A couple of questions for scenery gurus.

[Guest]

Hello.I have been playing around with JHW/Albion Scenery's Cardiff Wales (EGFF) for a while now, but am getting in a tangle.The scenery comes with some statics that I do not want, so I deconstructed the BGL using BGLAnalyze. I then went throught the resulting Scasm file and removed all references to the statics. This worked perfectly, however, I have lost the flat taxiways in the process. The Bumpy tool doesn't work, because there are some parts of the scasm file it has problems with (I have contacted the author about this). So that is problem one!I created problem 2 myself, I read that flattening the area might might help with the taxiways, but it didn't work. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to remove the flatten square I added to the Cardiff scenery entry....even after I have removed the Cardiff scenery area and flushed all references to Cardiff out of the various scenery configs, I still have a perfect square of land at the hight that I requested.So two questions....What is the best way to flatten taxiways without using bumpy (I tried adding a large hidden runway, but that didn't seem to work either)??Can anyone suggest how I can flush that flatten information out?Thanks if anyone can help.

[Guest Tony_A]

Hi Daniel, You don't say what program you used to flatten the area and I don't think the original author of the scenery you removed the "statics" from would be too willing to help you. Whoever this is would have the best knowledge of his/her scenery creation and you should have contacted him/her and asked permission or help to remove the "statics". I personally don't like "statics" as they just seem to me to eat up frame rates and only look pretty or sometimes "pretty bloody awful" when you get close-up to them. They also occupy parking spaces, usually in the prime positions, if you want to add AI to your Airport. Now, to your problem. You've got a square flat area in your scenery so you MUST have a xxxxxxx.bgl that you have either created or altered somewhere in your scenery files, or FS2K2 would just display the basic stock standard airport, but you only mention "Bumpy" as a program you have used on whatever files you have produced from de-compiling the original .bgl and you reckon that Bumpy doesn't work. The only thing I can suggest is that you spend a bit of time working with Airport for Windows or FSSC or Architect or whatever program you are using and try to sort it out. All of these programs have a pretty steep "learning curve", which means they take a while to learn. If you keep plugging away at it, you will work it out. .... Tony

[Guest]

I have spoken to JHW himself and he says he has lost the source code, so can't do anything (I respect the designers' decision btw, as the original hard work is his own and it is up to him if chooses/is able to develop his work or not). I have sent JHW a copy of my semi-fixed BGL, as I have also been able to fix an incorrect file reference from the source that means a previously blank car park area is fixed, but I haven't heard anything back. I read about decompiling the bgl in another forum as a method for removing statics. I thought that I could solve the bumpy problem by adding a flatten switch in the scenery config in the entry for Cardiff, but all I managed was a big rectangle at the specified coordinates I now can't remove! I also thought just adding a hidden runway in the AFCAD may work, but like you say, it looks like I need one of the actual design programs to help me.BTW...the reason I am so taken on a minor regional airport is that it is my "home" fs airport and the statics really slow things down and I am also a serious ProjectAI monster!!I was just wandering if there was a quick and simple way of loosing the bumpies if "bumpy" didn't work and I didn't have acces to any of the design programs.Well.....if not, I will just live with the off road feel, or I could even work out how to design my own version, but like you say....it is a long learning curve!Thanks for your reply!

[arno 1]

You say you tried to add an invisible runway with AFCAD, but that is not the correct solution. You must add it with a design program like FSSC (as AFCAD has no influence on the visual scenery). If you try to add a invisible runway there it should fix your problem.Also, you can try the simple tip on my website to make a SurfaceType BGL (I know Bumpy doesn't work, but that is because of the structure of the decompiled source).

[Guest]

Hello.....sorry....I didn't read the instructions to add the extra bgl properly when I last visited your site. I will have another go. I don't know much about scenery design, so get in a muddle quite quickly at the mo.

[Guest]

I'm no guru, but may be able to offer a suggestion. Regarding removing static scenery (such as aircraft), as good as BGLAnalyze is, it doesn't reverse all code - as you've noticed.I used 3D-REMOVER by Torsten Wille ('remover10.zip' on AVSIM). This is a much tidier way of removing scenery without mucking up the bits you want to keep. Either search for an object's texture or remove by object number (you can use your bglanalyze dump for this).Just remember, after you remove an object the following object numbers get sorted down. e.g. remove object 5 from total of 10 and so now obj 6 becomes 5 - and so forth. If you start with the highest object number first and work backwards, you won't have any problems.It worked brilliantly removing default FS buildings from my local airport so I didn't have to create excludes that interfered with addon scenery.Andrew

[Guest]

Andrew!This util is WONDERFUL!! Did exactly what I wanted. Thanks for passing on that info. I will go and mention this on the ProjectAi forum as I'm sure it will save countless scenery developers being constantly naggeg by AI-heads about their statics!!Many thanks again!