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FSXA Are AGN files location or scenery specfic?

arno said:
Although Gary's remark about resolution makes me wonder again.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't bother about resolution. FSX arbitrarily moves autogen depending upon season.

The resolution is of a 32bit float between -1 and +1 over roughly 1Km
 
Hi,

I have updated agn2txt now, it should read the FS9 style objects as well now.
 
Golf-HotelDelta said:
What do you mean by useable? One cannot recompile the xml output :confused:
Click to expand...


Hi George:

Actually, I would anticipate a "number" of uses for coordinate source data that is in a non-compiled state, as it can be more readily accessed and utilized for testing FS development ideas. ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability



As to the ability for conveying instructions to the FS rendering engine for display of autogen, IIRC, either or both of the XML and AGN file formats are processed at run time when present in an active FS \Texture sub-folder.


FYI: I have yet to test: :idea:

  • If the TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_[object]_PER_CELL parameter limits display of the specified autogen type in a given LOD-13 Area ("Cell") to the specified value "cumulatively" when both a XML and AGN file annotate the same quad ...assuming they are treated by FS as a 'single' data source.

  • If the TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_[object]_PER_CELL parameter limits display of the specified autogen type in a given LOD-13 Area ("Cell") to the specified value "individually" when both a XML and AGN file annotate the same quad ...assuming they are treated by FS as 2 'separate' data sources.


I would speculate that presence of the TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_[object]_PER_CELL parameter in FSX.Cfg may function as a global attenuator at the LOD-13 Area ("Cell") level, such that one might find the rendered autogen density of a Cell Area is the result of annotator instructions from both such file formats; and finding out whether placement instructions may be derived in an exactly equal proportion from both file formats might be interesting too. :scratchch


BTW: I would be curious as to whether any FPS difference you might document on your own computer in tests of FSX performance which compare use of an "un-compiled XML" file versus the same file "compiled" to AGN format... should best be expressed numerically as an 'integer' or a 'float' ! :p


But it would certainly be nice to see Arno innovate a XML2AGN utility as well ! :)

GaryGB
 
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Hi Arno,

Have you made any progress on txt to agn?

I have several agn files with FS9 type vegetation rectangles which are defined as broadleaf whereas they should be conifer. It would be easy to edit the file produced by agn2txt if there was a compiler.

This particular agn has 10790 rectangles :eek:

 
Hi George,

I just released it yesterday :), see my blog:

http://msmvps.com/blogs/arnogerretsen/archive/2011/10/29/txt2agn.aspx

It would be interesting to see if it works for you. For the FS9 vegetation blocks you can only have one definition per AGN tile, so I am not sure if it can be done easily what you want. With polygon vegetation it would be easier I guess.
 
arno said:
It would be interesting to see if it works for you. For the FS9 vegetation blocks you can only have one definition per AGN tile, so I am not sure if it can be done easily what you want.
Click to expand...

It should be fine, the area is a large conifer forest.

I'll let you know how it works.
 
I am in the process of writing the manual for the tools at this very moment btw. So they will be available on the Wiki soon.
 
Unfortunately it didn't work:

Code: 
G:\ModelConverterX>txt2agn t.txt t1.agn

Unhandled Exception: System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'ASToFra.Autogen.BuildingSettings' from assembly 'Aut
ogen, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.
   at System.Reflection.Assembly._GetType(String name, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase)
   at System.Activator.CreateInstance(String assemblyName, String typeName, Boolean ignoreCase, BindingFlags bindingAttr
, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes, Evidence securityInfo, StackCrawlMar
k& stackMark)
   at System.Activator.CreateInstance(String assemblyName, String typeName)
   at ASToFra.agn2txt.txt2agn.ParseTXT(String filename)
   at ASToFra.agn2txt.txt2agn.Main(String[] args)
 
Hi,

Did you create the TXT file with the latest version of agn2txt? I made some changes to the syntax. But I should make it more robust I guess :).
 
No, it was created with the previous version. I'll create it again.

It will be a couple of hours.
 
Ok, decompiling and re-compiling with the latest versions worked.

I now have conifers where once there were broadleaf :)

Edit. It took a while before I realised that the second parameter to txt2agn was a directory :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
If you just type txt2agn you get the usage information. And on the wiki is a manual as well now.
 
Arno, please excuse my relative ignorance but from reading the above I get the impression that agn files deal with landclass, while I thought they were to provide textures for buildings? Or is it both? And my third question is why invent another and more complicated way of creating scenery when FSDS, for instance, producing an "object.mdl" with associated textures "object1.bmp" and "object2.bmp", works perfectly well. Are there really justifiable scenery improvements? Now I know why I create scenery for FS9, and not prepare 3D!
 
Hi,

Ask MS why they designed the system like it is :)

But autogen is very different from mdl objects that you place. It's intended to place vegetation and buildings in big areas efficiently. That can be either for landclass scenery or for photo scenery. If you would use mdl objects placed with bglcomp for all of that, your performance would be gone.

In FSX the autogen system uses mdl objects for trees, roofs, etc. in FS2004 those things are less flexible and more hard coded into the system.
 
Like you said, the main reason is performance. Could also be partly a legacy thing. Most of the autogen in FSX except for library objects (Autogen 2? I can't remember the name now) have their geometry batched into large buffers. This allows them to be drawn with less draw calls, but also means they cannot be culled as accurately as individual models, and they are more expensive to update when the terrain LODs change. This is why the houses\trees in FSX tend to have low polygon count and share texture atlases.

The library object autogen gets rendered through the same system as the scenery objects which allows them to be individually culled and moved to account for terrain LOD changes, but there is more CPU cost per frame to render them (they are actually fairly expensive on the CPU due to needing round earth correction every frame).
 
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