BGLC Exclude Problems

[Guest]

I've been trying out Ground2K, and discovered a problem using excludes. They only seem to work in certain areas of the world. The tested areas are away from airport scenery. I've included the top left co-ords:These work:---------- United Kingdom EGNC N54:56:53.60 W02:51:14.29 India VAAK N19:57:57.30 E77:20:41:00 VADN N19:57:59.00 E72:41:21.50 VOMM N13:00:58.94 E80:13:40.59 Australia YMMB S37:57:21.78 E145:00:52.62 YMER S36:53:45.00 E149:51:23.30These don't:----------- New Zealand NZAA S36:54:14:63 E174:38:23.16 NZRA S37:46:15.55 E174:50:04.60 NZUN S36:57:41.80 E175:52:27.55 Myanmar VYME N11:32:51.45 E98:42:39.15 Indonesia WIMM N03:40:19.80 E98:57:54.72 WAMT N00:02:38.00 E127:50:29.00Lines and polys work well in all areas, only excludes seem to have problem areas. I've tried excluding coastlines and roads. It's probably not the exclude mask - I tried all combos in the 'bad' areas with no luck; in the 'good' areas just the specific exclude was enough. I also don't think it's a priority issue either, as the 'good' areas don't care where I place the exclude BGL.Maybe there is a problem with BGLC or the macro headers. I have been trying out areas to see if there is a pattern effecting certain latitudes or longitudes, but it takes time to test each new area. Can someone shed some light on this problem? I can provide sample files if necessary.CheersAndrew

[Guest fumey]

Send me your .LWM (without bitmap)christian.fumey@wanadoo.fr

[Guest]

Christian responded by email telling me to check the scenery hierarchy/priority again, and of course this was the solution to my problem.I think the point of scenery priority needs to be reiterated. I'm still not clear of the scenery class priority differences between Mesh, Landclass, LWM, VTP 1/2. Perhaps someone can clarify the order and the best places to put each type of scenery file.It seems that excludes must have a lower priority than the default FS scenery. I assumed that placing all landclass type BGL's inside the default country scenery folder was the best place as it was all of the same type. e.g. I have all my mesh and landclass BGL's inside the country scenery folder as recommended by the developer and have never had problems. It seems the excludes might be the exception (excuse the pun). It's sort of like we're telling FS to load the default scenery but don't show it - or maybe it does it in several passes; i.e. it draws it than removes it, which would be inefficient - if this is the case.Anyway, I placed the excludes inside a normal user scenery folder, way down the priority list, and they still work even if there's an associated Texture folder as well.Andrew

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Andrew.The FS2002 Terrain SDK is very specific about the datastream and it's importance with VTP/LWM design.Precedence is created by the order of the scenery in the Scenery Library first. Lower numbers ( lower in the Libray display ) are first.Then, in the same scenery folder, precedence is alphanumeric. I always name my scenery project's VTP exclude BGL as "aaExfilename.bgl"... the 'aa' will place that precedence first in that folder.Within a single BGL, VTP/LWM precedence is given in the order the poly or line is entered in code... with the last poly or line being drawn on the top of that Layer. So, the first poly drawn is covered by subsequent polys. Ground2K forces you to specify the "imbrication" ( drawing order ) of the polys... not a bad thing.Also, there are 101 possible VTP Layers, with 0 on the bottom, and 100 drawn on the top.So in the top Library folder entry, the last-in-order alphanumeric-named BGL, the last drawn, highest Layered poly will always be displayed on top of everything else.Dick

[Shaka 2]

Hello all,I have two airports where I was trying to exclude the airport skirting. The first airport I created a while ago, and I can not remember which program I used to exclude it, but it worked fine.Now I'm working on a new airport and am using Ground2K to do the Landclass, etc. But I am having the same problem with excluding the airport skirting as was mentioned above and I can't figure it out. My exclude BGL is in the same directory as the other scnery I created for the airport (the same way I distributed it last time). After reading what Dick wrote above, I tried renaming it "aa...." and I tried moving the scenery around in the priority list, but nothing seems to work. It was at #1, but even when I moved it down to my other scenery's priority (around 15) it istill didn't work.I understand that we are trying to exclude layer 4 for the airport skirting. I do not understand the BGLC language well enough, but from the code that Ground2K generated, it doesn't sem to be specifically "excluded" it just gets "skipped over". After reading through the SDK, I was thinking that a "bReplace:1" would overwrite the data in that layer with nothing, thereby erasing it. Reading through the code, it almost looks like the opposite is happening.To me, I thought that:VTPDataArea......VTPLayer 4,1... would exclude layer 4 from that cell.Well, here's a very small amount of source code to read through:;--------------------------------------------------; Ground2K (Exclude) : Generated on 21/05/2003 12:46:05 PM;--------------------------------------------------include TDFMacros.incinclude TDFHeaders.incBGLHeader 19, 17, 100, 97, TerrainHeaderStart, VTPHeaderVTPHeader label word VTPFileHeader 256, VTPIndexStart, TextureStart, VTPEndVTPStart label word datamark_v0 label word VTPDataArea 4, 0, 4, 18 VTPLayer 8, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 VTPLayer 16, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 VTPLayer 31, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 VTPLayer 32, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 VTPDataArea 4, 0, 3, 21 VTPLayer 8, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 VTPLayer 16, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 VTPLayer 31, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 VTPLayer 32, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 VTPDataArea 4, 0, 4, 21 VTPLayer 8, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 VTPLayer 16, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 VTPLayer 31, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 VTPLayer 32, 1 VTPNumTexturesInLayer 0, 0 datamark_v1 label word;----------------------------------------------Cellv_595_202 EQU VTPCellID 0, 595, 202;---------------------------------------------- VTPIndexStart label word VTPIndexHeader 1, VTPIndexData, VTPStart VTPIndexData label word VTPIndexEntry Cellv_595_202, VTPStart, datamark_v0, datamark_v1;-----------------------------TextureStart label word VTPTextureListHeader 1, TextureIndexStart, TextureDataStart, TextureDataEndTextureIndexStart label word VTPTextureListEntry TextureDataStart, texturemark_0, texturemark_1TextureDataStart label word texturemark_0 label word VTPTextureName "1162" VTPTextureType 2, 0, 0, 4 texturemark_1 label wordTextureDataEnd label word; ------------------------------VTPEnd label wordWell, I apreciate if you've read this far. What am I doing wrong? Maybe someone could post an example of how to properly exclude the skirting?- Martin

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Martin.You must not have checked the right layer... that code shows no VTPLayer 4.http://forums.avsim.com/user_files/11176.jpgDick

[Shaka 2]

I am a complete moron.Yeah, that's what it was. Although I had used Ground2K before (correctly) I somehow got it in my mind that the checked boxes were what you wanted to KEEP. It never occured to me that I might be using the program wrong. Even after reading through the source code and realizing that there was a problem, I bever suspected that it was something so basic as this.Thank you again Dick, you deserve some sort of award for all the help you've given people here in the forum. Now I'll go finish my humility sandwich...- Martin

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Martin.It should occur to you, I knew the answer because I've done it myself. :)Dick