then, what is also utterly confusing and might lead to issues: while you are right about the layering regarding the scenery.cfg (things on top should "overrule" things below), in the addon.cfg it is exactly opposite, it will be read by the sim top down, means the lower the entry, the higher the "priority".

Now with more and more sceneries being implemented using the add-on.xml approach depending on the addon.cfg, things might be inversed on first glance...

3 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Then, what is also utterly confusing and might lead to issues: while you are right about the layering regarding the scenery.cfg (things on top should "overrule" things below), in the addon.cfg it is exactly opposite, it will be read by the sim top down, means the lower the entry, the higher the "priority".

Now with more and more sceneries being implemented using the add-on.xml approach depending on the addon.cfg, things might be inversed on first glance...

...or you add Layer tags and the sequence in the file doesn't matter at all. It didn't matter in the scernery.cfg either, only the Layer= part decided where the scenery is located priority wise.

Best regards

5 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Without naming specific examples, it will be hard to provide you support, what airports are you talking about?

CYZF is one. https://militaryaiworks.com/briefing-room/yellowknife-airport-cyzf-fsx-p3d  

is the addon.

 

I'm not sure what version of Prepar3D you're using but Prepar3D v4 is not supported with this product. 

 

2 hours ago, eslader said:

CYZF is one. https://militaryaiworks.com/briefing-room/yellowknife-airport-cyzf-fsx-p3d  

is the addon.

The 'stock' scenery files in use for this airport are :

\your P3D location\Scenery\0201\scenery\APX17090.bgl

...and if you have ORBX :

\your P3D location\ORBX\FTX_GLOBAL\FTX_FTXG_AIRPORTS\Scenery\ADE_FTX_FTXG_CYZF.BGL

You can try renaming one or both of the above .BGL files to something temporary but with a different file type such as .OFF, then restart your P3D and see what the airport looks like.  

If you are new at this, suggest you make a backup of the directory beforehand, so that you can undo the changes if you are not pleased with the results.  

cheers, 

On 9/13/2019 at 9:26 AM, eslader said:

CYZF is one. https://militaryaiworks.com/briefing-room/yellowknife-airport-cyzf-fsx-p3d  

is the addon.

 

In addition to what was said above, you might consider opening that scenery's ADE file in ADE, and adding a big exclusion rectangle over the entire airport, excluding, among possibly other things, taxiway signs.   You'll want to identify and back up the ADE file before you make any changes.

 

23 hours ago, joby33y said:

...and if you have ORBX :

\your P3D location\ORBX\FTX_GLOBAL\FTX_FTXG_AIRPORTS\Scenery\ADE_FTX_FTXG_CYZF.BGL

This got me on the right track. There were a few other cyzf files as well that it took awhile to find, including an objects file, but once I renamed them all the airport started behaving itself. Thanks very much!

And thanks to everyone else too - I have a better understanding of how all this works now.

 

Glad it worked out ! 

If you don't already have the awesome freeware tool known as 'Little Nav Map', give it a try.  Upon installation, it will load/read your P3D scenery database.  At that point, you can type in an airport code in the search box, and the resulting 'information' window will show each scenery file AND file path/ location on your hard drive for that particular airport / facility. (note: to see the files list, you must scroll all the way to the bottom of the info pane).  This makes it simple to determine which files are active / possibly conflicting, and I use it all the time to solve problems such as the one you had.  

cheers, 

I messed with that years ago when I was still on FSX, and quit because it kept crashing out (more my system's fault than LNM's, I'm sure). I liked the moving map feature so I didn't have to zoom in on the GPS on the main monitor. I never realized it would reveal relevant scenery files. I'm gonna have to grab that again!