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P3D v5 Convert Ray Smith's scenery

F

FredNav

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france
I have been trying to convert Ray Smith's sceneries for personal use in P3Dv5.
His sceneries are good but the layout of the sceneries is not very accurate for online flying. Some gates and taxiways are totally off.

I know his objects (buildings, etc...) are geolocated so they can't be moved (or can they?) which is a real pain as some buildings are not in the correct location.
Another issue is taxiways and taxiways signs. It is easy to edit the taxiways in ADE however taxiway signs stay in the same location too (because, I guess, I have to use the original file too for the library objects in the sim).
I have managed in the past by creating an extra file from the original file and remove all signs and add an exclusion but it is not working all the time.
Is there a way to reliably do it? Hope this makes sense. Thanks.
 
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Just to explain further this is what I do.

Create and save a new .ad4 file using Ray's original file. From there, I will add the object to the LOM so that I don't get black objects.
I will then run the 3 "remove stock data status", "remove stock data" and "load stock data" to make the file compatible for p3dv5. I will delete the stock p3d taxiway signs, objects, etc...I will then edit taxiways (move them around) move the taxiway signs accordingly, etc...
At that stage the newly compiled .bgl file in p3d does not show Ray's buildings, which I guess is normal as the buildings are in the original file which is not in the sim scenery library.
So I add up the original file in the sim library along with my file in the same folder and bingo...the buildings reappear. Good! However the taxiway signs I moved to their new locations are back to the original location they were in the original file. I don't understand why. My file is above in the scenery library (Lorby) so I believe I am doing it right.
I hope this makes it clearer.
 
Thank you Tim for your reply.
I read the thread and will try to to follow your work flow with MCX...although I have never used MCX.
I am familiar (I think) with what Gary was trying to get Davide to do (layers, etc...). I will have a look at the scenery again and post my results back here.
I know it is a lot of work to try to modify Ray's work, but I find it is easier than to try from scratch.... At least you have a lot in place already.
 
I don’t know about any of Ray’s sceneries other than Fumicino. In that he used only Microsoft scenery items from libraries within FSX. For some reason I don’t understand, he collated them into new libraries and geolocated them. I see absolutely no reason to reverse-engineer these libraries when everything is already available to you within FSX/P3D. All you have to do is find the scenery objects and place them using ADE so that they fit your requirements.
 
It is working nicely so far. I have basically followed your work flow and everything looks good once put together.
The only thing that is "not working" are the buildings. I tried to move one building (linked to the MCX converted file) on the apron for test purposes. the building appears on the apron, but it also appears on its original spot. I have to assume it is because it is one of those geolocated files Ray is known for. I am surprised moving the building by 20 metres basically "duplicates" it, but that's what seems to be happening.
It is defeating the purpose a little bit, though, as my aim was to move buildings when needed, but at least, everything compiles nicely, and there is no need for layers, etc....
Unless I am doing something wrong?
 
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Check Post #85 in the linked thread. It probably describes what you are seeing and what you need to do, which is load Ray's scenery in ADE, move the objects you want to move, save the scenery and then convert it in MCX. It should now have the new geolocation information. You must also make sure the sim can't see the original scenery object file which contains the geoloaction info to Ray's spec. Which airfield is it? I'll have a look at it tomorrow.
 
There is a tool here that removed geolock from library objects

www.fsdeveloper.com

Geolock

When compiling a scenery .bgl file for Microsoft Flight Simulator or Prepar3D, the compiler examines each entry that positions an object and places some code in the file header that defines the geographic coverage of the placement items. In this...
www.fsdeveloper.com www.fsdeveloper.com

This may already have been covered. Also Geolock does not stop placements being shifted over limited distances as I recall.
 
Tim Collins said:
Check Post #85 in the linked thread. It probably describes what you are seeing and what you need to do, which is load Ray's scenery in ADE, move the objects you want to move, save the scenery and then convert it in MCX. It should now have the new geolocation information. You must also make sure the sim can't see the original scenery object file which contains the geoloaction info to Ray
Click to expand...
Tim and Scruffyduck thank you for getting back to me. I will get back to you soon, I am away from my PC.
The scenery is KMIA
 
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In the meantime If I understand correctly, instead of converting the original file from Ray (Robert actually) with MCX to extract the models, you are suggesting the file that should be converted with MCX is my corrected file? The issue with that is that compiling the corrected file usually does not include the "models" (well...they are black boxes (unless added in the LOM) and then do not appear in the sim). If you convert that file in MCX, are the "models" included in the corrected/customised .bgl file usable by MCX?
 
FredNav said:
Tim and Scruffyduck thank you for getting back to me. I will get back to you soon, I am away from my PC.
The scenery is KMIA
Click to expand...

Hi Fred. I have the same scenery, though in the P3Dv4 version as converted by Robert Catherall (see here). I tried moving a building in ADE and found the same problem as you found - the building appears both in its new location as specified in the ADE Object file and in the original location specified in Ray's scenery library file. I then tried removing the library file from the Scenery folder to see what was left. All of the default objects were present, and the one I'd moved was in its new position with no duplicates. That confirms that Ray's scenery library includes geolocation for the buildings he's repurposed from other default FSX sceneries. In the case of LIRF (the thread I linked to), Davide did move some jetways a small distance and seemed to encounter the same problem. On re-reading the thread, the way he solved it was not the way I suggested! In fact, he seems to have used the 'Object Placement' dialogue in MCX to remove the object placement information in the library file for the items he wanted to move.

Jon's suggestion of Geolock probably achieves exactly the same thing, but I haven't used it (yet) so I can't comment on that.
 
Bingo! Thank you Tim. I did exactly as you suggested. In MCX, I went to the Object Placement dialogue and removed the placement information (coordinates, heading, etc...) and exported back into the sim scenery folder. Then, in ADE, moved a couple of buildings to test.... Compiled. Worked perfectly!
I will start working on the project and will report back.
 
Well... Success was short lived. I did manage to move a couple of buildings (Terminal J), but there are a lot of objects (which are actually mostly defaults objects like cars, carts, a tower, ec...) which can't be moved. Those objects can be seen in MCX's object placement window with a green pin, but there are no listed for me to delete the geolocation. I am not really sure what to do next.
 
It might be worth trying Geolock. Alternatively, delete the objects and replace them from P3D's libraries - they're all there. You may have to introduce those libraries to ADE via the Library Object Manager, and you may also have to create an object library for the sim that copies those objects out of the dedicated city/airfield files within the sim. At a guess, I'd say most of them are in the JFK directories (I think it's Scenery\NAME*\New York).

*NAME stands for North AMerica East, not some random name!
 
I have the feeling extracting the models from the original file with MCX is OK but when exporting the scenery, it compiles the whole lot (not just the models) and makes all the scenery objects appear in the simulator as if there was a copy of the original file in there (if you see what I mean)...
I will look at Geolock.
 
I'm not sure what happens if you remove geolocation from an object within a library using MCX. I would have thought that once the changes are made and you then 'save scenery' (which recompiles the whole library) the changes should be permanent, but I haven't tried it - actually, I have a couple of old UKMil libraries I need to try this out on. Otherwise, remove the geolocation, save each model as a .mdl file and then create a new library. However, as I mentioned earlier, every object here is already freely available in the sim so this is a long-winded way of going about it!
 
Geo locking takes place when the model and its placement data are in the same bgl file.
 
GeoLock works really well, it seems. It is also easier to use as all you have to do is point to the original file and unlock it.
I think I am sorted out with this for the moment. I will report back difficulties if I encounter any.
Thanks for yor help with this, it made a huge difference.:)
 
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