Rookie Question

retired · Post by **retired** » 20 Jul 2007, 17:30

Designed a test airport. Would like to find "EASY" program to add scenery (roads, towns, ect) as seen in FS 9. Found SBuilder and installed but get error message "Runtime Error 9", so it does not work.
Anything available on this subject?
Thanks

MIKE JG · Post by **MIKE JG** » 20 Jul 2007, 22:13

Lots of stuff available for help with SBuilder. However SBuilder would not be my recommendation for an "easy" scenery design program. If you want something that's easy to use you want RWY12 or EZ Scenery. Those programs are much more "user friendly" when it comes to adding objects to your FS9 world. SBuilder is a much more powerful and capable program. It's what I happen to use. Now that I have it all set up, it's pretty straight forward. But it took me a long time to get it set up correctly with all the necessary xml, bgl and exe files in the correct place. SBuilder basically combines the functions of many different programs into one powerful tool. However there are other programs out there to help you add roads, towns, etc to your scenery that are easier to use than SBuilder. But then you'll be using multiple programs to accomplish all that where as SBuilder let's you do all that in one program.

I too had the runtime error message when I first started trying to use SBuilder. I don't remember what fixed it eventually. My advice would be to completely un-install SBuilder and do a fresh install from scratch. SBuilder requires quite a few other programs to work in cooperation with it to compile your files into a scenery file.

Here is a look at my SBuilder folder:

MIKE JG · Post by **MIKE JG** » 20 Jul 2007, 22:22

Those 6 .exe files were the key to getting it to work correctly I think. Make sure you have all of them installed in your Tools folder in your main SBuilder folder. As I remember the "scasm.exe" file was particularly hard to set up and get working. But now everything is peachy and working fine.

retired · Post by **retired** » 21 Jul 2007, 17:45

Thank you for the snapshot of SBuilder. This will help me a lot.

retired · Post by **retired** » 21 Jul 2007, 23:11

Could you tell me how these obj_autogen (ect)_txt files are created.
I double clicked all the exe files; I kicked the ol' lady; unplugged the computer-and still no luck!
The SCASM.TMP file is the other file missing.
Thank you

MIKE JG · Post by **MIKE JG** » 22 Jul 2007, 02:21

As I recall the first time you run SBuilder I believe it creates several files for you, scasm.tmp being one of them.

You don't actually need to double click the .exe files in the SBuilder folder. Those are in there for SB (SBuilder) to compile your scenery files with once you've created something. So they actually only serve SB once they've been installed in the SB tools folder.

Again the big key is getting everthing set up correctly. Then run SB for the first time, it will create several key files for you. Then go from there.

The objects.txt files are what you use to actually create an object library for SBuilder. Now you do have to have models already created ahead of time or import them from somewhere to be able to use them.

Some of those text files you are looking at are object libraries that other people have compiled already and that I then imported into my version of SBuilder. If you opened one of those text files up you would see a header and then lists of GUID numbers along with item dimensions and descriptions.

But before you worry about any of that you should make sure you get SB set up and running correctly with all your preferences set to the appropriate folders first. Like I said I initially installed SBuilder over a year ago. I too could not get it to work so I initially gave up on it. Then one day I was bored and started to go back through everthing utilizing the SBuilder help forums and the help file that comes with the program and slowly but surely I managed to get it working.

I have a set of 6 tutorials on how to use SBuilder that I can point you to. They are all available on AVSIM. But these are for how to use the features of the program once you get it up and running. So we've got to get you to that point first. Unfortunately I can't do much via the internet, you'll have to do what you can to get it all set up correctly first.

Again all I can say is delete the whole thing, re-download it and do a fresh install from scratch following the install instructions very carefully. Don't delete the .exe programs that you will need like scasm, that will at least save you some work.