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Instant Scenery 2; Wow!

Messages
10,088
Country
us-arizona
I picked it up yesterday and was massively impressed! Incredible how you can move things around and click and done and you have instantly created scenery right there in the sim.

Too bad it cannot create in Prepar3D, but at least things can transfer over to Pe via FSX.

One awesome scenery object tool.



I did try to get it working in P3. I got it all hooked up via the DLL.XML sheet, etc, but found that it still needs to interact with the 'mouse' system of P3, which I think might be linked directly to the EXE file. arrgh... But at least we can migrate the files over from FSX into P3.



Bill
 
Messages
3,278
Country
spain
The thumbnail is the only I miss in the Fsx OPT, but is enough, it's crazy trying to found something in this OPT, but It took too long to get the hang to this evil OPT to switch now I have learned all his handicap and tricks and now I have the control.
 

hcornea

Resource contributor
Messages
2,388
Country
australia
along with:

Search tools (for objects, list by object, object reports)
Warnings about adding objects to a "distant" bgl
Cut and paste
Opening bgls directly, etc etc

The object placer tool is a frustrating poor cousin, IMO.

Instant Scenery 2 is what the Object Placer Tool should have been, and very close to zero learning curve.

Not worth persisting with the Object Placer xml.

Actually, not having to compile the bgl files is worth the price of admission.
 
Messages
1,518
Country
unitedstates
How big are the libraries? Do they ever add more objects to the program or pretty much what you see is what you get?
 
Messages
10,088
Country
us-arizona
How big are the libraries? Do they ever add more objects to the program or pretty much what you see is what you get?

I didnt know it actually came with libraries. From what I understood, it uses all of the FSX and FS2004 libraries and alot of those are stock FS.

I never realized how much autogen there was in FS...



I need to start making some libraries of my old FS2004 scenery buildings and objects. I have tanks, hangers, planes, shacks, etc, etc... Would be nice to get them in there and with their thumbnails.



Bill
 
Messages
3,353
Country
germany
I have recently upgraded to version 2 after having used V1 for years. I use Instant Scenery to place everything with the exception of trees, for which I know nothing better than Whisplacer.
 
Messages
74
Country
unitedkingdom
Especially handy if you use their library creator for all your models. You can then simply drop your models anywhere you want and instantly create whatever scenery you desire. I have used it since it came out and I could not imagine having to use the object placement tool anymore.
 

hcornea

Resource contributor
Messages
2,388
Country
australia
Actually, I'll offer a contra opinion on the Library maker.

It is the one part of Instant Scenery 2 that I do NOT use. Here's why:

Library Maker does dot read the GUID data from FSX model files.
Instead it creates a brand new GUID, which doesn't match the one in the MDL header.
It does this each time any model is added to the library.

This is all fine and good, until you find an abberant piece of geometry that needs tidying up, and recompile the mdl file.
You now need to re-place your object in the sim .... very Annoying.

Library Creator XML (Arno's tool) rebuilds the library using a bank of MDL files.
Thus, any time you update a MDL, the GUID is preserved, and all the placements in the sim are preserved.

It is a simple matter to keep a folder with an xml file and MDL collection.

TIP: I use a batch file to parse the xml, and copy it to the "build" directory. This means that one click on my desktop, and my updated mdl's is refreshed into the active library, ready for testing.

It is possible that Konstantin has updated the Library Maker tool, but I don;t think so.
 
Last edited:
Messages
282
Country
australia
Actually, I'll offer a contra opinion on the Library maker.

It is the one part of Instant Scenery 2 that I do NOT use. Here's why:

Library Maker does dot read the GUID data from FSX model files.
Instead it creates a brand new GUID, which doesn't match the one in the MDL header.
It does this each time any model is added to the library.

This is all fine and good, until you find an abberant piece of geometry that needs tidying up, and recompile the mdl file.
You now need to re-place your object in the sim .... very Annoying.

Library Creator XML (Arno's tool) rebuilds the library using a bank of MDL files.
Thus, any time you update a MDL, the GUID is preserved, and all the placements in the sim are preserved.

It is a simple matter to keep a folder with an xml file and MDL collection.

TIP: I use a batch file to parse the xml, and copy it to the "build" directory. This means that one click on my desktop, and my updated mdl's is refreshed into the active library, ready for testing.

It is possible that Konstantin has updated the Library Maker tool, but I don;t think so.

This has annoyed me to no end for YEARS. It's the single bad thing about Instant Scenery. I finally did the same thing and now use Library Creator so I can keep GUID's if my models change. I like your batch file idea though !

Max.
 
Messages
169
While developing I generaly recompile models often. With Instant Scenery Library Maker first I click Change Guid and I copy the Guid of the model in memory. Then I delete the model. I add the new model, and I click Change Guid and paste the previously copied guid. In this way I preserve the placement.
 
Messages
1,510
Country
unitedstates
Library Maker does dot read the GUID data from FSX model files.

I speculate that this is because IS2 uses the FS9 version of BGLcomp, although I've never used the library maker, but in decompiling IS2 placement .bgls with Bgl2Xml the app will report "File was compiled with the FS9 Compiler" and the resulting XML will contain FS9 style GUIDs.

I generally use IS2 for placements and then import the finished .bgl into ADE and "compile airport" into a temporary folder with "save XML" on. This converts the GUIDs to FSX style. Then I open the XML in a text editor, remove the exclusions, and save it as filename_PLC.xml as opposed to ICAO_ADEX_OBJ.xml and recompile it with the FSX version of BGLcomp.

It's not that the IS2 generated FS9 placement .bgls don't work properly in FSX, I do this because I like to have a source that I can edit on a text level. There I can replace GUIDs if desired, vary the scale of certain objects, add <NoAutogenSuppression/>, and I've even used a spreadsheet with reasonable success to modify the lat/lon of all objects, correcting for batched object shift, and parsing the result back into the xml.

Jim
 
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