Mesh problem

[Guest daveg4otu]

I posted this originally in the main forum where it got a zero response so will try again here I am trying to track down a suspected "bad" bgl in my scenery library that is giving rise to an area of elevated Lakes and airfields near to the Adirondack regional airport (KSLK). I believe this may be a legacy of some addon USA mesh installed a good while ago and subsequently deleted - this mesh made by Rob Gainer, appeared in various places and had faults giving rise to odd effects often thousands of miles away. When I installed this mesh I just placed everything in the Scenery/World /Scenery folder - not the way I would do it nowadays- I now keep all addons seperate in case of problems like this.I thought I had deleted it all but by chance I discovered this small area of odd terrain effects around KSLK(Airfields and lakes on Plateaux)- I think there must still be a rogue .bgl in the folder -now I'm trying to find the bgl responsible.It would help me to know a few things.......1: If anyone else has had this effect at or near KSLK can they confirm that it was down to the scenery I mention above- or if not then what did cause it?2: Does anyone know if his (RGs )Mesh is still available anywhere (I long ago deleted the .zips)- the idea being that I could d/l it - and check the file names within it then search for them on my PC to see if by chance one(or more) remain.I would like to fix this if I can - merely because it's there although this is not an area in which I normally fly.Dave

[Guest jimkeir]

Hi.Ah, yes. I think he meant well but made some mistakes and didn't seem to do much testing.I can't give you the default scenery library lists, because A) I'm at work and :( my FS9 installation has been hacked apart more than one of Freddy Kruger's victims. However, some suggestions:From the sounds of it, the lakes and airports are correct and the default mesh has been clobbered. Lakes and airport flattens are stored in different files and it's not that common for people to change both of them over large areas to match different mesh. It also ties in with one of Rob's more common mistakes which reduced the terrain to sealevel, leaving lakes and airports on pedestals.If you can remember which package it was, try doing a Google search for it. Most of Rob's work is still available in various places and, if you can find the original package you installed, you can get the filenames and then just search for them and delete anything you find.If that doesn't work, since everything's in the World folder you're just going to have to find it manually. Search for files which have noticeably different dates than the others in the folder, noticeably different names or suspiciously suitable names (USA1_MESH.BGL, GAINER_USA3.BGL etc. or just possibly something Alaskan, I think that one zapped most of the USA). Most of the default FS mesh files (I can't remember if they're under World or Base) are named according to their coordinates, like "N45E030.bgl" . The exceptions are clearly named - I can't remember an example, but they're usually place names. A typical mesh file will be several megabytes; a typical Gainer mesh file could be anywhere up to 100Mb+ . Probably the fastest way to check if you've got the right file is to load it into TMFViewer (from Microsoft) or [a href=http://www.jimkeir.co.uk/FlightSim]LWMViewer[/a] (from, er, me) and see if it affects the right area. Particularly with lightsourcing switched on in LWMViewer, large areas of flat colour mean large areas of flat terrain. If you associate BGL files with LWMViewer you'll only need to double-click on each file to open it. That's done with the "Open With..." dialog, Browse to wherever you've put LWMViewer and make sure the "Always use this program" checkbox is checked. Doing this won't cause any harm to FS, it only affects what program is used when you double-click a BGL. You can also just drop files on the LWMViewer window once it's started.Once you think you've found the right one, *DON'T* delete it! Move it somewhere else, the desktop will do, and start FS. If the elevation has returned to normal, you've got the right one. If not, put it back where you found it and keep going. Sorry I can't be more specific, but with many addons placed together in one of the default folders it's just going to take a bit of legwork to identify the correct file.HTH,Jim Keir

[Guest daveg4otu]

Thanks for all that advice Jim - I'll follow it thru and see what gives. You've possibly hit the nail on the head - the Alaskan mesh was the one I tried - rejected it because of similar faults showing up in the Tucson area(Everything on Plateaux).Nowadays all my addon stuff is eperated - but at the time it was my first experience on addon mesh -and came with minimal instructions so installation was trial and error.Thanks againDave

[Guest sgreenwood]

Hi Dave, My descriptions of the FS2004 default mesh may help. (It includes file and folder names.) You can download it here.http://www.fs-traveler.com/resources-g.shtmlSteve

[Guest daveg4otu]

Again thankyou bothSo far - using the LWM Viewer I have managed to define the area as being between N44 and N45 and the relevant terrain data file is dw120n45.bgl. It cuts a neatly defined slice straight across the country side(presumably as far as 120W?). Everything at close range is basically dead flat with the lakes etc on their plateaux.The hills and mountains show up in the distance but as you get closer - block by block they collapse to flat terrainSo far - a visual check of the various scenery filenames hasn't shown up anything glaringly obvious in the way of odd names.I'll see if I can locate RG's Alaska file and get a list of the names to work from and figure out which one is left in here mucking things up.Added later........ Found the AK scenery but no file with the same names seem to be on my PC- guess I better look for another causeDave

[Guest jimkeir]

Hi.The file you found looks like one of the default FS9 terrain files. If it is, it will contain 45 degrees latitude and 60 degrees longitude of low-resolution terrain.What elevation is the completely flat terrain?Another trick you could try: go to www.sysinternals.com and download FileMon . It monitors all file accesses in realtime. Have a play, and set up a filter that only shows accesses to BGL files. Normally, any number of windows processes chatter away in the background and create thousands of file accesses, so you can check your filter works (BGL in the "Include Files" box) by loading one into LWMViewer and checking to see if it's logged.Clear and disable the log, start FS and prepare a flight that starts at an affected airport. Now enable the log and start the flight, and FileMon will list lots of accesses to BGLs. Once the flight has started - that is, as soon as the scenery appears on screen - stop the logging and quit FS. Now you can use the log to find out which files FS is using to show that bit of countryside.There will probably be hundreds or even thousands of accesses since it shows each *read*, not just each file accessed, but you can scan the list visually very quickly. If you don't fancy that, load it into a spreadsheet and get it to show you only unique filenames. Should narrow your search down a little.HTHJim Keir

[Guest daveg4otu]

Well I've fixed it but I can't say that I have found the precise cause although my suspicions still remain with the pteviously mentioned mesh.What I did - after trying various other things - including getting RGs mesh again and looking for file matching names without success ( I think the currently available version is maybe an update with differing and smaller files) was probably not the conventional approach.I'm lucky that six feet away on the same bench is my wife's PC ( my old one ) networked to this one. I installed FS9 on hers. Uninstalled all addon scenery on mine so I was back to default and immediately found that the scenery/world folder was much bigger on mine(why- some extra leftover bgls?) . I renamed it then copied the scenery /world from hers to mine. Tried a flight in the bad area - all OK. Re-added my addons - so far OK.To be fair this copy of FS9 has been running for a year - originally on her PC - then when I built this one I transferred the whole thing to this one and overwrote a new install in order to keep all the "enhancements"Guess I can't complain.Thanks for all adviceDave

[Heron 0]

Hi,Flying VFR some 1000nm along the Brazil coast after installing a dozen sceneries among airports, cities and mesh of various places in both N-C-S Americas, I didn

[Guest daveg4otu]

The lakes look normal here - I suggest you may have at some time in the past installed something else which may be responsible for this.Dave