Repositioning default FS9 objects (like the golden gate bridge)

[Guest Ruahrc]

With the release of Ultimate Terrain and with it finally the realization of widespread, accurate water and road features, yet another limitation of FS9 comes to light. All of the custom static scenery objects (such as downtown buildings, stadiums, bridges, dams, etc) in FS9 were placed according to the default terrain- which was inaccurate. Since the UT terrain has now shifted the terrain to accurate, real-world locations, these static FS9 objects are drawn incorrectly (buildings in the water, bridges sprouting off of cliffs and ending in water, etc).The developer of UT (While proving top-class support for this product) has said that moving such objects at this time was beyond the scope of his scenery product. I was wondering if I (and hopefully can inspire others to do the same?) could try my hand at moving some of these objects myself. This has been done a couple of times previously for objects in Ultimate Terrain Canada (for example van_object_corr_ut.zip here on avsim).I would love to give this a try myself but have no experience working with FS9 static macros. In the past I have done some Ground2k4 LWM/VTP work as well as some landclass work- and a very tiny excursion into SCASM scenery... but I have not worked with XML scenery or these default FS9 objects before. Does anyone have any hints, instructions, info, or links to which I might get started on such a project?The file I mentioned above contains the xml source for the scenery bgl in the download... I took a look at it and from it I believe I can figure out enough XML coding to accomplish this task (merely creating excludes and single scenery objects) but I don't know anything about the nature of these default scenery objects. Any help or guidance you guys can provide would be great!What I was kind of envisioning was for this thread to be is a guide or a how-to of sorts for people interested in moving these out-of-place objects within the Ultimate Terrain (and other scenery project) areas.Ruahrc

[jonpatch 1]

Hi Ruahrc,I'll provide a brief summary of what I did for the Vancouver corrections for Ultimate Terrain:1. Identify objects in the area of interest which I determined were Microsoft default objects. In Vancouver I identified the Lion's Gate and Burrard Bridges, and several major buildings. Note that Steps 4 and 5 below can also help identify the buildings.2. Download the BGL Comp SDK from Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimul...wnloads_sdk.asp. This SDK includes BGLComp.exe and BGLComp.xsd which you will use to compile your XML3. In that SDK is an Excel file called LibraryObjects.xls. Peruse that file to see if you can find your object by name. If so note the 32-character GUID.4. Examine the appropriate scenery folder to find a .BGL file by name. For example, San Francisco can be found in the scenery/namw/scenery folder (namw = North American West) as SanFran.bgl.5. Use BGLXML to decompile this file and determine the GUID ("name=")of the objects in question. Here's one Vancouver object, found in scenery/namw/scenery/Vancouv.bgl. Microsoft provides comments to help identify the object, but sometimes they are not as clear as this. 6. In FS9, Identify the NW and SE coordinates of a box slightly larger than the object in question.7. In XML (or your favourite exclusion program) create exclusions specific to library objects around the objects in question. It is necessary to ensure that the entire object was enclosed by the exclude box.8. From airphotos or other accurate sources, determine the accurate position and orientation of the object. Accurate roads, such as from Ultimate Terrain, can help with positioning.9. In XML (or your favourite object positioning program), using the GUIDs you have obtained, reposition the object.So in summary, you are not moving objects, you are excluding the MS object and replacing it with the same object at a different location.Below is the XML to exclude the Lion's Gate Bridge, and place it in the right location. In SanFran.bgl I believe you will find the Golden Gate Bridge as "Golden".There's a few steps to go through, but once you've done it a couple of times, it's very quick.Note that Microsoft also uses generic buildings to approximate real buildings. Those you just have to exclude and rebuild. In Vancouver I think there were 50 or more.Jon

[arno 1]

>Microsoft>provides comments to help identify the object, but sometimes>they are not as clear as this.Actually it is not MS that provides these comments, as no comments are stored in the BGL files. BGLXML has a list (simple text file) included that maps the GUID to the name. Probably it is just the Excel sheet exported to a plain text file :).

[jonpatch 1]

Thanks for the clarification Arno; it did seem odd that comments could be stored in code!Jon

[mgh 89]

The UK VFR Scenery as supplied excludes all the FS default objects in the UK on installation. I don't know how they are excluded - individually or globally. They are not repositioned.From my recollection of the default objects, many seemed to be out of scale so there may be more work involved to reposition them.

[arno 1]

Hi Jon,>Thanks for the clarification Arno; it did seem odd that>comments could be stored in code!At first I hoped it would be like that, as that would make reading a BGL into ObPlacer to fill the tree view a lot easier. But it is not the case :). So after a bit of searching I noticed the file that does the translation from GUID to name.

[jonpatch 1]

Yup, I've seen threads on the scale issue, and the generic buildings in Vancouver are 50% to 100% too large. One building is almost three times too tall! But the default objects are reasonably accurate.Rescaling in any case is easy in XML or most object positioning programs.Jon