Missing Scenery Object message help please

[brynjames 0]

I would like to understand just what the Missing Scenery Object message in FS2002 means. I am getting this error with a recently issued add-on airport, and the scenery designer cannot replicate the fault.1.Can it be caused by a missing texture file, or is it caused by some defect in a bgl file? 2.Can the error data output as part of the error message assist end users in tracking down the source of the error? If so, what tools would be needed.3.Is the effect consistent across different machines? There were reports that some people did *not* get the error message when flying from EGDM to the missing Stonehenge at 51:11N 1:51W. I am a novice in the scenery area, so please help if you can :)

[Guest]

missing object is one of the few error messages that you can believe literally.object librarys are interesting bgls. they can reside anywhere in a persons scenery folders, in any default scenery file or in any addon scenery file. When a calling command is made for an object, all the libraries are searched, if not found you get that message.Perhaps in this case, the author has used an object that is called from a library he put in his default scenery directory. Or perhaps he included a note in his readme of a library you must add from a different place, like Gerrish Grey tree library, for example.in anycase, its a literal message...Bob Bernstein

[brynjames 0]

Thanks Bob, that is very helpful.Could you confirm that all object libraries are bgl files, so I don't need to look for obscure missing textures?

[Guest]

yes, thats right

[brynjames 0]

Thanks Bob, that is good news for me.Any suggestions about how I can use the error code to help me (or the designer) track down just which object is missing?

[Guest]

that's harder....you can determine which scenery is causing it but its some trial and error. Disable the scenery you suspect and see if you get the error.Once you know which it is, if its someone's third party work, study their readme, should have a mention for a library file, if not, perhaps the bgl disassembly programs may work.Other folks will have a better answer here. I've had the problem, but it's always my own work in progress so I know which it is.Bob Bernstein

[brynjames 0]

Thanks again for your patient answers to my naive questions :)After your last message I found bglanalyze and converted the offending bgl to scasm code. (I knew which one it was because there was only one bgl plus an exclude file in the airport scenery giving me the error message).I hoped I would be able to find some lines in the scasm output that had the same address as given by the FS error message, but no luck. If I could identify which of the 40 objects in the scasm code was not on my hard disk, I could tell the designer, but short of deleting one object at a time from the scasm and recompiling, I don't know where to go next.The key question still seems to be: what can the address strings in the error message tell me? MS must have put them in for a reason....maybe.

[Guest]

objects in library bgls are known by a 32 character address, in 4 groups of 8 hexidecimal digits. These are random...they are just a name.you should see that sequence if you are looking at the right bgl.you could post the error message and the output of bganalyse.Bob

[Guest GerrishGray]

Hi thereAs Bob says, please let us know (a) which scenery is giving you the problem, and (:( the 32-character ID of the missing object, as given in the error message. One of us may then be able to tell you what the missing object is and which library file is missing. Who knows, maybe it's one of my trees?RegardsGerrish

[Guest]

0x4E6F7661, 0x54726565, 0x4C696231, 0x0000003EThis is the bad boy for Bryn, anyone recognize it?Bob Bernstein

[Guest GerrishGray]

Now we have the object ID, the answer is easy.The missing object is a lamp from the NovaLib1.bgl library. That bgl should be installed in your scenery folder. If you don't already have the Nova stuff, you can get it from www.fsnova.comRegardsGerrish

[brynjames 0]

Thanks, Gerrish, have just come back from holiday and found your welcome message in the forum archive.You were quite right; I had all the Nova textures, but had missed that one essential bgl file which was buried in a zip with macros which I assumed were only required by designers.What is the secret? :) How were you able to relate the hex code object ID to that specific missising bgl? If I knew that, it might save me some problems in the future.

[Guest GerrishGray]

Hi BrynHope you had a nice holiday!The object ID is actually a 128-bit binary number, but some of us construct them by using a sequence of 16 'readable' ACSII characters. This is the case with Rafael Sanchez's Nova Library. So what I do to diagnose these problems is convert the hexadecimal representation of the ID into a sequence of 16 ASCII characters and see if it makes any sense.There is also a useful little utility called libview.exe which can be used to show the ID's of each 'section 10' object contained in a library BGL. It was written by Manfred Moldenhauer, the author of SCASM, and is available at the SCASM site www.scasm.deSection 10 library objects are a sadly neglected aspect of scenery design. Many types of 'section 9' visual scenery object can usefully be converted to a re-usable section 10 object with a worthwhile improvement in speed (i.e. faster frame rates). This has been confirmed by careful testing. In the case of objects which are repeated many times in the scenery the improvements can be quite dramatic, but even a one-off object benefits to a small extent if it is fairly complex. This technique is widely used by Microsoft in the default scenery but, amazingly, is rarely exploited by third-party designers despite all the endless carping and discussion that goes on about frame rates!Several of the GUI 3D object design tools (e.g. Nova, EOD) provide a facility to compile objects as section 10 libraries, and the wonderful FSRegen utility does the same for gMax designers, and yet still nobody much seems to bother. I think that one of the main causes is probably a failure by the authors of the scenery design tools such as Airport for Windows, FS Architect, FS Scenery Creator, Groundmaker etc. to include any simple, direct, facility for placing section 10 objects into a scenery design, despite the fact that this is extremely easy to do! The only available method at the moment is to use an API (or SCM) macro.CheersGerrish

[brynjames 0]

Thanks for the excellent description.Next time, I'll drag out the ASCII table before yelling for help. As you suggested, the Nova Lib1 reference was right there in the hex code staring me in the face. I found the LibView tool - very neat.