Scenery.cfg question

[Hernan2]

A question to all of you scenery experts.
Recently I've been downloading many airports to make my airports more realistic. I recently loaded SBGR (Sao Paulo, Brazil), I was able to load it correctly, and I even modified the taxiways, and parking with the help of AFCAD. However, I just downloaded SBGL (Rio de Janeiro) and got this warning:"Scenery.cfg error. Local Scenery (Addon Scenery\sbgr\Scenery) in scenery area. 142 not found. Click OK to continue". I opened Scenery.cfg file I I found a big discrepancy as far as the order of area # and layer #. At the top, the area # and layer # are the same, until I got to area 122. If you don't mind checking this out, FS lists them as follows;
Area # 122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129
Descr.   FLL   Hilo   HNL   OGG   Kona LIH   MEX   MPTO
Layer # 136  130   129   133   131   132   134   128

Area#    131   132   133   134   136       137    138   139
Descr.  ATL   LAX   MCO  DFW  DFWw  DFWe SLSU  PHX
Layer #  139   138   137   140   142       141    126   135

Area#  140     141   142         143              144          145
Descrp. SCEL SAEZ  SBGR  MyTrffcAFD MyTrffcATC  SBGR
Layer#  123    127   124          3                  143          125

I don't know why areas # 130 and 135 are missing. Also, Is it Ok to change the area # and Layer # to be the same?.  Another interesting thing I noticed is that Area # 143 for My Traffic AFD was assigned layer #3, and from there on, the area and layer numbers are off by one number. Could you experts in this area help me understand this?. Thanks so much, Hernan

[Hernan2]

Correction:
Area # 145 is SBGL (Not SBGR)
Thanks
Hernan

[RollerBall]

Don't panic Hernan. Editing the scenery.cfg file is no big deal. When you design scenery and continually export scenery files it's amazing just how often the scenery.cfg file gets knackered and you get a warning like yours.

All it means is that you've deleted a scenery from your ADDON SCENERY folder or wherever you install stuff without going through the correct 'delete' routine in the Scenery Library.

Don't worry about layers - the prog controls that. All you do is mover sceneries up and down in your list - the higher up, the more precedence a scenery takes eg you'd install a scenery for Zurich above a scenery for Switzerland mesh because obviously the flatten in the airport scenery has to take precedence over any bumps in the scenery mesh.

Just take a note of the number of the area the prog can't find

eg

[Area.173]
Title=Hong Kong
Local=ADDON SCENERY\Hong Kong
Remote=
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE
Layer=169

The above example is area number 173.

Take a copy of your scenery.cfg file, open it up for editing with Wordpad or Notepad and look for the stuff I've shown above for the

[Hernan2]

Thanks for your help RollerBall. I tried to copy your example and I applied it to all of the airports I've downloaded, but I got the same warning, later I realized that I had the "ADDON SCENERY"  entry twice, I added the "ADDON SCENERY" entry again, and the warning disappeared. My entry now looks like this:
"Local=ADDON SCENERY\ADDON SCENERY\Buenos Aires"
When I open FS2002 my "tree" looks like this:
(-)FS2002
    (-)ADDON SCENERY
            512
            1024
            (-)ADDON SCENERY
                    (-)AMB
                            Scenery
                            Texture
                   (-)MPTO
                            Scenery
                            Texture
                   (-)SLSU
                            Scenery
                            Texture
                   SCENERY
                   (-)SCGR
                            Scenery
                            Texture
                   TEXTURE
Now I realize that the ADDON SCENERY is there twice,also I see now that each airport has its own Scenery and Texture, and there is also a SCENERY and TEXTURE category. Have I been doing everything wrong here?. Was I supposed to put each scenery in the SCENERY folder and each Texture in the TEXTURE folders?. Maybe this is the reason why I have so many problems. Thanks for explaining this to me.
Hernan

[RollerBall]

No!

You're wisest to ALWAYS put addon scenery in a folder containing scenery and texture subfolders within the main ADDON SCENERY folder.

Ignore instructions from any scenery designer to do otherwise - there are few pressing reasons to (a) put stuff into your main ..FS2002\SCENERY folder OR (b) your main ..FS2002\SCENEDB folder OR (c) the Scenery and TEXTURE folders inside ..FS2002\ADDON SCENERY

It's amazing how much 3rd party scenery has glitches in it and you need to be able to deactivate and remove it IMMEDIATELY (see current threads about flying polygons and stuff). You can't if you've put it all in one big pot with other stuff.

In fact my advice is if a designer doesn't give deinstallation instructions OR if you can't work out how to FULLY deinstall it yourself, DO NOT INSTALL THE SCENERY!

We see posts all the time about how a download has somehow fouled up the whole sim leading to the need for a full install

BTW

The could just cut and paste stuff out of the lower ADDON SCENERY folder into the higher one and edit your scenery.cfg file accordingly. It wouldn't take long to do