having serious difficulties with placing basic scenery

[essetesse]

hi i am just beginning with FSX SDK and i'm trying to place an object from 3ds max.... i followed the tutorial and it isn't working. in the process of debugging, i'm trying to get something much simpler to work and failing miserably. i'm just trying to place an object with a GUID.... i followed the example from the SDK docs to make this XML

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<FSData
     version="9.0"
     xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'
     xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd" >

<SceneryObject
      lat="N47 25.89"
      lon="W122 18.42"
      alt="0"
      altitudeIsAgl="TRUE"
      pitch="0"
      bank="0"
      heading="0"
      imageComplexity="NORMAL">

      <LibraryObject
            name="6be1bddc45f142320e89298d76300c0e"
            scale="1.0"/>
</SceneryObject>
</FSData>

i called this test.xml, dragged it over BglComp.exe to produce test.BGL. then dragged this file into the "Addon Scenery\scenery" folder. when i load the game i see nothing there! what am i doing wrong? is the GUID wrong?

i got the GUID from the AutoGen SDK tutorial... it is a farm pen.

i also tried the GUID from the TestX.max file, and used the MDL and XML that goes with the TestX tutorial but to no success.

i also found this tool called Whisplacer that lets me browse the FSX library and pull GUIDs for objects -- i tried 00985A244AF04F5EBA6432F165A7FE55, the GUID for gen_game_hoop_ACTIVE (the green hoop from the tutorials) .... i also tried B9225EFA882B4D10ACBBED5EB1A64F40 (Liverpool Radio Tower) and EA14B14D4B9C4C98BE5DC67F38A58503 (Toyota Soccer Stadium)..... i still don't see anything!

i thought there might be some cache issue. but, when i download a compiled BGL of planes around seatac that i found online, and drag it into the "Addon Scenery\scenery" folder, they appear just fine.

[FYI i haven't installed any service packs.... would this help? ]

please help, i'm at my wit's end here! if someone could provide an XML that works i would greatly appreciate it..... i'm just trying to place something, anything, and obviously making some dumb error.

 

[José Bourgoignie]

Hi,

I see a little difference/missing data (name of your MDL) in your xml-file: add at the end the needed data...

... ...
</SceneryObject>
<ModelData sourceFile="test.MDL" />
</FSData>

Greetz. José.

 

[GHD]

Your "name=" value is in the wrong format for FSX, it should be something like:

name="{9F23D0FA-2579-4B3D-BFAE-3C2D71BD1385}"

I would also suggest that you install all of the service packs for both FSX and the SDK.

Edit. BTW, the GUID for agn_farmpens_1 is {6be1bddc-4232-45f1-8d29-890e0e0c3076}

 

[José Bourgoignie]

Hi,

I saw that too... but thought this notation was a fault by me ... grrr.

Greetz. José.

 

[essetesse]

thanks for all your help so far. i installed SP1, SP2, SDK SP1a and SDK SP2. then i walked through the tutorial, again, for placing an object in the scene using the TestX.x and TestX.anim provided in the SDK. i wasn't sure if i should use the XToMdl for 3DSM9 or 3DSM7, so i tried both ways. in both cases i generated a MDL and an XML, after removing comments, that looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<FSData version="9.0" xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd">

	<SceneryObject instanceId="{1f24f2f6-77c7-4a5c-bf71-306d0f807c82}" lat="47 25.89" lon="-122 18.43" alt="0" pitch="0" bank="0" heading="0" altitudeIsAgl="TRUE" imageComplexity="NORMAL">
		<LibraryObject name="{393fd86f-ff49-461f-a532-8ef1c884642d}" scale="1.0" />
	</SceneryObject>

	<ModelData sourceFile="TestX.MDL" />
</FSData>

(well actually i notice that the instanceId varies for the 2 different XMLs)

anyway so i put each of them through BGLcomp as instructed, drop the TestX_placement.BGL in the "Addon Scenery\scenery" folder, and no success.

Just to sanity check that i'm looking in the right place, here is a screenshot. I tried to match the screenshot in the SDK docs but their camera has a wider field of view. also, i slew'd my plane to the lat/long and saw nothing as another sanity check.

As another sanity check, i re-did my earlier test using a known GUID -- i fixed the formatting. in particular my file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<FSData
     version="9.0"
     xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'
     xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd" >

<SceneryObject
      lat="N47 25.89"
      lon="W122 18.42"
      alt="0"
      altitudeIsAgl="TRUE"
      pitch="0"
      bank="0"
      heading="0"
      imageComplexity="NORMAL">

      <LibraryObject
            name="{6BE1BDDC-4232-45F1-8D29-890E0E0C3076}"
            scale="1.0"/>
</SceneryObject>
</FSData>

still i see nothing.

please help. this is the first thing i've tried to do with the SDK, it seems so basic but nothing works.

 

[essetesse]

SOLVED!

my scenery complexity level was set to "Low". this was how it came when i installed FSX - i didn't change it. anyway when i crank it up, my geometry appears. yay!