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It's common knowledge, or should be, that LM have updated stock airports in significant ways. Aside from adding the ability to build sloped airports they have recompiled all the airports and added many new buildings and other objects. It also appears that some stock objects in V4 and earlier are not in v5. The differences can be demonstrated and hopefully handled with ADE.
NOTE. If you are not using P3D v5 and do not intend to use it then you can pretty much ignore this post.
Let's take an example. You have a project created for v4 and want to use it in v5. You might just transfer the compiled bgl file(s) to v5 and fire up the sim. You may find it works. More likely you will find a raft of new objects appearing.
There are three (one new) tools that help handle stock data. Stock data is information coming from the stock files that is related to or located on the airport. Some of these are in airport files (APX) but they are also in navaid (NVX) and object (OBX) files.
Load Stock Data This tool searches though stock files to locate those objects, signs etc that are displayed in sim for the default airport. There are a bunch of others that ADE will find like approaches, fixes and comms. Generally these are for information and are read only. When you load stock data ADE makes a copy of what it finds and places this in the project. At the same time it creates a small exclusion rectangle (micro exclude) which is co-located with object. The purpose of the micro exclude is to hide the object in the stock file. If you want to delete or move it then you do that in ADE and the micro exclude stops the stock file item showing through in the sim. ADE automatically loads the stock data information when you open an airport from stock. Load stock data does some other things like removing duplicated objects and signs
Remove Stock Data This is not well named. Using it does not delete the stock item in the stock file but it removes all information about stock objects and micro excludes from the project. So stock items will show in the sim. You might use this prior to Loading the Stock Data again.
Remove Stock Data Stock Status Again lousy name. The main use of this is in cleaning up a v4 or earlier project for use in v5. It does two things. First it changes the stock status of any objects or signs so they are no longer stock, and second it removes the micro excludes. Effectively they become just like any other user placed object or sign. The Remove Stock Data tool will ignore them.
There are several transfer scenarios:
Open a v5 stock airport in v5 This is just like any other project and you can just work on it as usual
Open a v4 project in v5 where the v4 project has excluded all v4 stock data You may have this if you just deleted all stock items and added your own. There are no stock objects apparent in the display but there will be lists of comms, approaches and so on plus micro excludes for the v4 stock objects. The process here is first to create a safe copy of the v4 project and then load it into ADE for v5. Save the project in v5 Use Remove Stock Data to get rid of the v4 stuff and then Load Stock Data to add the v5 replacements, You should then be able to proceed as if it were a v5 project.
Open a v4 project in v5 where some v4 stock items remain in the project. This will happen if some of the v4 objects were retained as part of the addon. As above first make a safe copy, load into v5 and save the project. Now the project will display v4 stock placements and contain all the micro excludes. If you decide you don't want to keep the v4 stock objects for the v5 project just run Remove Stock Data and then Load Stock data as before. If you do want to keep them then you should first run Remove Stock Data Stock Status and turn all the v4 object placements into user objects in the v5 project. Then run Remove Stock Data and Load Stock Data and the project should contain your v4 placements and new v5 ones. All objects and taxi signs will now display whether they are stock or not in the tooltip and also in the Lists Be aware that you may see some black box objects. This will happen if the stock object in v4 is no longer available in v5.
I will shortly post an example of the above which demonstrates the differences between v4 and v5 versions of KHUT
UPDATE
For completeness I need to include the approach of using multiple overlapping exclusion rectangles covering the entire airport area. This will work in some cases but suffers from the weakness of accurate placement of exclusions when the objects to be excluded are not visible in ADE and also potential conflicts between overlapping exclusions. There can also be issues with jetways under large exclusions. Although the methods above are more complex and time consuming the results are likely to be better.
Here is an example where exclusion rectangles were used in a v4 project to exclude all objects, signs etc and at the same time works in v5 excluding stock from there.
As far as I can see there are no micro excludes but the developer used 63 rectangles to cover everything
NOTE. If you are not using P3D v5 and do not intend to use it then you can pretty much ignore this post.
Let's take an example. You have a project created for v4 and want to use it in v5. You might just transfer the compiled bgl file(s) to v5 and fire up the sim. You may find it works. More likely you will find a raft of new objects appearing.
There are three (one new) tools that help handle stock data. Stock data is information coming from the stock files that is related to or located on the airport. Some of these are in airport files (APX) but they are also in navaid (NVX) and object (OBX) files.
Load Stock Data This tool searches though stock files to locate those objects, signs etc that are displayed in sim for the default airport. There are a bunch of others that ADE will find like approaches, fixes and comms. Generally these are for information and are read only. When you load stock data ADE makes a copy of what it finds and places this in the project. At the same time it creates a small exclusion rectangle (micro exclude) which is co-located with object. The purpose of the micro exclude is to hide the object in the stock file. If you want to delete or move it then you do that in ADE and the micro exclude stops the stock file item showing through in the sim. ADE automatically loads the stock data information when you open an airport from stock. Load stock data does some other things like removing duplicated objects and signs
Remove Stock Data This is not well named. Using it does not delete the stock item in the stock file but it removes all information about stock objects and micro excludes from the project. So stock items will show in the sim. You might use this prior to Loading the Stock Data again.
Remove Stock Data Stock Status Again lousy name. The main use of this is in cleaning up a v4 or earlier project for use in v5. It does two things. First it changes the stock status of any objects or signs so they are no longer stock, and second it removes the micro excludes. Effectively they become just like any other user placed object or sign. The Remove Stock Data tool will ignore them.
There are several transfer scenarios:
Open a v5 stock airport in v5 This is just like any other project and you can just work on it as usual
Open a v4 project in v5 where the v4 project has excluded all v4 stock data You may have this if you just deleted all stock items and added your own. There are no stock objects apparent in the display but there will be lists of comms, approaches and so on plus micro excludes for the v4 stock objects. The process here is first to create a safe copy of the v4 project and then load it into ADE for v5. Save the project in v5 Use Remove Stock Data to get rid of the v4 stuff and then Load Stock Data to add the v5 replacements, You should then be able to proceed as if it were a v5 project.
Open a v4 project in v5 where some v4 stock items remain in the project. This will happen if some of the v4 objects were retained as part of the addon. As above first make a safe copy, load into v5 and save the project. Now the project will display v4 stock placements and contain all the micro excludes. If you decide you don't want to keep the v4 stock objects for the v5 project just run Remove Stock Data and then Load Stock data as before. If you do want to keep them then you should first run Remove Stock Data Stock Status and turn all the v4 object placements into user objects in the v5 project. Then run Remove Stock Data and Load Stock Data and the project should contain your v4 placements and new v5 ones. All objects and taxi signs will now display whether they are stock or not in the tooltip and also in the Lists Be aware that you may see some black box objects. This will happen if the stock object in v4 is no longer available in v5.
I will shortly post an example of the above which demonstrates the differences between v4 and v5 versions of KHUT
UPDATE
For completeness I need to include the approach of using multiple overlapping exclusion rectangles covering the entire airport area. This will work in some cases but suffers from the weakness of accurate placement of exclusions when the objects to be excluded are not visible in ADE and also potential conflicts between overlapping exclusions. There can also be issues with jetways under large exclusions. Although the methods above are more complex and time consuming the results are likely to be better.
Here is an example where exclusion rectangles were used in a v4 project to exclude all objects, signs etc and at the same time works in v5 excluding stock from there.
As far as I can see there are no micro excludes but the developer used 63 rectangles to cover everything
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