Problems with Ultimate Terrain X Europe in P3Dv4 and v5

[Ray Proudfoot 8,976]

7 minutes ago, BBCM said:

I don't have UTX installed, but when I was porting over FSX airport sceneries to P3Dv4, I had the same problem, no taxiways showing in the ported over sceneries. I solved this by using ADE to reset all the draw flags to on (there's lots of tutorials and threads around about how to do this). It was fairly simple. Apparently the FSX SDK doesn't require the flags to be on for it's bgl's to work, but the P3D SDK is more stringent. 

I don't know if that's any help at all, but just a thought.

-Bob

Hi Bob. That’s great! Thank you very much. I shall search for the procedure and try it. If it’s not too laborious then it’s worth the effort. My main reason for wanting this fixed is the additional parking positions that are provided with these AFCADs. Having AIG Ai means there’s plenty of flights into even quieter airports like Genoa. But fixing the taxiways would be great.

4 minutes ago, FOD said:

Ray

Being an old fogey, I don’t like chucking anything away. So I still have a full FSX install on my PC inc UTX etc etc. Checked LIMJ and all the taxiways are there along with all the parking spots.

Scenery files are the same FSX and P3D and from what I have seen between airfields showing taxiways and those not, I suspect a texture problem in the move fro FSX to P3D

...........?

John

Thanks for confirming it’s fine in FSX. It sounds like Flight 1 couldn’t be bothered fixing the AFCADs for P3D. Whilst the files are the same the way they’re handled by P3D differs as Bob has confirmed.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,976]

Hi Bob, I couldn't wait until tomorrow so have just finished resetting the Taxi Link Draw  flags as per your advice. Yes, the taxiways have returned but there's another problem.

There are unknown objects in the BGL which AFD cannot recognise. When I compile the file I see a warning about "black box" objects won't be included. And right enough they don't appear in P3D. I suspect I need the Pro Key to be able to separate the various elements within the AFCAD file so everything appears in the sim.

https://scruffyduck.screenstepslive.com/s/help_docs/m/20268/l/274810-conditional-compile-1-65-requires-prokey

Any thoughts?

[BBCM 42]

Sorry Ray, far beyond my knowledge of ADE and scenery object design. However, I did a Google search for "ade black box objects", and a number of threads came up.

From what I gather on a quick read through, it means the "black box" objects aren't in ADE's LOM (Library Object Manager), so it can't compile them. You need to point ADE's LOM to the unique object library being used by the airport scenery in question and add those new objects to the ADE library. You can then run ADE again to recompile the airport, and the objects should appear this time....at least as I understand from a quick read through. Of course, I'm sure there's more involved than this, but perhaps this can point in the right direction.

I should maybe have added to my original post to do a back up of the bgl before using ADE on it, since ADE writes directly into that bgl. 

I used ADE a long while back to fix the taxiways when I was porting over the old PW Caribbean Island sceneries to P3Dv4, but I guess PW had used standard FSX library objects for the airports, as I don't recall any black box warnings when compiling.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

-Bob

 

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,976]

@BBCM, thanks Bob. Your suggestion to search for those key words has pointed me to this topic which I think will be enough for me to resolve the problem.

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/black-boxes-sometimes.437897/

Regarding saving the BGL the ones I create are prefixed with my initials and placed in a separate folder to the original. I rename the extensions of unwanted BGLs so they're ignored but remain in place should they be needed.

More later. Oh, and still no reply from Flight 1 support on the Simforums site. Seems they're not bothered.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,976]

I suspect I'm out of luck with this project. Having pointed ADE to all the probable locations where library objects might be stored for UTX the black boxes continue to show.

It has been suggested in another topic on the ADE forum that these library objects may not have been supplied with UTX given it was originally produced for FSX.

So I can either have taxiways with missing terminal buildings or have those buildings but without taxiways. Ho hum.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,976]

I've decided my best course of action is to add extra parking positions to the default P3Dv5 LIMJ. All the buildings are there and given the age of UTX they might be more up to date.

Looking at the AFD there are no black objects so it should be a straight-forward enough job.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,976]

I've successfully added extra parking positions and all seems well. Flight1 replied saying they were aware of the taxiway problem and had notified the developer. That was Jan 2018 so I think we can safely assume no updates will be forthcoming.

Probably makes more sense creating my own using P3Dv5 than 10 year-old FSX data.

 

[Bob Scott 7,721]

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere in the thread, but UTX has a menu option to individually disable its repositioning of airports (a number of airfields were moved, e.g. to accomodate their corrections in coastlines so the airfield isn't protruding out into the water).  It's accessed in the UTX setup tool under Terrain -> Modify Status of Repositioned Airports.  LFTH is indeed one of the airfields that is listed as having been repositioned by UTX.

Given that UTX was built with the old 2006 FSX scenery database and that P3Dv5 included a fairly comprehensive rework of the entire worldwide database, I wonder if disabling them all globally wouldn't be appropriate when using UTX with P3Dv5.

[Bob Scott 7,721]

Regarding missing taxiways when using airport files created for FSX in P3D, there's a well-known issue with the taxiway draw flags not being set (FSX ignores them, where P3D respects and acts on the flag setting).  ADE includes a one-click tool for fixing that--in ADE, select Lists -> Taxi Links and click on the "Reset All Draw Flags" button.

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,976]

@w6kd, thanks Bob for both posts. I have learned about the taxiway flag thing earlier this week and have applied that change. But as you point out the airport data is probablt circa 2006 so it makes more sense to use P3Dv5 core data instead. In the case of LIMJ the runway designations had also changed and P3D had the correct ones.

I've decided to disable the EurAirport layer in scenery.cfg. It remains a nice utility for accurate coastlines, roads, rivers etc.