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Yet another cock-up...

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Miggers
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Yet another cock-up...

Post by Miggers »

Gents,

I've just picked up a copy of the old UK2000/Just Flight British Airports for South West England.

It's installed nicely,but has taken over the MAIW Culdrose scenery package and changed all the parking,
I now have helis parked on the grass instead of on the pads,so I suspect it's the UK2000 afcad that has overwritten Gary Barker's afcad for the Culdrose/Preddanack scenery.

I've gone into the UK2000 scenery files and removed their afcads,but still the problem persists.

What's the best way to sort it? re-download the installer and put the package back in?
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Firebird
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Firebird »

Unless you do things in a really weird way there is no way that the MAIW afcads were overwritten by the UK2000 ones. Installed in completely separate folders - unless you messed around with both.

So how to prove this. The easy way to check this is to disable all the UK200o folders you just installed and I am guessing that is 2 folders.
What you should then see is the MAIW Culdrose is back.

If it is, and I think it will be, the reason for your problem is that you have the UK2000 scenery with a higher layer number in the scenery lib that Culdrose.

You can't just add scenery and expect things to work. You have to plan your cfg file out. The UK2000 scenery is an area addon, not a local addon. So it has to be loaded before any local addons.
The principle is similar to the MAIW Global Libs. They have to be loaded first before and scenery that uses them is. You load area scenery before local scenery. As a suggestion I would place the UK2000 folder(s) it so that the layer number is one higher, and two etx, than the Addon Scenery folder. If you only use the Scenery Library in game then the layers are the reverse of the priority. So the folder(s) need to have a LOWER priority than the Addon scenery.

The way this works is that the UK2000 gets loaded first and then Culdrose gets loaded over the top.
Now the only way this wouldn't solve the issue is if there is a file that stamps over the area. There are several old Alphasim sceneries that do that. However, lets not worry about that at the moment.
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Miggers
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Miggers »

I had my suspicions the UK2000 stuff might bugger it up.

The MAIW scenery(pretty much most of it for UK) is in the "Add on Scenery folder" within the sim,
the UK2000 is in the "main" Fs9 folder.
Within the UK2000 folder is one called "af2_high",also within the main UK2000 scenery folder is "UK part 2",
this contains the usual scenery,texture,cfg,manuals,all that jazz.

The Add-on Scenery(contains MAIW) is layer 23
The af2_high is layer 36
The UK2000 South West is layer 37.
Unticked the two UK2000 folders and yes,the MAIW scenery is re-instated.
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Firebird
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Firebird »

OK Well the fact that you put all the sceneries in the Addon scenery folder rather than individual folders makes things a lot more difficult for you. You would have to move the UK2000 ones so that their layer is lower than Addon sceneries.

I am thinking that you put all the scenery in the addon scenery folder to avoid making entries which of course it will do but it seriously restricts your flexibility in removing sceneries. I can't say that I would ever recommend doing that.
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by John Young »

I'm not clear what "MAIW scenery" means Steve from what miggers says. Does is mean that all the "MAIW" scenery is in individual folders within Addon Scenery (OK), or does it mean that all the .bgls have been dumped together in Addon scenery/scenery (not OK)?

Or does he mean "MAIW Culdrose" is in the Addon scenery folder and activated as a separate area?

If MAIW Culdrose can't be revealed by adjusting the layers he does have, rather than switch off the two UK2000 areas completely, he could try removing all the .bgl files with "EGDR" in the file names from those two folders.

John
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Miggers »

John Young wrote: 16 Sep 2020, 05:38 I'm not clear what "MAIW scenery" means Steve from what miggers says. Does is mean that all the "MAIW" scenery is in individual folders within Addon Scenery (OK), or does it mean that all the .bgls have been dumped together in Addon scenery/scenery (not OK)?

Or does he mean "MAIW Culdrose" is in the Addon scenery folder and activated as a separate area?

If MAIW Culdrose can't be revealed by adjusting the layers he does have, rather than switch off the two UK2000 areas completely, he could try removing all the .bgl files with "EGDR" in the file names from those two folders.

John
John,ALL the MAIW scenery is in individual folders inside the Addon scenery folder,yes.
I'll remove the requisite .bgl files and see what that does.
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Firebird »

Ahhhh OK. That makes far more sense.
I took it exactly as was read and was under the impression that there were no individual scenery folders. The mention of the Addon scenery folder is what confused me.

For this the location of the individual Culdrose scenery folder is immaterial, as long as it activated, the key thing is that you have an individual folder.

The other thing that pointed me there was that you mentioned that the Addon Scenery folder was at layer 23 but did not mention where the Culdrose folder is in the list.
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Miggers »

Right,so, I've uninstalled the UK2000 and everything is back in place with Culdrose.

Could I now go into the scenery library,deactivate the Culdrose scenery(un-tick it),shut down then re-start Fs
so that it re-sets.

Then shut down and install the UK2000,re-start and let it build the new scenery library.

Go into the scenery library and re-activate Culdrose,then shut down and re-start as you would after a
normal scenery install.

Is it likely that the scenery will then load as Steve suggested it should,i.e UK2000 first then Culdrose over the top of it?
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Firebird »

Again it depends upon the respective layer numbers.
What are the layer numbers for the Culdrose and UK2000 folders? The layer numbers for the UK2000 stuff has to lower than the MAIW Culdrose scenery.

If they are then the only reason that the scenery wouldn't show is the original scenery stamps over that area. That is extremely rare, not to say anti-social, so it shouldn't be an issue.

The only other issue might be bleed through with objects from the UK2000 scenery. This can be fixed with an exclude and you might be lucky and the Culdrose afcad may already include one.
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by JohnTenn »

Miggers

I also have the UK2000 sceneries installed.

Open the folder that has the scenery in and remove the .bgl's that have EGDR in the name.

I have moved the following to a back-up folder:

egdr.bgl
egdrex c.bgl
egdrVFR.bgl

Hope this helps.

John
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Miggers »

Firebird wrote: 16 Sep 2020, 11:01 Again it depends upon the respective layer numbers.
What are the layer numbers for the Culdrose and UK2000 folders? The layer numbers for the UK2000 stuff has to lower than the MAIW Culdrose scenery.

If they are then the only reason that the scenery wouldn't show is the original scenery stamps over that area. That is extremely rare, not to say anti-social, so it shouldn't be an issue.

The only other issue might be bleed through with objects from the UK2000 scenery. This can be fixed with an exclude and you might be lucky and the Culdrose afcad may already include one.
The layers are as follows Steve:

UK 2000 is at 4
Af2_high/High AFCADS is at 5
Culdrose/Predannack is at 17
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Miggers »

JohnTenn wrote: 16 Sep 2020, 11:47 Miggers

I also have the UK2000 sceneries installed.

Open the folder that has the scenery in and remove the .bgl's that have EGDR in the name.

I have moved the following to a back-up folder:

egdr.bgl
egdrex c.bgl
egdrVFR.bgl

Hope this helps.

John
I've tried that too John,it didn't seem to make any difference.
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Firebird »

I am surprised that the number is so low as there are a lot of default MS folders, I have 38 on my system. However, if you haven't installed all of the MS scenery then it would make sense.

Now the layer numbers are in the order that they should be. So when you say that it doesn't make any difference, what exactly do you mean? That the MAIW scenery doesn't show up or something else?

Is the Culdrose the only place that you have issues with since you installed UK2000?
Steve
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Miggers »

I think I've sorted it Steve by a combination of what you and John mentioned.

I reinstalled the UK scenery and removed any .bgl's relating to Culdrose(and Yeovilton,also addon scenery.).

I then moved the Culdrose and Yeovilton folders above the UK2000 and fired up.

That seems to have done the trick,Culdrose unmolested in all it's glory.

Lessons learned there,any more of that type of scenery I add,then do the same procedure.

As I say,I have most of the MAIW UK airfield sceneries and flightplans installed.

Thanks for you help Steve.
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by JohnTenn »

I have read the whole thread again.

Should have done that from the start.

This layer order is problematic for me:

UK 2000 is at 4
Af2_high/High AFCADS is at 5
Culdrose/Predannack is at 17

Referring specifically to the scenery library menu from the main menu.

The scenery is loaded from the bottom of the list as it boots up.
In this case 17 then 5 and then 4.
5 suppresses 17 and 4 suppresses 5.

My order would be:
Culdrose/Predannack at 15
AF2_high at 16
UK2000 at 17
as a suggestion.

If you see the MAIW scenery as it should be, save for the parking, then it is an AF2_. bgl that is causing the issue.
Probably in AF2_High folder.

John
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Firebird »

A lot of people get confused about that, John.
As there are two list systems and they are the reverse order of each other. Why anybody with any common sense wanted to do that is beyond me.

If you go through the Scenery panel in game you will see that it uses priority and priority 1 is at the top. The order that the scenery is loaded is from the bottom upwards. So from the highest priority to the lowest. Priority 1 is the one above all others. However if you look at the raw scenery.cfg you will see that it uses layer numbers and goes from 1 upwards. This is the order that they are loaded.

So what Miggers says is actually correct. layer 4, layer 5 and then later 17. If he looked in game then the priority numbers are way different and Culdrose would be a LOWER priority number and the two UK2000 folders would be HIGHER.

This system of having two ways of ordering sceneries, and they are the opposite of each other, has been causing confusion for 16 years and counting.

Anybody can look at their system in game and their scenery.cfg file and see exactly what I mean.

Nightmare!
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by JohnTenn »

Steve

Your understanding is not correct.

I managed to corrupt my Scenery.cfg while trying to modify the scenery list after a re-install without having to add everything in the painstaking fashion.

I now only use the scenery.CFG to modify my list. The new config must be named NewScenery.cfg in order to overwrite the original which still must be present.

My top folder is addon scenery which is priority 1 in the menu and layer 750 in my scenery.CFG.

ADE,AFX and AF2 files contain a section to delete scenery or portions of that airfield that loaded before it. Referring to frequencies and a short list of others.

<DeleteAirport
deleteAllRunways="TRUE"
deleteAllStarts="TRUE"
deleteAllHelipads="TRUE"
deleteAllFrequencies="TRUE"
deleteAllTaxiways="TRUE"
deleteAllAprons="TRUE"
deleteAllApronLights="TRUE"
deleteAllApproaches="TRUE"/>

So in Miggers' case the AF2_high (afcads) will be loaded in priority 5, fifth last in this case for his entire list.
If there is an afcad for for EGDR in this folder then it will suppress the ADE,AFX or AF2 for EGDR in Culdrose/Pedannak at priority 17 which is loaded before it.

The only exception, that I know of, is the AI airport altitude reference which must be loaded first to get AI at the correct altitude.
This .bgl only needs to contain the header of the "Afcad". Created them myself from XML files.
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by Firebird »

I know what you are saying but Miggers said that his LAYER numbers were 4,5 and 17 not PRIORITY numbers.
UK 2000 is at 4
Af2_high/High AFCADS is at 5
Culdrose/Predannack is at 17
UK 2000 is loaded fourth overall, AF2_high afcads fith and Culdrose seventeenth. This is correct. If they were priority numbers all sorts of problems could/would ensue.

To give you a specific example which there can be no doubt. Anything other than default MS folders could/would be subjective.
The first folder in my scenery,cfg is Default terrain which is layer=1, first to be loaded. In game it is at the bottom of the list priority=719. My addon scenery folder is now layer=53 priority=667.

I used to have my addon scenery folder with priority=1 but over a decade ago it took me two weeks to work out why some scenery wasn't visible. It turned out that a very old exclude file was in my addon scenery folder that stamped it out.

Moving the Addon Scenery folder down to where the rest of the default MS folders were solved that issue. No more problems. I am not saying that your way is wrong. it is not, however if you are not completely in the know with what you have in your addon scenery folder then you can easily get an issue like I did.
In my addon scenery folder I have 2743 afcads/excludes. Note this does not include textures this is only files in the F:\Flight Simulator 9\Addon Scenery\scenery folder. There is no way I can keep on top of what I have in there. I gave that up a decade ago.
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by JohnTenn »

The crux of this discussion is, whether Miggers' is referring to SETTINGS-SCENERY LIBRARY or to the Scenery.CFG.

We English speakers are too prone to using synonyms interchangeably. Most conversations are functional because of the collective knowledge and context of the participants.

An accurate statement is required here.

ARE the sceneries expressed in terms of the priority list in SETTINGS-SCENERY LIBRARY?

John
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Re: Yet another cock-up...

Post by JohnTenn »

Important to remember is that changes made on the SETTINGS-SCENERY LIBRARY list will only take effect once the simulator (FS9) is restarted.

This settings editor creates a NewScenery.cfg which is created in the main FS2004 folder. This document then becomes the new Scenery.CFG as the simulator loads. The old one or original now becomes oldscenery.cfg.
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