Zolitnitsky

Hello Carrotroot! And much thanks for your reply! Providing you by "art files" refer to the png-textures; well - I'm trying (that also :P)! Though changing the png's doesn't seem to have any effect on the facades. Currently I have the same art files (by name) in both the "facade" and the "objects" folder where the later contained the edited one. .....and As I'm writing this I realize that perhaps the edited one should of course be in the facades folder ^_^ ! Also one thing regarding sloped roofs, while your coming to the point of being able to edit a facade-file, many of the building-png's most to likely are to be "deformed" as the the highest floor slopes rather then roof with the roof texture ("roof is built out of a floor"). For house-textures this generally looks better. You can change the texture of the highest floor (or do your own) but I assume that would also somewhat require the understanding of the "algorithm for selecting panels and floors" (which is not nessessary when doing objects). This might also be limited to the set of texture I got in the extraction. Perhaps there are some more Europe-friendly building textures somewhere ells. I know, probably beyond beginners' again... Perhaps. When you ask a question you're often directed to the tutorials. So I did. However, XP as a whole is also different in many ways. I'll get back to you on that one. - Z .

Ok, thanks. And from my experience of at least three misplaced heliports - as of the latest apt.dat and providing those areas counts as part of the "layouts" - it apparently seems needed. Otherwise I take it it's perhaps better to turn to the (freeware) community with such corrections - should you also happen to exceed that scope in the creative process. In terms of airport/area correction Robin will probably to 99% - and increasing - find what he needs there anyway (?). Though, If it's just the "layouts" (the "data") he's after then any "container" of it shouldn't really matter, should it? Well, whether GPL are behind his limits or not, the way I see it, it's just a matter of difference in contribution. No sweat.

So I'm figuring out the next step (sort of). One of last basic things you seem to need in doing a scenery is some simple 3D modeling (if you're doing this much it won't be long until you discover it). In my case it's just to enhance small or perhaps medium buildings with some (own) textures. I've tried Blender with a pathetic result. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure its a lovely ap, being freeware and has a lot of tutorials and XP support, but the learning curve together with what I want to use for, my scope if you will, it's just not acceptable. Hence AC3D for me. As I understand it, It was also once apart of XP from the beginning and the plug-in has been working fine so far. Looking like a **, believe you me, this is nevertheless my first (but hopefully not last) 3D model! Import some OpenSceneryX object (a building preferably) to get a sense (take note) of the size your working with to not end up with a puny hut. Close and select "new". Make two boxes (quads) and use "reduce" (in object menu) by 90% twice on one of them, and then remove some surface on the bottom on both. Put them together and Bob's your uncle! Just remember to put the building straight on the base line before exporting or you'll have a half-building showing up in OE! ^_^ ! You'll of course need "Texture Coordinate Editor" in "tools" menu to apply some texture. In my case a good sample came along conveniently with the OSM conversion of the facades earlier. I made a copy of that texture and placed it in newly created "objects" folder in my scenery. To apply the texture, import the image (object menu) and pick a surface and pick/slice your texture - and feel free to experiment! If you you make your own texture, by the looks of it, it should probably be in the power-of-two (1024x1024) or so in order for XP to read it. Finally, some questions regarding auto-gen scenery. As I've been reading some tutorials on the library system. My interpretation of this is that if you want to "change" the scenery you rather use the library to auto-generate the area to your taste with the EXPORT or EXPORT_EXTEND command. However, the later just increases the variety (substitutes) - not the amount of objects - of the existing ones ("placeholders"). So what of it? Well, if - like in my case - you have a scenery where the city area are looking like a dessert with few or none buildings by default, how do you populate that area using auto-gen into a "city-like" region? Substitute trees? Cause even when I've finished my scenery the contrast to the rest of the area will look very strange. Unless I take on the whole city in some way - and THAT'S a NO GO! How do you do it? Z.

I'm not sure I quite catch that, so just out out of curiosity... "All data must be obtained from publicly available, freely redistributable sources. I cannot accept data extracted from commercially distributed database. If you are enhancing data previously submitted by another user then please obtain their permission first." - cited Robin Peel's X-Plane site. ...I take it libraries like OpenSceneryX is allowed (GPL), as with relevant other 3D freeware (?). Or are you referring to something ells when you speak of the "native xp10 package" ? - Z.

Well, to NOT criticize XP would be very strange to me. Looking at it from a computer game perspective (which the flightsim purists don't, I know) it's a disaster. The GUI, the bugs, the sceneries, the scope of it all - and more or less forcing everyone to become a 3D artist or a programmer (which is not entirely bad within limits) in order to be able to contribute. And the "force" being default "post WW3-looking" airports (among other things) that a normal "gamer" otherwise wouldn't endure very long! So at least I don't mind you letting of some steam if you want. Just watch the colourful metaphors. Well, all of it! :lol: ! As for realism, as I said before, I'm thinking with my scenery that to pinpoint every single building to the utmost accuracy would be a little wild - even with the flying perspective mind. But you would like the resemblance to at least feel somewhat "real" (I believe XP uses the term "plausible") with important landmarks, towers and so on. I'm not familliar with your senery/city but I'd say it looks more than "plausible" to me! But I sure hope I find some of those green textures, it would look nice for the park in my scenery ^_^ ! As for a new thing I just discovered! When you open the fac-files in notepad++, and deletes the spaces between the lines, the red outlines in OE disappear and ALL facades are now visible! EVERYONE of them! (That osm2xp managed to convert in the first place, that is - in my case). It also seems neither of the editors like spaces between the line as WED also is sensitive to this, refusing to open certain files (I don't remember which ones exactly now but apt.dat realated is good guess). Anyway, I just thought it be worth something.

Goefabrik I seen before but metro was new. Still I don't think I want the whole city ( !) only sections of it - for helipad/heliport locations (mostly). Not sure what that amount would do to load time or so. Besides, it's osm-files just like the ones I've already tested and my experience of osm2xp so far is that the larger the area the worse! Now, for the areas I do convert I'd at least expect some resemblence! :lol: ! Thanks anyway! NoniMapView should do more than a lot in this case! And http://forums.x-plane.org - yes, sorry for being sloppy but - no, the result is the same. Can't reach the site. Neither with Forefox nor with IE !!

(?! ) Well, hope you find your good spirit! I've fixed (or rather replaced) the "runway" with an heliport, changing the elevation to 0. Now, adding some lights and signs to it ^_^ ! But is it me or does xplane.forums.org suffer maintenance problems? Cause I can't reach the site. (!?! )

Ok, I tried my new overley in WED and it was just a charm aligning it (higlight overley, "Select" menu "Select Vertices") using the coordinates! Well, except for som forrest regions that goes outside the frame (?). The OSM conversions are still a mess. I had to use osm2xp v1.1 this time, others vs didn't work. And as always - incomplete. It seems to be related to the size of the selection your converting, or a bad osm-file (I've tried several exports). Perhaps it's also a include/exlude-thing in the converion (?). In XP the result is somewhat interesting despite of the obvious work that needs to be done. I actually thinking of keeping one or two of these "avant garde" architechtures, as an artistic freedom! Roads are another problem. Or is this also related to the "Show with" options in WED? And it seems the new apt.dat didn't do much to the HP location :lol: (not really expected either)! Now THAT would be a dream! As always FSX runs ahead in something XP desperately needs! And nice work there, Greg! Love the skyline. The green groundtextures, was that something you added or is it XP default. Yes, that sounds familiar. Think I ran into that one too. But what I'm also missing in this context is a reference guide to the facades/objects, just as in OpenSceneryX DP, where you have pictures of the lot. Selecting "facade12" as resource in WED doesn't say much unless you go to OE for a look! (Or have I missed something?). Z

Yes thank you everyone - this is wonderful! I created a new overlay (a little bigger) with that absolutely great little app NoniMapView and got the picture AND the MAP file which I DIDN'T have before. If I understand correctly, this is also very useful when you then want the OSM file from OpenStreetMap.org, using the lat/long coordinates. But as you said, OpenStreetMap is not necessary for the this overlay! Also "the power of two" - one of those things I didn't know that I already knew! :lol: ! But as I also came across it in the xplane forum on topics regarding setting texture to facades and I hope to get back to you on that one! But draped polygon - yes, noted! I used the png format in my previous overlay. But are you suppose to split it up in power-of-two pieces when doing this or can you use the overlay as one whole "polygon piece"? As power-of-two? I also downloaded the newest OE (damn, they update quickly!) and the newest apt.dat from LR. As of this moment I've not yet fired up XP to see if they've corrected the ESHT helipad (or minimal "airport" :P) but otherwise I might need to do that before proceeding. Otherwise, I think the OSM-thing will be important as buildings will be the major part of the scenery so I hope to be able to do that soon (correctly that is). Then again it might be good to move slow. It's nevertheless a nice diverse area which make it fun and challenging. In any case, I hope I'm not running ahead of my self! ^_^ ! It's much new info and I've not tested all yet but I'll soon get back with more! Aw yes,,, a little sleep perhaps!

As the xp.org forum with all the answers has been down at least 8h so I'm runnin out of patience! Anyway.. Im trying to design a (sort of) small scenarey. It's basically just a helipad but with some elaborate town-forrest-harbour-park-tower area around it. The helipad is also very wrong placed which is the frustrated (well) reason behind this endevour. The main issue is I'm confused how osm2xp, OE and WED is suposed to work together. 1. I download and convert the OSM area of my interest with osm2xp (v2.02) and hence also getting the XP file structure in the Custom Scenery Folder. As always getting conversion warnings but having tried several versions of osm2xp this is the best I can do. The conversion options you can see here, here and here. 2. I open up the master apt.dat in notepad++ and copies the data for the ESHT "airport" (yeah, worlds smallest one as it seems) and creates a new one, adding "I" and "850" at start, "99" at end, saving it in the new Earth Nav Data folder of my scenery. 3. I test it directly in XP. It looks like shite but at least it opens as opposed to the majority of the previous atempts and actually has some buildings! Amazing! 4. Exit and open the scenery in OE which not surpringsingly gives error and all "facades" are just red "outlines". How - and where - do you correct that? 5. I then open up the scenery in WED. Finds an backgrounds image of the area and add it, then imports the apt.dat and the only Def file in the folder to get, well most of, the fasades and the "airport" showing. Here I can shange the location of the pad but I'm not sure if this was the reason for the previous crashes in XP. I also notice some exclusion areas (rather big). Am I to remove them? Or just change them? 6. And finnaly, if I now want to add or change objects, facades or maby background textures how do you work? Do you add the objects in WED or in OE? Or both? Changing/Adding the location of of arports is from what I understand done soley in WED.