• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

SBuilderX Beginner Tutorials

Messages
49
Country
unitedstates
Is there a surviving beginner tutorial for SBuilderX?

I've tried using the program several times and I can't get past a blank screen.

The beginner's tutorial on the FSBuilder forum site is broken.
 
Messages
506
Country
unitedstates
Search the Avsim file library for Luis Feliz Tirado and you'll find some excellent tutorials.
 
Messages
639
Country
panama
After you download and install SBuilderX the first thing you must do is also get the GMaps.dll update that is posted in the pinned thread on this forum (by Dick a.k.a. Rhumbafloppy) otherwise you will not get the background maps working and you will be VERY frustrated :)

After that it is peanuts once you try several things. Perhaps the most frustrating thing is working with polygons and selecting them. That followed by the out of memory crashes.
 
Messages
49
Country
unitedstates
Thanks! The Google dll update helped a lot... A moving target I know. Although pawing through the menus it looks like I was using Yahoo! any way - but I'm climbing that learning curve!

I'm not past the first step yet but i took a long time to get here.

Here's my beginner's steps to create a new project, let me know if I'm on the right track:
0 File, New Project... and give it a name to remember (no clue as to the second tab)
0 View, Go To Position... to center of project (but easier place FSX a/c there and Show Aircraft
0 View, QMID Grid... to a mid value
0 View, Show Background

At least I'm past staring at a blank screen any more! :rolleyes:

Use Edit, Preferences to eval the various backgrounds available.
 
Messages
604
Country
ca-britishcolumbia
I know the feeling of just starting out in SBuilderX; I just started myself a few days ago. I think the problem with most program's documentation (besides people not reading it), is that it is written by people who already know how to use the program.

What they should do is get a complete beginner or two to try out the program and then write the manual based on the questions the newbie(s) ask. :twocents:
 
Messages
90
Country
unitedstates
I know the feeling of just starting out in SBuilderX; I just started myself a few days ago. I think the problem with most program's documentation (besides people not reading it), is that it is written by people who already know how to use the program.

What they should do is get a complete beginner or two to try out the program and then write the manual based on the questions the newbie(s) ask. :twocents:

+1!!

That statement is the essential ingredient to ANY 'good' user manual. Unfortunately it is rarely considered.:)
 
Messages
90
Country
unitedstates
After you download and install SBuilderX the first thing you must do is also get the GMaps.dll update that is posted in the pinned thread on this forum (by Dick a.k.a. Rhumbafloppy) otherwise you will not get the background maps working and you will be VERY frustrated :)

After that it is peanuts once you try several things. Perhaps the most frustrating thing is working with polygons and selecting them. That followed by the out of memory crashes.

I just found and read that sticky post. I did not see any mention of "GMaps.dll" anywhere, but there are a couple of links in the post that look like they might lead to what I need to know. I am completely new to SBuilderX, but have some experience using RWY12 Object Placer and FS Panel Studio. From what I am seeing, SBuilderX seems to be a cool and powerful tool that just might let me do what I could not do in RWY12.

My goal is to implement an animated Wind Farm Tower so I can place it in FSX. I have downloaded the files for it, which are comprised of an MDL and XML file. RWY12 can't use it, so I am looking for a utility that can read those files and convert them to a BGL for me. I got the impression SBuilderX might be able to do this based on what I read during online research. I've started digging around in the SBuilderX Help file and finally figured out how to get a map imported into the project window, and how to calibrate the map. I also 'seem' to have imported the tower, but it doesn't appear on the actual map. I only see a tiny little green box. I guess I'll need to try creating the BGL and opening FSX on that set of coordinates to see what actually got built with the BGL. Should I have seen the tower in the SBuilderX Window?
 
Last edited:
Messages
90
Country
unitedstates
Cannot get SBuilder to use MY LAT LON

I can't get SBuilder to use the LAT LON coordinates I am telling it to use when calibrating the map. It starts out even with the blank page using coordinates in Lisbon, and never changes from them no matter what I enter. I am in the Midwest US.

It allows me to enter the coordinates I am getting from the FireShot map when I capture it, and then when I press calibrate it takes me to the second calibration screen. I have to re-enter my coordinates AGAIN (because it stays on the Lisbon coordinates). When I press Calibrate at the end of the second calibration screen, the map DISAPPEARS, I see only a blank page in SBuilder, and the Lisbon coordinates are STILL across the bottom. I don't see a solution for this in the Help file. What am I doing wrong?
 
Messages
506
Country
unitedstates
Why are you trying to add a map into SBuilderX, if it will display most any part of the CONUS and you can use that for placement purposes?

Make sure you have the latest satellite provider DLL files copied into SBX. Select a satellite service from Edit | Preferences and the turn the Background map on, View | Background.

You can then add the .MDL file into SBX and use the Object Tool button to place your wind turbine. There is a file, probably at Avsim, that places wind turbines across The Big Island of Hawai'i and Maui. Done with SBX and the wind turbine available here, thanks to hcornea (Ian). Placing the wind Turbine takes a click, I suggest making a small flatten polygon where the wind turbine sits. That takes some extra effort to get done. People expect a step-by-step document to show what needs to be done. But the information is already out there, many times over.
 
Messages
90
Country
unitedstates
Why are you trying to add a map into SBuilderX, if it will display most any part of the CONUS and you can use that for placement purposes?

Make sure you have the latest satellite provider DLL files copied into SBX. Select a satellite service from Edit | Preferences and the turn the Background map on, View | Background.

You can then add the .MDL file into SBX and use the Object Tool button to place your wind turbine. There is a file, probably at Avsim, that places wind turbines across The Big Island of Hawai'i and Maui. Done with SBX and the wind turbine available here, thanks to hcornea (Ian). Placing the wind Turbine takes a click, I suggest making a small flatten polygon where the wind turbine sits. That takes some extra effort to get done. People expect a step-by-step document to show what needs to be done. But the information is already out there, many times over.



Hi, and thanks for the reply.

Please, before you groan at the size of this posting, :eek:

understand that it sort of unfolded as I figured this stuff out while replying. I was very tempted to start over with a much shorter post once I succeeded. But, I have a habit of liking to leave "bread crumb trails" for newbies like I am at the moment on this topic, so when they come along later they can learn things more easily and quickly. Such as -- why Google Satellite Imagery no longer works with SBX. (mentioned below in the tome). :) So please bear with me. I work this way because I too have been completely frustrated trying to excavate current and pertinent information on topics that are years old, such as those related to MS FSX.

The simplest answer to any "why" questions for me at this beginner stage is probably "because I don't know any better". :) That said,

What is a CONUS? Ah, Google and Wiki says it means "Contiguous US".

I eventually figured out that the reason the coordinates were in Lisbon when I open SBuilder is because they are set that way in the configuration text file. I presume the designer must live near there. Changing them to the spot where I am working fixed that issue. However, the test items I was placing were not being accurately placed, despite my careful attempts to use LAT LON. That was all before I had suddenly realized that there is a button to use the current FSX aircraft location to place an object, labeled "Position from FS". Head-slap moment. :) Once I figured that out, it became much more like the way I work in RWY12. I succeeded in placing the wind turbine, from the MDL file I have, as a BGL and into FSX. :)

However, I'd like to know more about the things you wrote above. So, the reason I was trying to load a map is because, from the Help file, that is what they said to do first. I ended up using the Google Satellite Map Downloader and Fireshot to do so. But that is where I cannot make the coordinates work correctly.

After thinking about this last night, I came to the suspicion that I do not even need to download a map at all when using the FSX location of an aircraft. Indeed, RWY12 Object Placer doesn't use a map. I use slew mode in FSX viewed zoomed high above ground in external view to put the objects being placed by RWY12 where I want them. Starting back this Spring and working over free time, I have already placed over 4,000 static wind turbine towers in their correct locations at the Altamont Wind Farm near Livermore CA (I use VERO-FS scenery for that area). But I have always wished those towers were animated. As cool as the static ones are at dusk or night, with their lights on, seeing them animated would be a real sight for sure!

Anyway, I am not sure I understand your description of how to use background satellite imagery mentioned above, but it sounds like a much better way to go. Hopefully the LAT LON coordinates will then work properly. But where do I get those updated DLL files you mentioned? As I posted earlier, even when going where the Help file says to go to get some kind of DLL files, I saw none when I got there. At the moment, I just tried your above instructions, enabling Google Satellite, and turning on View/Background. Still a blank page. So it isn't working apparently without those DLL files. Googling "Google Satellite DLL files" doesn't seem to find me anything useful.

OK, I finally hit this thread:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10943&page=2

Which seems to be a long story over the years telling why Google satellite imagery can no longer be used in SBX. But the story ends in June 2009. 2 years can change a lot, as this story shows. So I guess I need someone to tell me what satellite server is currently working in OCT 2011, and where to get whatever files I need to make it work. This being the case, it would be nice if the Google option were removed from SBX. That thread said Yahoo isn't working either, so that could also be removed. Aha! I just switched SBX to use the Virtual Earth Satellite server, and it is now working! So I still need to update any DLL files as you mentioned? (I think VE has better imagery than Google!)

This is a good place to address your statement that "People expect a step-by-step document to show what needs to be done. But the information is already out there, many times over."

I have experienced this a great many times helping others on different forums where I have enough knowledge to be able to do so. What I have learned over the years is that this information which is on forums "many times over" becomes outdated, yet no one EVER goes back to update the now incorrect information. A new person to the forum starts searching and runs into years of data over hundreds of posts, only to find at the end of many pages the whole story has completely changed, so everything he just read is useless. That is one reason so many new people ask for current information, like I am doing. Granted, some are just too lazy to look. But I am not one of those people. I am trying to wrap my head around this as best I can, but help from good folks like you is priceless when it compares to hours spent in what might end up being totally wasted research. :)

Now that I have the VE SAT background showing, I'm on my way! One more question. When you recommended laying a flat polygon prior to erecting a tower, is the reason because of the settings in SBX object properties/general tab for pitch and bank? When I succeeded in placing that animated tower last night I noticed those numbers were not 0. I tried to change them to 0, but they kept changing back. The values were very small, just a degree or two, so I left them alone. Would the platform assure they stay at zero when something is placed on the platform (I presume one would need to specify the actual top surface of the constructed platform in feet AGL)?

Thanks!! :)
 
Messages
506
Country
unitedstates
You either have great typing skills or use voice software like GaryGB... :p

My typing skills are poor, plus I'm L-A-Z-Y. But I'll try to cover a little of your post.

I like to assist people who want to learn about scenery work, despite the trolls who follow me around and parse every word I use... I recall when I was learning and the fellow who helped point me in the right directions. Thanks, Dr. Scott Gridley! So for anyone who accepts that there is learning to be done, I'll offer help. For those who just want to DO and not learn and expect a detailed step-by-step discourse, I have many other things that I can spend the time on. Most all the basics can be learned by reading previous forum postings, either here or at Avsim or at the SBuilder forum at www.ptsim.com. Others may not be like me and that's OK.

The satellite servers are available in SBX. I used Yahoo's earlier today, along with Virtual Earth (Bing) and Google. Pinned at the top of this forum is a thread that contains an updated file for Google, courtesy of Rhumbaflappy. It's also pinned at the top of the SBX forum at PTSim;http://www.ptsim.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=22&sid=171461b606aad9273ac8e1f3e8c771f3

You'll find (learn?) that Google's imagery is off just a teeny-tiny bit and may or may not adhere to your photo scenery that you're trying to place wind turbines onto. It's a trial and error type of thing.

If you were trying to place an image from here; http://www.ptsim.com/sbuilder/gmaps.asp?Lat=40.7777&Lon=-73.8752&Zoom=14 into SBX using Firefox and Fireshot you must remember that the text file with the five lines of coordinate data must match the name of your image file. So NewYorkCity.bmp MUST have a matching NewYorkCity.txt file. If it does, SBX will recognize it and place it where needed. But having and using updated satellite .DLL files is easier. And using imagery for object placement purposes shouldn't be a problem. Using it to make a scenery add-on, not recommended. Though I've seen it done, even with payware products!

I don't believe the wind turbine available here in the Downloads has a light on top, as I coded that into the object placement XML. But it is animated! Why did I mention a flatten? An object sits on it's reference point and with sloping terrain that can have part buried into the ground and part sticking up above the slope. So with the areas in Hawai'i being major slopes, I made flattened ground for each of the wind turbines to sit on. Extra work and something that 99% of the people who download the stuff wouldn't notice. But I knew it was there and I notice those things...

There's a great placement tool here, named Crosshairs. Puts you right on the ground and you can use another tool like TCalcX (by Rhumbaflappy!) to get that elevation and plug it into SBX. Makes those nasty little flatten areas somewhat easier to put together.

For future reference, pitch and bank won't work in FSX, for FSX-specific objects. One of those things that never got into the final-final FSX world. It will work for FS9-specific objects in FSX. Welcome to the weird world of FSX scenery work.

And if you find that all those many wind turbines you've placed so far would be better viewed with the wind turbine available here, there are ways to change from one to the other. But it's something that someone should want to learn how, not just get a detailed step-by-step dissertation. ;)
 
Messages
90
Country
unitedstates
I own dictation software, but I never use it. It isn't even installed. It works OK, I just learned I would rather type. :)

There is a very short and crazy story behind my "typing skills". I actually failed typing not once but TWICE during my education. So I have always been a hunt and peck typist. But my love of PCs has made me pretty good at keeping up a decent pace while looking at both the keys and the screen. Then, I met a friend with whom, over a 3 year period, I traded well over 1,000 emails. And pretty much every one of them made my above tome look like a note card. So I was doing a LOT of typing. One day well into the event, I suddenly realized that I was no longer looking at the keyboard! I actually learned to touch type through constant use of a keyboard. So today I touch type. But the really weird thing is (and you probably don't believe I don't look at the keyboard but I really don't) if I turn down the lighting in the room, I can't do it. Like to a level where the keyboard would be hard to read. Go figure. I can see my fingers below as I am typing, in peripheral vision, but I can't read any of the keys, at least not consciously. Anyway, I'm not complaining, because it lets me type a whole lot faster!

Sadly, we are no longer friends. But that brief friendship's lifelong gift to me was learning to type by osmosis. :D

If you are, in a word, LAZY, then I would say I am, in a word, IMPATIENT. I do not mind learning something. BUT.......... I do not want to have to learn a whole bunch of peripheral information in order to get 'to the solution I need'. So sometimes once the problem at hand is resolved, the learning on that particular topic gets set aside. Sometimes forever. I am big into DIY, and there simply isn't time to get a 'degree' in everything I encounter just to solve today's problem. So when there are shortcuts, I will surely take them.

Virtual Earth (VE), however, instantly worked when I tried it. I didn't have to add any dlls or anything. So I'll just use that. It also has better resolution than anything I have seen on Google Earth. My experiments with SBX are actually taking place in an area of my rural home neighborhood, where I have lived most of my life. So I know this area well and have looked at it from Google Earth many times. I think VE has them beat! Also, I don't have any issues with placement being off when I use VE. The objects end up right where they belong. No complaints.

I did finally realize how to get the GoogleServer_v89 DLL file. So I have that now. The thread is closed, and it never mentions what to do with the file. But I dug around in the SBX installation and found where the default DLL files are kept for the various servers. I put the v89 file there and now Google Satellite works too. I think the reason I said VE looked better is because they have imagery from summer and there are nice green grass and trees here. The current Google image for this area was taken in winter and everything lost its leaves and looks very brown, so not so nice.

Text file? Somehow I missed that I needed a text file AND the map file when using the map+Fireshot method. But with VE working this well, I probably won't re-visit that part of SBX.

I found TcalcX on the same page as the GoogleServer DLL files, but have yet to discover where Crosshairs is, unless you are referring to the crosshair IN the SBX program?

Your last paragraph is really intriguing! I spent MANY hours placing all those static wind towers, and they comprise 4 BGL files. (RWY12 OP object counter only goes to 999, so I had to start a new file every thousand, or I would not have been able to keep track of how many I created.) So where would I look for information on how to convert an object WITHIN a BGL file from one type to another, without having to place all those objects over again?

The other issue is that I have only an MDL and XML file for the animated tower (which I might well have gotten here, but it was some time ago and I didn't save the source location, just the files when I downloaded it). So whereas I was placing all those objects easily in RWY12 from a tower within its own databases, this project began as "how do I convert an MDL or XML object in to a BGL file so I can use it"? I find it VERY interesting that I have indeed done it now, yet several of the first Google return forum posts when I began researching how to do it said "you can't convert an MDL to a BGL". :)

Part of my impatient nature is that I don't like being told I 'can't' do something, and it usually just pushes me to look for a way to prove whoever said that wrong. I'm tempted to revisit those forum posts, wherever they were, and say "yes you can!" and tell them how I did it. :D
 
Last edited:
Messages
90
Country
unitedstates
Creating a BGL from an MDL file

So I have no problem now creating a BGL file from the MDL file I have for an animated wind turbine tower. But I can only place ONE instance of it as an MDL file in order to compile the project. If I try to place 2 or more of the MDL files for this object the compiler reports an error.

What I can do is place one of this MDL and add other objects from SBX and compile the BGL. Just not 2 or more MDL file objects. Is there a way to do that, or is that something SBX can't do?
 
Messages
90
Country
unitedstates
Today I figured out a way to 'kludge' the placement of the animated wind turbine I am using so that it has a blinking red light on top. I've done this to light the tops of some of the water towers I have placed here and there.

I use the file gen_stack01 (available either in RWY12 or in the FSX_Hazards library for SBX) which is a chimney with a blinking red light on top. I place it in the middle of the wind tower column at an altitude just above the top of the cowling. The height AGL used is for the top edge of the chimney, so essentially its rim with the light on it. The trick is to use a scale setting of 0.05. This makes the "chimney" very small diameter, so it is hidden inside the wind tower column, and just the tip is exposed, providing a workable representation of a warning light. :)

Now what I would like to do is find a way to "merge" the wind tower and gen_stack01 objects into a single place-able object so I don't have to put a light on every wind tower I place. Can this be done somehow?
 
Messages
506
Country
unitedstates
You know what blows? When you do something manually to set up something to work with one tool and then find out someone else has that functionality built into one of their tools! Arno G. thinks of everything! Too bad for me I figure that out after doing the manual stuff... :eek:

Any way. Short rundown on objects/MDLs. You can place them "specifically" by including Lat/Lon in the XML code and compile into a BGL file. Or you can take a MDL file (like the wind turbine) and compile it into a Library BGL file. Then using a tool like Rwy12 or SBuilderX or Instant Scenery 2 you make a Placement BGL file that contains XML code telling FSX to place object XYZ in Library BGL file at this Lat/Lon. And this Lat/Lon and this Lat/Lon.

The first method of taking a MDL file and Lat/Lon pretty much locks it into that general location. That's why you can't take the Eiffel Tower and place it in Los Angeles. (Yes, it can be done, but that's another story!) The second method of taking one or more MDL files and making a Library BGL from them is that it allows placement most everywhere.

One of those amazing and free tools by Arno will allow you to make a Library BGL from the wind turbine A-N-D... also make the necessary file for SBX so that it will recognize the new file and allow you to click away, placing wind turbines wherever you want. (I manually made and edited the files for SBX, before seeing that Arno had thought of that a LONG time ago. He's a very smart man!)


Back to your light on top. If it looks OK, good. Having a combination of two different MDL files, nope. Not that I'm aware of. For the Hawai'i wind turbines I made a flashing light effect and placed on top of the wind turbine. But that involved a bit of cutting and pasting XML code, mainly for coordinates.

Back to all those wind turbines placed along Altamont Pass. Rwy12 generates Placement BGL files, which again is just XML code that tells FSX to place an object at Lat/Lon. I'd have to look at one of the BGL files from Rwy12, but most any text editor or XML editor would do a search and replace, where you were searching for the GUID of the old object and replacing with the GUID of the new object.

Was the wind turbine you placed part of the Rwy12 packages? It's been a long time since I looked at Rwy12 and the libraries, so I'm not going to guess about it. I'm wondering if the object you've placed is a FS9 or FSX model (MDL) file?

And Crosshairs+ may be in the Downloads or you can do a forum search. I know GaryGB has done a few postings about it and it's updated version for FSX.
 
Messages
90
Country
unitedstates
You know what blows? When you do something manually to set up something to work with one tool and then find out someone else has that functionality built into one of their tools! Arno G. thinks of everything! Too bad for me I figure that out after doing the manual stuff... :eek:

Any way. Short rundown on objects/MDLs. You can place them "specifically" by including Lat/Lon in the XML code and compile into a BGL file. Or you can take a MDL file (like the wind turbine) and compile it into a Library BGL file. Then using a tool like Rwy12 or SBuilderX or Instant Scenery 2 you make a Placement BGL file that contains XML code telling FSX to place object XYZ in Library BGL file at this Lat/Lon. And this Lat/Lon and this Lat/Lon.

The first method of taking a MDL file and Lat/Lon pretty much locks it into that general location. That's why you can't take the Eiffel Tower and place it in Los Angeles. (Yes, it can be done, but that's another story!) The second method of taking one or more MDL files and making a Library BGL from them is that it allows placement most everywhere.

One of those amazing and free tools by Arno will allow you to make a Library BGL from the wind turbine A-N-D... also make the necessary file for SBX so that it will recognize the new file and allow you to click away, placing wind turbines wherever you want. (I manually made and edited the files for SBX, before seeing that Arno had thought of that a LONG time ago. He's a very smart man!)

What is the name of this tool, and where can I find it? It sounds really cool!


Back to your light on top. If it looks OK, good. Having a combination of two different MDL files, nope. Not that I'm aware of. For the Hawai'i wind turbines I made a flashing light effect and placed on top of the wind turbine. But that involved a bit of cutting and pasting XML code, mainly for coordinates.

Well, the problem for the animated tower is that I do not have an XML file for it. But I do have a Gmax file for it. However, Gmax is extremely complex looking so I am not sure I even want to go there. When I open the windmill's Gmax file in Gmax 1.2 I get an error about some unsupported plugin. If I tell it to open anyway I get a silhouette image of the tower, all in black. It might be possible to learn how to add the light on top and then compile a new object file out of it so I could have one to merrily place everywhere. But I suspect the learning curve would be daunting. The "stupid idiot's" tutorial is nice, but it drops you right in with designing an entire plane fuselage. I would like a tutorial which starts with basics, like maybe creating some static scenery. Something simple, like a "marble on a stick" water tower, for example. Or a small shed. Then work my way upward. Are there simpler tutorials like that somewhere?



Back to all those wind turbines placed along Altamont Pass. Rwy12 generates Placement BGL files, which again is just XML code that tells FSX to place an object at Lat/Lon. I'd have to look at one of the BGL files from Rwy12, but most any text editor or XML editor would do a search and replace, where you were searching for the GUID of the old object and replacing with the GUID of the new object.

Was the wind turbine you placed part of the Rwy12 packages? It's been a long time since I looked at Rwy12 and the libraries, so I'm not going to guess about it. I'm wondering if the object you've placed is a FS9 or FSX model (MDL) file?

Actually the towers I used are included both in RWY12 and in the FSX libraries too (which I only learned about after starting out with SBX). In RWY12 it is found under FS9 General Buildings, and is called "gen_windmill01". So I guess that means it is an FS9 object? They are nice looking and have dual flashing red lights on top, so they look great in low light, especially when there are thousands of them spread over many square miles. But one thing I have noticed is when using RWY12 to place those towers, it creates BOTH BGL and XML files. I looked in one of the XML files and saw the GUID and coordinates you mentioned. However, placing the animated tower with SBX as a MDL file only creates a BGL file. I don't see any way to make an XML file along with that. So at this point it is looking like actually editing the Gmax file for the animated tower and adding a light might be the easiest, such as it is. But I am sure I would need some guidance. And there's that plugin issue to contend with too.

And Crosshairs+ may be in the Downloads or you can do a forum search. I know GaryGB has done a few postings about it and it's updated version for FSX.

Thanks. I'll see if I can track it down.

I really appreciate the help! :) But I admit I am feeling overwhelmed with all this now, especially after looking at the SDK documentation listed in the program files of my PC.

The biggest complaint I have always had about Microsoft is that they never make anything simple. It seems like they revel in convoluted complexity at every turn. For example, switching to using XML gauges and then, at the time, releasing "very little information about them" (a direct quote from a website I once read when trying to figure out how to edit a panel of one of their newer planes using FS Panel Studio. - Short answer - you can't do it. )
 
Messages
506
Country
unitedstates
What is the name of this tool, and where can I find it? It sounds really cool!

Yeah, that would have been helpful of me to mention Library Creator XML by Arno. Doh! http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/downloads.php?do=file&id=93

Download, read and create your self a Library BGL file. The files for SBX are suppose to be generated by the tool. Once you have the Library BGL file in SBX you can place the wind turbine ONCE, then with the object box still highlighted select Edit | Copy and then Edit | Paste. You'll see the cursor display a small "Paste" and wherever you click will be a wind turbine. Pressing Escape will turn the cursor back to normal.

Changing the wind turbine might be possible in Model Converter X (by Arno!), but you must respect that it's work done and donated by another developer. You might ask Ian (hcornea) about changing it or if he might be able to change it for you? Setting an attach point on the model and putting an effect there doesn't sound very difficult. But 3d work is really not my forte.

If you get the chance, you might attach one of the BGL files that you created with Rwy12. I can decompile and see what's in there and how it might translate to changing the MDL reference.
 
Messages
90
Country
unitedstates
Thanks! I'll give this a go and see what happens. :)

I don't intend to change someone else's design. It seems to me the way around that is to group together their tower and a light, and somehow bind them into a single placeable object file. As you say, rather than going through all the work of manually placing the tower and then placing the light, on each location for the object, perhaps someone has a way of doing this more easily. Maybe Library Creator XML will let me do just that.
 
Last edited:
Messages
90
Country
unitedstates
Yeah, that would have been helpful of me to mention Library Creator XML by Arno. Doh! http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/downloads.php?do=file&id=93

Download, read and create your self a Library BGL file. The files for SBX are suppose to be generated by the tool. Once you have the Library BGL file in SBX you can place the wind turbine ONCE, then with the object box still highlighted select Edit | Copy and then Edit | Paste. You'll see the cursor display a small "Paste" and wherever you click will be a wind turbine. Pressing Escape will turn the cursor back to normal.

Changing the wind turbine might be possible in Model Converter X (by Arno!), but you must respect that it's work done and donated by another developer. You might ask Ian (hcornea) about changing it or if he might be able to change it for you? Setting an attach point on the model and putting an effect there doesn't sound very difficult. But 3d work is really not my forte.

If you get the chance, you might attach one of the BGL files that you created with Rwy12. I can decompile and see what's in there and how it might translate to changing the MDL reference.

I have moved the questions I had in this post about Library Creator over to its category, away from here. Pardon my posting it in the wrong place. :)

In answer to your suggestions above, the first thing I'd like to report is that I actually ran across the site from which I downloaded the animated wind tower last night, and the fellow who created it said to feel free to modify it. Let me dig it back up and I'll post it here. So that aspect of fiddling with someone else's object won't be out ethically of line. :) Also, during some lengthy testing I was doing in RWY12 last night, I finally ran across the actual light (as an individual object) that is used atop that chimney I had mentioned "burying" inside the wind turbine to get a light on top. So If we do proceed with trying to modify the animated tower, the lamp for the top is already a placeable object in the RWY12 libraries.
 
Last edited:
Top