AFCAD - location of original files

[Rnglgdj]

Hello

I have been adding new changes to my addon scenery for the revised AFCAD changes for airports. These changes have been made by other people. I had the addon scenery as the first in the scenery sequence. I was getting the modified airports. But I thought that any modified airport using AFCAD always went into the addon scenery/scenery folder.

Now I found that I have several add on AFCAD that are not correct and cause the AI planes just to set on the runway without taking off.

So I delete the AF2-airport.bgl from the addon scenery folder.

I still get the AFCAD for the airport I do not want.

So I move the addon scenery folder down the list in the scenery pecking list.

I now get the original airport layout out but with some changes that I made in it as to the planes parking and facing the direction as they actually do at my local airport. This revision I made. Incidently
although the planes may start facing the desired direction, if they leave and return they do not park facing the direction they started out from.

I do have some AI flights departing and returning to the same airport.

AC#108,300C,90%,2Hr,IFR,01:50:07,02:05:07,150,R,0000,KLBE,03:59:06,04:14:06,100,R,0000,KLBE


Now my actual question is: how do I get to the original layout of the airport. I have no idea of where the original install airport layout out is. Also, I would think deleting the add on AF2-airport.bgl would get rid of the one I do not want.

When I start the FS it does reorganize the scenery.

Can some one point me in the right direction??

Thanks

Don R

[ronzie]

Original airports are in groups organized by area in APxxxxxx.bgl files located in one of the default scenery folders. These should not be modified. When you create and save an AFCAD2 file it will by default prepend the name AF2_xxxxx.bgl creating another file.

A lot of stuff goes in AddonScenery/scenery. For me in the case of afcads, I have created a folder system on my FS drive called \AFCAD2S\scenery. I added AFCAD2S at high priority (low number near the top) of my scenery list. Now when I move afcads in or out of the folder on an FS start it reindexes and that file has priority.

When scenery designers supply a folder with an afcad file in it, sometimes there is an unintended priority problem with files in the same folder, so I move their afcad to that designated folder I made.

To find a location of an afcad file I use AFCAD by Open Airport/Search. If you open each layer you will see in the AFCD window title bar the name of the file opened for that layer. If in your explorer preferences you have show complete file path enabled, then the title bar will show the complete path.

Keep in mind that some layers showing in AFCAD may not be an AFCAD file as such but a special layer acommodating afcad like elements such as an ils add-on required for AI to use that can not be added in AFCAD, or an airport flatten. These do not count in the "only one afcad above stock" rule. These special layers may not show much in AFCAD but they are necessary.

Lastly, always make FS scenery is currently indexed by starting FS and then closing it before using the OpenAirport/Search in AFCAD. Always use OpenAirport/Search in AFCAD and not recent files listed in the file menu in AFCAD to insure the latest files are read in. Similarly, always use Save As rather than Save to insure modified files are in fact written to disk to avoid an AFCAD file caching/write problem.

[bushp04]

Could you please make a screenshot showing your Addon Scenery\Scenery folder? Or just tell us the "folder tree order" of your Addon Scenery\Scenery and AFCAD2S\scenery folders?

I see that you mention "...my FS drive...". Is your FS set up on a separate drive from your main?

Thanks!!

[tgibson]

Hi,

If you open the modified airport in AFCAD and right click on blank space you will get the airport properties, including the location of that AFCAD file.

You can always open the original airport in AFCAD by opening the Stock version in the File/Open screen. Of course, that is only true for airports originally included in FS2004.

To get planes that are arriving to park at the same angle as when the airport loaded, you must have the last bit of the parking connector taxiway at the same angle as the parking spot itself.

[Rnglgdj]

Thanks guys for the reply.

I did find one of my problems was that one of the AFCAD airports that I was trying to fix and save as, was saving in another scenery folder and I was not seeing it. Also, I did the right click on stock and found the original file in the folder. Great!!!! I was just not seeing it!! Tough on an old guy!!!!!!!!!!! LOL

Ok I understand that I have to make the AI taxi way have the planes taxi into the same direction as I want them to end up parked facing.

Changing these AFCADs is not that easy as far as I see. If you extend runways or taxi ways you end up having problems with parts of the airport scenery in places that you don't want them to be, like runway markers sitting in the middle of taxi ways.

It sure give you a lot of respect for the time and effort that was put into developing FS. Although at times some people think it is just a snap to do this programming.

Many many hours!!!!


Thanks again.

Don R

[ronzie]

I use two drives with partition divisions on each. FS resides on my H: drive in the usual program file location substituting H: for C:. Only some early installers required to be on the c: drive but not the applications or add-on software themselves.

The afcads I add or move from scenery folders are in H:\AFCAD2S\scenery.

PAI and Ultimate Traffic AFCADS are in their default locations on the H: drive as specified by their installers.

I have a folder called h:\CommonAddOnScenery that I place scenery folders into. This was done to make it easy to get to for scenery shared with FS8 and FS9. Each folder created by the scenery installs in here is then added in the Scenery Settings in the desired priority. Similarly I have a CommonAddOnLandclass folder.

My second drive is one full extended partition labeled I: It is a smaller older spare that nicely holds FS Global 2008 mesh which fills half of the 33 GB up.

All of my hardrives reside in cartridges that can be swapped. The main drive gets backed up by swapping in a second identical drive in the second nest and using an image copy utility booted off a floppy to do a bit for bit copy. I do not back up the second drive at this time since all the files are quickly available for reinstallation from the install DVD set. If my main drive crashes I simply swap in the backup image into the main nest after a shutdown and I'm good to go with the last backup. No restore from image is necessary.

I also have an identical computer with a similar video card that uses the same driver as my main computer. It normally runs an earlier version of Windows for legacy applications. If my main computer dies, I simply swap both primary and secondary drives to the backup computer, move some USB cables, and I'm good to go. Both computers are networked via a switch on my DSL router.

Since the computers are identical, Win does not complain about activation if I bring it up solely on the second unit by swapping in the main drive as a recovery issue.

[bushp04]

Ron, I understood 4 words of what you said: "I use two drives..." after that, I had to swim back to the shallow end of the pool.

But thanks for a fascinating description of your setup. I really like the interchangeable cartridge idea.

Thanks!!