FSX Terminal buildings

[mikereynard]

Hi, Ive just joined the forum - hello everyone. Ive been using ADE and FSX Planner and am kind of addicted. I'm a software developer and x pilot. I was wondering, it seems very hard to add nice buildings to a new airport as I cant find a good source. The generic buildings arent very expansive or modern or large enough. There are lots of nice buildings at other airports, I understand you can use Library object and GUID but generally these dont seem to move ( I guess there is some geographic constraint and texture mapping issue or object locking going on ).

Question: is there are source of nice buildings, is there a tutorial on moving buildings from any airport to another place. Thanks, Mike

 

[jvile]

Hi mikereynard

and welcome to the forum

Yes in FSX you can move any building. Start with reading the following post. Inside that post there is another link that explains the process more clearly.


http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14617&highlight=jetway

 

[mikereynard]

Using terminal buildings from other airports

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
I hope others find this useful as it took me ages to work it out! Using an example of Boston , Logan International. The full spec .bgl file for this is in Scenery/0302/scenery/apx29160.bgl which is what opens in ADE if you search for this airport. However if you look in Scenery/0302 you note there is not a texture directory. Also apx29160.bgl does not contain model data. You need to go to Scenery/NAME/boston.bgl for this. You then need bglAnalyzeX to decompile boston.bgl and save it to your scenery directory. This puts all the .mdl files ( model ) there. In ADE you need to use library manager to add in the reference to this boston.bgl file so you have access to the Library objects. You can then right click on your airport and add a Library object with its appropriate GUID automatically assigned for you.
In ADE you then need to use from top menu 'Lists-Models', at this window you need to add from your scenery directory the appropriate .mdl file associated to the GUID of the Library object you have just dropped onto your airport. If you open boston.xml that bglAnalyzeX created for you the files names are listed next to their corresponding GUID. If you compile your airport now in ADE the .BGL will contain model data ( check by decompiling it in bglAnalyzeX - last line says 'contains model data'. If you decompile .bgl you created by ADE with and without the reference to the model .mdl file, and decompile to XML and look at xml source you will see the difference is an XML tag: <ModelData sourceFile = "mypath to myobject.mdl" /> is added to the former. One confusion is if you open this XML in ADE it fails the parse - doesnt recognise this tag! - is this a bug? The other thing you need to do is copy the appropriate day and night texture files (.dds and LM.dds respectively) (in NAME/texture directory- in this case all the KBOS ones to be sure-quite hard to know exactly) to your scenery texture directory. Your object density need to be less <= that set for scenery density in FSX - Mike

 

[jvile]

check by decompiling it in bglAnalyzeX -

The bgl2xml utility will also extract all the mdl's.

One confusion is if you open this XML in ADE it fails the parse - doesnt recognise this tag! - is this a bug?

Not a bug. Some data is stored in the .ad2 project file. This is done so if someone decompiles your bgl and does not have your .mdl it will not compile back to a bgl.

The other thing you need to do is copy the appropriate day and night texture files (.dds and LM.dds respectively) (in NAME/texture directory- in this case all the KBOS ones to be sure-quite hard to know exactly) to your scenery texture directory. Your object density need to be less <= that set for scenery density in FSX

When it is hard to identify what textures go with what .mdl, use a simple hex editor. Open the .mdl and the first few hex lines will tell you what textures that .mdl is using.

 

[tgibson]

Another way to get a texture listing is Import the MDL/BGL file into ModelConverterX and go to the Material Editor.

Hope this helps,

 

[mikereynard]

.mdl

Thnx for texture help. The thing I dont understand is why if the .bgl with the model data has been added using Library manager into ADE and an object used from it, the model data doesnt seem to get compiled. Unless the .bgl is dissassembled to individual .mdl files that you then reference by adding from 'List-Model' and put the specific .mdl in your scenery directory it doesnt show at the airport. - Mike

 

[scruffyduck]

Thnx for texture help. The thing I dont understand is why if the .bgl with the model data has been added using Library manager into ADE and an object used from it, the model data doesnt seem to get compiled. Unless the .bgl is dissassembled to individual .mdl files that you then reference by adding from 'List-Model' and put the specific .mdl in your scenery directory it doesnt show at the airport. - Mike

OK Here is what I hope is an explanation. There are two ways to use model files. One way is from a Library Bgl file - we tend to call these library objects. The other is to use the model file directly in ADE.

For library objects ADE needs to know some information about them so when you load the information from a Library Bgl file into ADE via the Library Object Manager you are not getting the model files - they stay in the Library. What ADE does is to read these model file and extract information about size, content and so on. Now when you place a Library Object with ADE you are only generating positioning information. That is the reference of the library object and where it is to go. Now when it is compiled the Bgl file created by ADE contains the positioning data and FS will go look for the actual object in the Library.

For Models .mdl files it works differently. First you add the model into ADE via the Models list. Now ADE is going to compile that model file into the Bgl file it creates. If you then place that model using the Add menu in ADE the positioning data is created as before. However that data is now referring to a model that is going to be in the ADE Bgl file. So when you compile it ADE includes the positioning data and the model itself.

As far as it not showing just adding the model to the list is not enough. You also need to place it. Clearly you can place it as many times as you want at the airport. Also make sure that you include any textures in the texture sub folder that matches the scenery folder you put the Bgl file in.

Now why the difference. Well generally it is best to have a model present only once in your sim. If an object is going to be used many times over different projects then it is much better to have it compiled into a library that can be used all over the sim. It also means that textures generally need to be placed only once.

If however you have a special object that you want to place at only one airport then adding the model directly to ADE is probably best. However as mentioned above you also have to remember to include the textures.

Another reason folks do it is to protect their models somewhat. If a model is compiled into a Bgl file along with the positioning code then it can become locked to that location. For users to get at the model if they have some design on using it (which generally they probably should not) then they will have to get it by decompiling the Bgl file containing it. This is done by those who want to use objects that are 'locked' in the Microsoft stock files. for example to use a terminal located in one place in another.

 

[mikereynard]

model files

Thanks Jon for this comprehensive explanation. When I opened the boston.bgl that has the models in ModelConverterX I could see all the objects, rotate them, so I thought they might be extractable within ADE to compile into the new airport .bgl. I thought that is actually where the library model must be stored. As you say it makes sense to store models in one place, I thought this must be the place? - Mike

 

[scruffyduck]

It can be pretty confusing sometimes for us as well

 

[tgibson]

Hi,

True library BGL objects can be present in ANY active scenery folder, and used by ANY other scenery as well. No need to extract and recompile - just use them directly.

That said, as stated above some objects are "geo-locked" (the scenery designer used the MDL file directly in his main scenery - you can do this with ADE as well), and if you try adding those to your scenery they will not show up (unless you are in the same region of the original object's placement).

So in that case a decompile and recompile (or using the MDL file in the scenery directly) would be necessary.

Hope this helps,

 

[jvile]

Hi,

True library BGL objects can be present in ANY active scenery folder, and used by ANY other scenery as well. No need to extract and recompile - just use them directly.

That said, as stated above some objects are "geo-locked" (the scenery designer used the MDL file directly in his main scenery - you can do this with ADE as well), and if you try adding those to your scenery they will not show up (unless you are in the same region of the original object's placement).

So in that case a decompile and recompile (or using the MDL file in the scenery directly) would be necessary.

Hope this helps,

Tom

I am not sure I understand what is being said here.

There is no such wording in the SDK refered to as Geo-Locked. Any building (object) can be moved to any part of the world in FS9 and FSX.

In FS9 this is the Narita Terminal sitting in Atlanta, GA.



In FSX several of the Miami Terminals have been taken apart and also placed in Atlanta, GA.

 

[Geobas]

The attached is Stockholm's airport terminal placed somewhere in Greece .
You can place any object contained in any object library , anywhere you wish. No geographical restrictions .
All you need is a couple of tools , Model Converter X , and Library Creator XML .
You can find the latest version at

http://www.scenerydesign.org/development-releases/

 

[tgibson]

Those detailed terminal buildings in "city name" BGL files appear to be normal library objects, then. Try placing objects found in the default OBJ files (they are the default terminals) far away from their original position. They certainly don't show up for me. That's what I describe as geo-locked.

 

[glottis]

Tom,
are you putting the textures for your objects into the "Global" folder as you already know how to find the textures (post 5) for your object?

 

[mikereynard]

objects locations

Aside from ADE and making your own airport, in general FSX play to take the example of boston.bgl, which contains the terminal buildings for boston, what positions these at boston as they appear not to be referenced by the airport spec apx29160.bgl? I think maybe boston.bgl is a standalone compile which positions these internally defined objects at boston. Maybe this is why you have to extract the individual .mdl you might be interested in from boston.bgl and reference it separately in your own airport, better than including a whole copy of the library anycase and as has been said, they were never intended to be global. It might be interesting sometime to disable 0302 so the airport doesnt show and see if the NAME directory being abled draws the terminals-Mike

 

[jvile]

Those detailed terminal buildings in "city name" BGL files appear to be normal library objects, then. Try placing objects found in the default OBJ files (they are the default terminals) far away from their original position. They certainly don't show up for me. That's what I describe as geo-locked.

Tom

I have been placing both city objects and OB objects all around the world since the early days of FS9. The OB object textures are in the Main FSX/FS9\Texture folder.

You can place

FS9 objects anywhere
FSX objects anywhere
FS9 objects in FSX anywhere
FSX objects in FS9 anywhere

In my above picture (previous post) I used parts of the FS9 KMIA Terminal in my FSX KATL scenery. The reason is that FSX made the entire KMIA Terminal a Library object. In FS9 each part of the KMIA terminal is a seperate object.

There is no one tool that will do all of this. For FS9 the XML must be written by hand and compiled. Once that is done do not open the bgl with ADE9.

ADE9 unlike ADEX cannot add a object correctly in the LOM. Any correctly written XML will be flushed out by ADE9.

The following is the original post dated 2004 and placed on PAI Afcad

USE ANY DEFAULT OBJECT

10-30-2004, 19:38 PM

Re: USE ANY DEFAULT OBJECT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So you want to use any FS2004 default library objects in your scenery?

You know that most default library objects are region-coded to the specific place that they appear in FS world. Therefore you just cannot use them in other locations, they won't appear.

But there is a simple technique to overcome that limitation. Let's have an example, say you would like to place the Empire State building in the middle of Madrid Airport, Spain.

Do as follows:

1) First identify the object you're interested in, by opening the file libraryobjects.xls included in the MS Bglcomp SDK. It is an Excel spreadsheet. There do a search and you will find the Empire State as "LDM_ny_empirestate", with GUI=3ebedf0d11d2f0721000849c2ae60c5a, in row 241 of the sheet. Now we have to find the mdl for that GUI.

2) Disassemble the file Newyork.bgl (included in FS9\scenery\name\scenery) with NewBGLAnalyze. You will see that the file is in fact a library object file. By disassembling you obtain the file Newyork.xml and a lot of mdl files (all the objects contained in that file). You have to find out which mdl file is for the Empire State building, ok? Simple, open Newyork.xml and search for the GUI, and you will see it is in the file NewYork_04.mdl.

3) Write following code in xml

**********************************
<FSData version="9.0" xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd" >

<ModelData
name="3ebedf0d11d2f0721000849c2ae60c5a"

sourceFile="newyork_04.mdl"
fileOffset="0"/>

<SceneryObject lat="N40.472231" lon="W3.560944" alt="0.00"
altitudeIsAgl="TRUE" pitch="0.00" bank="0.00" heading="270"
imageComplexity="NORMAL">

<LibraryObject name="3ebedf0d11d2f0721000849c2ae60c5a" scale="1.00" />
</SceneryObject>

</FSData>

***********************************

Use the corect GUI for the Empire State, and adjust the lat/lon values to where you want it, in this example I placed it in LEMD, Spain.

You can write it with Notepad and save it as empire.xml for example

4) Now take the file you just created and place it in the folder where you have bglcomp, TOGETHER with the Newyork_04.bgl file.

5) Compile empire.xml. Drag it into bglcomp icon, and if no errors, a new file called empire.bgl will be created.

6) Take the just created file and place it in FS9\addon scenery\scenery. It is not over yet, you have to look for the textures. Go into FS9\scenery\name\texture and easily you will find that the Empire State building uses textures LDM_ny_empirestate.bmp and LDM_ny_empirestate_lm.bmp. Copy those two textures to FS9\addon scenery\texture folder.

7) See the result. Open FS9, go to airport LEMD, look around, you will find the Empire State building right by the BRA VOR!! (in fact, in the reference point of the airport).

Sight seeing in Barcelona

 

[tgibson]

Hi,

Well, yes that technique will work for any object, and I said that above: "So in that case a decompile and recompile (or using the MDL file in the scenery directly) would be necessary."

What I meant is that I could not seem to place OB objects while they were still located inside the OB files. Instant Scenery agrees with this, and only makes available the OB BGL files for the region you are currently located in. Those objects seem to be "geo-locked".

I don't know of a "Global" folder, but all the textures for the OB objects are already in the main FS TEXTURE folder, if that's what you mean.

 

[glottis]

Tom,

Global Folder,
Sorry! I was quoting for FSX, I take it you are referring to fs9 which i don't have anymore, which I think/take it doesn't have a Global folder.......

 

[GHD]

Tom,

Global Folder,
Sorry! I was quoting for FSX, I take it you are referring to fs9 which i don't have anymore, which I think/take it doesn't have a Global folder.......

The tag for this topic is "FSX"

 

[tgibson]

Doesn't matter - in this particular case FS9 and FSX work the same, AFAIK.