Simviation Forums

Building a scenery project for use in both FS9 & FSX. There are a couple of things I would appreciate some help with if anyone has come across similar problems.

First is the displaying of textures, specifically for the taller buildings, which appear very distorted at a distance. These buildings feature either many small windows or else narrow vertical bands. Main textures are created raw using Paint then edited with Pixia and Photoshop Elements. Blur effects have been added in an effort to overcome the distortion, however it remains unresolved.

Next problem concerns autogen - it seems this area (Albany NY) doesn't have much of it in the downtown area, especially in FS9. I have Instant Scenery but found the libraries available only add items such as churches or warehouses. Wondering where the "main" libraries may reside which contains all the other buildings displayed in the sim, e.g., everything from small houses to large industrial buildings. If I could find these then I could tap into them with Instant Scenery, and theoretically the same autogen should also be present in the FSX version. This is similar to adding objects using RWY12, however any additional libraries used would need to be included with the scenery to display correctly (hence my interest in using default items only). Any assistance would be appreciated. Pics below represent the FS9 version:

First is the displaying of textures, specifically for the taller buildings, which appear very distorted at a distance. These buildings feature either many small windows or else narrow vertical bands. Main textures are created raw using Paint then edited with Pixia and Photoshop Elements. Blur effects have been added in an effort to overcome the distortion, however it remains unresolved.

I am no expert in this area but is this something to do with your graphics card?  I seem to recall anti-aliasing is involved here.  Also designers sometimes build multiple copies of a texture to be displayed at different levels of detail.

Next problem concerns autogen - it seems this area (Albany NY) doesn't have much of it in the downtown area, especially in FS9. I have Instant Scenery but found the libraries available only add items such as churches or warehouses. Wondering where the "main" libraries may reside which contains all the other buildings displayed in the sim, e.g., everything from small houses to large industrial buildings. If I could find these then I could tap into them with Instant Scenery, and theoretically the same autogen should also be present in the FSX version. This is similar to adding objects using RWY12, however any additional libraries used would need to be included with the scenery to display correctly (hence my interest in using default items only). Any assistance would be appreciated. Pics below represent the FS9 version:

One thing to be aware of is that quite a lot of buildings are autogen and are not directly available to users since they are generated by the scenery engine.  Also there are a lof of generic buildings in the Sim.  These are designed using xml code in FS9 and FSX.  For example in FSX there are over 80,000 generic buildings located across the simulated world.  Many of these are at airports but a lot are apratment blocks and other general buildings.

Library objects and generic buildings from FS9 will usually work in FSX except for some textures and solid colors.  The reverse will not be true so if you want a scenery to work in both sims it needs to be constructed with FS9 tools

Thank you for your help Scruffyduck.

The textures problem was so obvious it wasn't apparent...I didn't have mipmaps enabled when saving the .dxt texture for FS9. Everything displays nicely now. (d'oh)

Supposing additional larger buildings will need to be created or else remain satisfied with the sparse autogen. I had tried compiling scenery .xml files into .bgl using bglcomp and had mixed results - some items showed up (such as beacon lighting or the usual items available in Instant Scenery) but others did not, such as hangars and other buildings. Might just be easier to create a few more buildings to give a fuller look.

Good to know the texture problem is fixed.  

Are you saying your scenery xml files contain generic buildings or placement code for library objects?

Hello,

In the LibraryObjects.xls file within FS2004 SDK, the codes supplied for objects (such as Checker Hangar, 1d6e82c94e7bb74205044a86d45315d7)  work with some objects but not others. Using this hangar as an example, I could not get it to display when compiling it from an .xml to a .bgl file; substituting code for a different object (such as an oil rig) yielded the object showing up where it was supposed to. That's the mystery, figuring out why some objects display while others don't. Thank you again for looking into this.

EDIT - As mentioned above, figuring that any compiled .bgl should show generally similar objects if placed in FSX. If not this is no biggie as the FSX autogen is actually quite better - FS9 needs help however.

Not sure why that would be.  Are you using the same image complexiy setting in each case?

Brian,

Have been following this thread and I believe there are 2 possible reasons why objects are not showing when placed using the Bglcomp SDK.

1)An object, though listed in the 'library objects.xls', is not in any FS9 object library.

Once again, thanks for the help everyone. At least it's clear that it is probably best to just create some basic buildings for fill purposes. Maybe I can convert them into library objects once done and make them available to anyone who might find them useful.

'....Maybe I can convert them into library objects.....'

Should be easy using the Instant Scenery Library Maker once you have your .mod files created.

It's available from the Start menu>Flight One Software>. There is help using it in the Instant Scenery Readme.

Dave

KALB is my "home" airport....

I live about 10 miles north of Runway 1....

Is it available for download yet?

KALB is my "home" airport....

I live about 10 miles north of Runway 1....

Is it available for download yet?

Hi,

Still got some work to do but can send over what has been done so far, if you would like to check it out.

I'm upgrading my rig at some point soon I hope, I'll wait till then...plus I'm having a few "issues" with my present one....let me know how you make out!  

V