Am I on the right track? BGL decompile, re-compile

[TBryson2]

First, I have plenty of experience with ADE and creating / placing scenery (mostly years ago) and simply need to know if I'm on the right track, or am I way off base? I am running P3D v4 on a Windows 10 system.

I have an airport that was created by someone else that needs a lot of work. In this airport, the original author has placed blue taxi lights as an object. Sadly, with the corrections, these taxi lights are all over the taxiways.

By a stroke of luck, he also left the .txt file that contains the objects within that BGL file so I know which item is the offending one. In this case it's the 8th one down the list of 18 objects .

When I decompile the "offending" BGL, (using BGL to XML), it "creates" 18 .mdl objects, (FSDS_object.mdl, through FSDS_object16.mdl) and the corresponding .xml file.

I'm thinking I can decompile the "offending" BGL, remove the "blue taxi lights" (or in this case, FSDS_object6.mdl), edit the .xml file then recompile the BGL using XML to BGL program. (Sadly, the XML file has no user friendly information in it! It has 18 entries that look like this:

<ModelData
sourceFile=""
fileOffsest="0"/>

(I have replaced the "sourcefile=""" with "sourcefile="<path of .mdl file>" and get no errors when running XML to BGL. If I don't do that, XML to BGL will not work.)

I am able to do this, and get NO errors, however, the resulting new BGL (that hopefully removes the taxi lights) now does not work at all and I get no objects that should be in that BGL.

Is this the correct approach? Or is there an issue with BGL to XML and / or XML to BGL in P3D v4?

Hope I conveyed myself appropriately.

TB2

 

[arno]

Hi,

Would it not be easier to just delete the placement information of the object? If you load the airport in ADE don't you see the sceneryobjects that place the lights?

 

[TBryson2]

If I could find it, yes. At this time, I’m not sure how he placed them. It’s highly unlikely he did them one at a time, but instead as a string. If I can find beginning or end, I could dimply delete them. But they are not showing up as a string.

I may play with the Library Manager in ADE and see if I can replicate them, that may give me the information I’m looking for.

 

[tgibson]

ModelConverterX should be able to load the Library BGL file, then you can use the green arrows to move between objects until you find the blue light. Then use the Scenery Objects Editor to remove that object from the file. Use Export Scenery to save the BGL and that object will be gone. Save a back up file first and don't leave it with a .BGL extension (or placed in an active scenery folder) or it will be loaded anyway. I usually place a copy in the parent scenery folder for safekeeping.

 

[TBryson2]

Thanks tgibson. I'll have to check it out.

I think for my needs, the simplest approach would be to eliminate the offending .bgl entirely. Using Library Manager and ADE, I was able to isolate and shapshot every item in that particular .bgl file and will place them appropriately in the re-created airport. Since there are only 19 items, and I only care about 16 or so, it isn't a big challenge.

In the original airport, the original author somehow embedded them in that airport so there is no way for me to isolate them out and only single out the taxi lights, (which I've determined the original author did place them individually. What a hassle!). By eliminating the original bgl, then placing the items back into the airport myself, I have more control over them.

 

[robystar]

Apparently the same happened with the payware sceneries of EVRA and LGRP. And I have not found any other solution but to eliminate all the rwy edgelights.
Once the creator of the scenery has merged all of the lights into one mdl where all the lights are already put at their ( sometimes wrong) place, I see no way to remedy that with MCX.
I hope I am wrong, Arno ?

 

[tgibson]

Yes, AFAIK if they are a single object there is no way to separate them. The OP's were placed as individual objects so he could use other strategies, but has decided to remove all of them anyway.