Terrascene Query

[Guest]

In the past I have generated quite a few global tiles using the old Terrascene 2 program. I kept all the data files that were downloaded from USGS. Having recently dusted off my FlyII program I decided to recreate the global tiles previously created. I downloaded and installed the new Terrascene 2.1 program, the Fly2slicer, and commenced the recreation. The first quarter tile completed with no errors, however since I have some 768 megs of memory on this machine I amended the Terrascene.lax file to use 512m of memory and the number of segments to 8000. After these changes the next quarter tile got to the slice stage and then came up with the error message CSimpleModel::load - corruptSmodel.cppline 933Changing the parameters back still created the same error.Is this caused in some way by my use of the old data files??? or is there something more sinister involved.I have recommenced the quarter tile creation after deleting the old data files and letting Terrescene download the files afresh to see whether there is any change in the error message.Any comments would be appreciated.Kind regardsRay

[Guest]

Looks like it's looking for a 'model' file that you don't have anymore. I had a similar problem whilst doing some 'Florida' TS scenery.Todd Klaus pointed out that when you go through the process of making a scenery pod ANY data files still present in your Fly!/data directory WILL get included in that pod. So data from 'DXXXX' will be included in the pod even if 'DXXXX' is irrelevant to the area that your podding! Therefore best have a 'data/offline' directory that you can move things to before podding.DaveT

[Guest]

David,This is obviously a FlyII Slicer problem. The error message occurs when the FlyII slicer is activated, the black screen displays "Determining tiles to process for xxx,yyy", the error messages re Csimplemodel and Smodel.cpp then occur.FlyII slicer is .1.230RegardsRay

[Guest]

Yeah that's where it failed for me, the slicer must go looking for them and fails because it can't find them.Anybody confirm that's what's happening?DaveT

[RandallR 446]

If you have any files in the data area before starting TS, move them to a temp location. I have no slicing problems if the data directory is empty before rendering begins.

[Guest]

Randall,I removed all the files in the DATA directory in FLYII and the render worked ok. My next question is what files go into the DATA directory, and what are they used for?? Would seem to be a bit nonsensical to keep on transferring back and forth into this directory.Kind regardsRay

[RandallR 446]

Ray,It's not really nonsensical - it's what you need to do for "clean" scenery-making. When Fly!II is installed, the Data directory has hardly anything in it, maybe just cameras.txt and runway.txt. As you begin installing scenery sets, model sets, taxiways and DB updates, the Data folder will begin to fill up with other items:--Scenery folders (unpodded sets of *.Sxx files)--*.MLF files for models--taxiway files (unpodded)--DEX files for DB updatesA lot of this detritus is created by careless scenery makers who were quite willing to learn how to make great scenery and share it with us (which I appreciate), but unwilling to learn how to pod it before sending it up (which I don't appreciate). Unpodded scenery data has to remain in the Data folder for Fly! to read it, so the folder can really become monstrous. Right now, there are 29 scenery folders and about 10 files in mine. The scenery folders date back to the early days of Fly!II, when some persons were putting out decent airport and city sceneries using the built-in editor, but either didn't learn or weren't willing to learn how to pod. Since these files are really small and TerraModels is the status quo these days, I've left them there.A major problem has been taxiway makers who didn't pod their work. With these, you could end up with hundreds and hundreds of files in your Data folder. When I get any unpodded taxiway files from someone today, I immediately pod them and and put them where they belong - the taxiways folder.Whenever you pod data in Fly!, whether it be 2 files for for a taxiway or global tile folders for scenery, some programs will attempt to pod all items in the Data folder so anything else needs to be removed or set aside.Here's how I do it - I don't move or transfer files most of the time: I rename the Data foder to Data_. I then create a new Data folder and make my scenery. When I'm absolutely sure that everything is podded and functions properly, I delete the Data folder, rename the Data_ folder to Data and go fly.

[Guest]

Randall,Many thanks for the explanation. My Terrascene is now working ok, however it does surprise me that these files are left behind by either the Terrascene or the Slicer program. Another minor anomaly that I have noticed is that the latest version of Terrascene does not remove the files from the OUTPUT directory even though the 'Delete Segments' is flagged.Kind regardsRay

[RandallR 446]

Ray,By leaving the data in the Data directory some scenery creators can make advanced podding adjustments and repod. The important thing is to make sure all this data is deleted before you use the new scenery pods. As I stated, I just delete the entire directory.Todd made many adjustments and improvements to his fantastic program with this new version, but one of the earlier bugs - failure to delete segments after rendering, still remains. If I edit the segments, then they need to remain anyway. I then tell TS to use existing on a new render. When satisfied, it only takes a moment to delete them all.

[Guest Colins2]

Randall,On a slightly related subject, do you still get a tsout.txt file?Mine doesn't get created any more since the upgrade to 2.1.Colin

[Guest]

Colin,Here's a post on this topic from the old forum.http://www.avsim.com/dcforum/DCForumID5/2474.htmlDon

[Guest Colins2]

Don,Thanks for the info, I must have missed that message somehow,Colin

[RandallR 446]

Colin,Sorry I didn't get back sooner! I think Don's got the answer - I haven't had any need to check the tsout file lately, but mine is empty also!