one of scenery design's "lighter" moments

[bob.bernstein 0]

tonight I did a bit of object hunting...something that I do now and then...always cracks me up when I find my object in a nearby forest glen.Nowadays we use so many tools that sometimes I lose track of an offset or something, and my objects don't show up where expected. My windsock for my new "crest" project was placed with a simple scasm file that calls a macro that calls a library object. LOL I KNEW that object must be displaying...so...it was a matter of hunting in the bushes...and I found it.LOLBob Bernstein

[arno 1]

Yes, these are the fine moment. I remember once that I placed a static glider at one of my airfields, but I couldn't find it either. In the end it seemed I was inside the glider, because I forgot to enter to correct scale. The gilder had turned up with a length of about 10 km then. These are the moments that make you smile :).

[Guest sapper42]

ROFLMAO, atleast you found yours Bill, i gave up looking for some of mine ! i pressume some poor virtual AI pilot has had some strange things appear on a short final right in the middle of a runway !;0) rgds Jeff

[Guest Shaun Manners]

LOL! Talking of things appearing in the middle of the runway, this was a stray macro when i was doing my scenery some time back. not only was placement an issue but scale too ;)CheersShaunhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/50846.jpg

[Bill Womack 7]

Lol, good one Shaun! I had a similar experience a while back. I had been doing some macro tests and for some reason I had placed the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum's hangar smack dab on the far end of the runway at Ketchikan International. Gave me quite a shock when I started a flight from there later and everything was all dark -- turns out I was inside the hangar! Thanks to spot view, I finally figured it out.

[bob.bernstein 0]

LOL, Great stories folks! I did the exact same thing at an early point on Bowerman field....made the main hangar bigger than the whole dang penninsula! Worked for some many minutes trying to figure out where it went, til I just went for a flight...a short way out imagine my surprise when my "super hangar" appeared!B

[wsieffert 0]

That great! I purchased the Cessna Pilot Center Private Pilot Lessons, which feature John and Martha King. In one of the lesson on Short Field Takeoffs/Landings, they have a runway with a 50 brick wall.I am pretty sure they used MSFS to show the wall using a modified scenery of the airport. Since you run the lesson on your computer, it is grainy anyway so you can't really tell when they switch from the actual aircraft to the MSFS picture of the aircraft flying over (you hope) the wall.W. Sieffert

[Guest Gator40019]

LOL folks,Microsoft is not immune to MOS(missing objects syndrome). Newark airport KEWR is missing a rotating beacon due to being located inside a hanger in the northeast corner of the field. When learning Gmax I made my share of scaling mistakes... Donald Trump would have been proud of the size of my terminals. hehe*:-*

[Guest voscon]

Dear bob.berstein,This is not directly related to your funny post :)I'm looking for areply you gave to 'rockit' re making gmax models into API files with FSREGEN. I lost it, but I recall that you mentioned DX?? texture?.I did not understand it at the time, but had the same prob. as 'rockit'.Could you expand on the texture requirements?P.S: Searching AVSIM laways gets me 'No subject found' advanced , author only, or ahy other search, except the library.Thanks and cheers.voscon

[bob.bernstein 0]

Hi Voscon, don't remember the post you mentioned, but I can brief you on placing a gmax object as a library object. First you need to make a library bgl, but exporting with keep files option ticked, and then process the asm file with the library compiler of Fsregen.Then you compile the resulting output file with bglc.You set the guid when you added the object to the library within fsregen.Calling this is done with a simple scasm file... the newest version of fsregen will do this, you highlight the line of the model of interest, and click "create api".here's an example:___________________________________________________________ ; generated with MAT's Scasm Editor Version 1.0 ; copyright 2001 Area( 5 %1 %2 %3 ) ; Start of library call IfVarRange( : 346 %12 5 ) PerspectiveCall( :Persp ) Jump( : ) :Persp Perspective mif( %11 ) RefPoint( 2 :EndC %4 %1 %2 v1= %10 E= %11 %13 %14 ) melse RefPoint( 7 :EndC %4 %1 %2 v1= %10 %13 %14 ) mifend RotatedCall( :objcall 0 0 %5 ) ; rotate object to user preset :EndCReturn :objcall CallLibObj( 0 AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA 00000004 ) ; call library object Return :EndP EndA ________________________________________________________________Textures are used by GMAX in bmp format, and best results are acheived by converting them to dxt1 format for placing in the texture dir of the addon scenery.Finally let me point out that this technique may not work in future versions of the sim, fs2006 and beyond. If this is important to you, you may want to wait until more sdk componants are released. I think we'll learn how to make library objects differently so we can call them using xml.Bob Bernstein

[Guest voscon]

Dear Bob,Thank you for the quick reply, much appreciated.I was obviously not clear enough with my last post.My problem however is not to create the *.api or library, done that.. It is that AIRPORT3.0 shows it as a square box with a dot in it in plan when introduced as a 3D object, but nothing in FS9.When clicking on it (in AIRPORT)and using edit, it has the name right, the scasm listig shows a macro, but not the form I should see in the plan view either (just that box).==============U mentioned: Textures are used by GMAX in bmp format, and best results are acheived by converting them to dxt1 format for placing in the texture dir of the addon scenery.===============That is my possible problem. What is dxt1 and how do I use it?I hope that that's the solution to my problem. Again, thanks for your help.Cheers,voscon.P.S: I could send files if it would help if you tell me which ones.

[bob.bernstein 0]

dxt1 is a custom directx friendly compression graphics format, beyond that description I'll leave to the more technical folks.Its easy to find utilities to make the conversion for you. One I use all the time is convim.exe from Martin Wright. http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/index.htmAlso at martin's site, you'll see dxtbmp, another wonderful program. AVSIM library has a tool by Elrond Elvish called FSTEXCONV.exe...another great one.Finally MS released Imagetool in one of the fs2k2 sdks...that works also.Try this and if it still doesn't show up, check for the presense of the files...you should have 2 bgls in your scenery folder... one a library bgl, and another the file that calles the object, that one will contain your api (I think you said that one was from airport).I'd be happy to look at the files, but lets see if its something easy first.B

[wsieffert 0]

If you want your object to look like before instead of the square/with dot, open AFW3.0, select the object, select Edit Selected Object, select Edit in the UserAPI area, select Scan API File (right side), and it should generate the line drawn API, select save changes, and you should see the line drawn API on your AFW screen.You might also visit the Airport for Windows Support Forum at www.flightsim.com for more information.W. Sieffert