New Albany NY Scenery ..... I'm knocked down and almost out!

[gwillmot]

Distinguished colleagues of our beloved FS2004 Forum,

 

Has anyone else downloaded and tried this new scenery for Albany, NY? I'm always looking out for new FS2004 scenery, especially for the state capitals of the U.S.A. (I like to make occasional trips between all).

 

Name: kalb_csab.zip

Size: 201,960,452 Date: 03-09-2016 Downloads: 71

 

FS2004 Scenery--Albany International Airport (KALB), Latham, New York (NY), USA. Home of the 3-142nd CSAB and DNMA. Scenery includes custom buildings, textures, night textures, vehicles. For best used with UTUSA for FS2004. By Tim Nyland.

 

WOWSERS! After flying out and facing the airport ..... my system was knocked down to LOW Single-Digits! Yikes. I haven't seen a scenery this bad on my system in a LONG time ..... maybe ever!

 

Anyone else have the same experience or have my eyes (and system) begun the slow and painful death spiral downwards. Hey, I3 Intel @ 3.07 Ghz shouldn't give me this much heartache anywhere (or at least never had).

 

P.S.

Reactivated Mach One version of KALB and all was well again .... gotta be this scenery

[Avechelice]

Hello,

 

I feel your pain .. as I have the same problem of FPS going dow and also I have another problem .. as aprons on the main buildings airport are white :)

Anyways I have converted all textures to DXT3 nomips and after check them with Dxtfixer and it was a amelioration on the FPS

Now I have 10-12 FPS (my FPS goal is fixed at 33)

Neverthelees I still have those weird white aprons textures

 

Regards.http://smilies.sofrayt.com/%5E/a/bye.gif

[Wing_Z]

I'd tend to leave MIPS in, after all, aren't they supposed to ease the pain as you move further away?

 

I did try the scenery after fixing the Alpha; I would see it as an early Beta release.

There is much to be redone, and much to be undone.

 

It's about textures, mostly.

 

There's no reason to have detailed panels in the static Blackhawks, for example, when you can't see inside as the windows are blacked out. In fact, the statics are the major cause of the performance hit. I'd like to see them gone entirely, there is an entire industry built around low-poly AI aircraft for this very reason.

 

The whole scenery needs to be rethought, and trimmed of bloat. At nearly 700 MB with no photoscenery involved, that would be obvious from the outset.

There is no computer that can run it in its present form.

 

But for all that, it's great that someone takes a punt, and I'm sure there are good works awaiting down the road.

[flyer8]

Thinking out load, but aren't there a bunch of EZ and John Stinstrom objects in the scenery folder. Shouldn't they be located in a single library with a lower priority then the scenery? Just a thought for the experts...

 

EDIT: That would include all of the associated textures from each of the libraries

[gwillmot]

Not having "developed" any scenery/aircraft ..... I have a question.

Wouldn't the developer of this project "see" on their computer the effect their work has on frame rates? Wouldn't "they" be able to see the missing or mismatched textures?

Not sure why one would release such a huge (data size-wise) project without trying it out on themselves first. Surely they don't have a mainframe in the basement (if they exist anymore) ..... I'm showing my age.

[flyer8]

I suppose G, but what happens if you didn't understand and time ran out. Spring Breakers started and James Franco appeared with those interesting teeth? Would you simply bail on the project, post it and run, or wait until it was completed. Not all have the intuition of others...

 

However, I wanted to look at this in a bit more detail, and so, take the three attached text files and stack them Part1 to Part3 in Excel. You might be able to remove any duplicated BGLs and Textures using the list, then see if the scenery still works.

 

If you're really daring, move all of the BGLs and Textures (listed in the files) to a new scenery folder (named Library?) which has a scenery and texture folder underneath it. The BGLs go to the the Sceney folder and the textures go to the Texture folder. You'll still have to remove any dulicates but it might make the job a bit easier.

 

Once any/all duplication issues are resolved, then, add the new Library Folder to FS9 as if was a normal old scenery. This new scenery should live underneath the Albany scenery in priority. So if the Albany scenery was [area.200], then the new library folder would be [area.199].

 

Did you see the duplicated Gerrish Gray Tree textures...I think that is a no-no. Those tree textures have to reside in the main FS9 texture folder and cannot be duplicated or CTD city? Read'em an weep boys!

 

Tab Delimited Text Files For Your Excel Viewing Pleasure...

Part1.txt

Part3.txt

Part2.txt

[tnyland]

Thank you all for your comments. I never did scenery before and I did find like suggested to disable ground shadows to help the frame rate. All of my textures show properly on my system though. I am not an expert and do not know about making "Areas" and I was going by the tutorials which said you can use jpeg as textures but it would not let me and DXT would not work either. I read that the textures had to be 512x512 so FS would recognize the textures so that's what I did. I have an older system unlike some of you so I knew the frame rate hits were due to that but I am tring to follow how you want to "Move " stuff to make it work better but do not posess that level of knowledge. I want to rework it to make it better but 5 years to teaching myself everything and some of it without any help I think it is at least worth some "good job" for the detail put into it and would have been better if people who "Know" how to do all this stuff would put out tutorials to help us beginners. I searched endlessly but there is not really anything to work with so I had to do it on my own. If anyone wants to email me and help me understand how to make it better I would be greatfull to rework it and upload a "fix". I am willing to be taught the right way if someone will give me some guidance. I knew there would be some bad reviews so I welcome them so I can learn. I am sure some of you made mistakes like I did but you had to learn more too and I want also.

 

Thank you,

Tim

[flyer8]

Thank you all for your comments. I never did scenery before and I did find like suggested to disable ground shadows to help the frame rate.

 

There's a bit more to it, but like so many others, I'm no expert either. What I do know is that creating scenery that works throught the range of processors and video cards and disks and monitors isn't as easy as it seems. I suppose it takes a while to work through it but keep trying as FS9 can always use new scenery designers and a fresh perspective.

 

One small piece of advice is to try to eliminate duplication of objects and textures when possible. All of the objects I listed earlier are from libraries which are typically installed once in a simulation for the entire simulation. There are a whole bunch of people hanging around who can help you. They lurk but they're reading everything as they cannot help themselves. A guy named Opa used to say they're addicated and its true.

 

Best help will come from the scenery design forum as you will get detailed responses from people who actually know how to make the stuff. I'm a software engineer so all I can do is count and write things which are efficient :)

 

Hope that helps and keep trying...

[tnyland]

Hi Flyer8,

Thank you for the words of encouragement. You say to eliminate things that are already installed? When I forgot to add the tree textures they were blank. If they are already in FS2004 then how would my scenery recognize them or will they find them by default in FS? And by duplicate objects are these the same as the ones I downloaded from the sim sites to use as scenery objects? If so then I will have to redo it and place them frrom fs and not the downloaded bgl I got correct? I made some quick reworks as I wrote in my comment that were suggested and it was alittle better but with what you say, it should help even more?

 

Tim

[gwillmot]

Bob,

 

Not to sound rude, but YOUR post seemed more confusing than some of the others. Am glad to see you are enjoying driving around looking at the realistic tail lights ????

[flyer8]

Wow, live and learn. Did anyone know that FlightSim had it's own wiki? There's a section on creating an airport. I'm no scenery designer but it looks like an interesting read. Has some stuff about SBuilder as well.

[Bob_2]

I went to edit some typos but accidentally deleted my post. That's ok though since someone found it confusing. Anyway, the short of the long is that there is a lot of scenery objects included in the AF2_KALB_CSAB.BGL file. That should be for airport operations and AI only. Once I loaded it in AFCAD and stripped out scenery objects and overlapping nodes, my frame rate went from 12fps to 35fps when sitting on the runway. The AF2_KALB_CSAB.BGL file size went from 32.6MB to 59KB.

 

Scenery libraries are just that. Libraries. I prefer to extract objects within the scenery libraries to create smaller libraries and include them in my own scenery folder rather including the entire library in my scenery folder or even requiring people to download and install and maintain other scenery libraries to be able to use my scenery. Like when you go to a library to borrow a book. You only bring home one book rather than every book in the library just so you can read one book.

[StringBean]

Scenery libraries are just that. Libraries. I prefer to extract objects within the scenery libraries to create smaller libraries and include them in my own scenery folder rather including the entire library in my scenery folder or even requiring people to download and install and maintain other scenery libraries to be able to use my scenery. Like when you go to a library to borrow a book. You only bring home one book rather than every book in the library just so you can read one book.

 

So with your method I would end up with ten copies of the same models if you used those models at ten different airports.

 

And I would end up with ten sets of identical textures for those objects.

 

Did you get permission from those objects' creators before you robbed their objects?

 

Do you acknowledge the original object creators?

 

I have gotten to the point of deleting scenery addons from people who do as you proposed, simply to keep from clogging my sim with a bunch of duplicated data.

 

The bottom line is, or at least it should be, if you did not create it you have no right to distribute it.

 

Loading 3rd party object libraries is a one time proposition and if people cannot figure out how to do it then they will have a hard time installing any addons.

 

However, I have spent many, many hours helping people figure out scenery display problems caused by having multiple copies of objects loaded in their FS.

 

peace,

the Bean

[tnyland]

Bob,

Thank you for looking at way to improve my scenery. I used a lot of MDL's instead of BGL's because I thought it would be better than having a lot of BGL's listed...looks like that was a rookie mistake but this is how you learn. So I have to take the MDL's and make them BGL's and place them as a single BGL file or make a BGL library with the placement coordinates in a scenery folder and textures in a texture folder within a Library folder named how ever I choose? I would then take the Libraries I used from other designers and do the same? Do I then put all these folders in my zip file or where do they go and how are they installed so they will place the objects in the scenery? If I follow you right...FS2004 will"see" smaller files and be able to load them better than everything being loaded at one time? In theory is it like carrying 3 smaller boxes to your car rather than 1 big heavy box? Sorry but I learn better by analogies. As for overlapping aprons, I think I did that because I was filling in open spots and do not kn ow what overlapping nodes are that I did except for making roads. So if I had 10 of the same truck there would be 10 entries in the xml file with each trucks coordinates then I would create the BGL and FS would see the file and load them where they go? But do this with a few small libraries and not 1 big library which would be almost like doing what I originally did in a way? If I am following you right then this will help with the frame rates? you can email me if you want or I will check for your post so I will know how to proceed so I can upload a corrected zip. I have learned by this experience not to go crazy designing again and will help me to be a better designer if I do future projects. I was told once that you can tell those who remember where they came from because they will teach where those who think they are the authority will only tell you how bad you did. I had officers like that but then again those who have never tried have no place to be criticizing. It is sad that people like you and Flyer 8 have to make up for the others but you are the ones who inspire us to go on and better ourselves so thank you for showing the true spirit of the flight simming community.

 

Tim

[Bob_2]

bean

 

As I said. Libraries are just that. If you looked at the scenery, you see that many of his objects came from EZ-Scenery and other static object libraries. Labeled specifically as freely distributed as long as you don't use it to sell scenery.

 

Giving credit to hardworking authors of objects and objects libs is a matter that goes without say. I'm not talking about pirating or reverse engineering here bean. If you want to require people to have other libs already installed or create your own lib BGL with multiple objects and require people install it in the Addon Scenery\scenery folder or keep your libs in your own Addon Scenery\My_Scenery folder, that's up to you. So you choose not to have some really nice scenery because some of the authors use the same small objects over and over again like the vast majority does. That's your call but hard drive space isn't an issue these days. All my addon scenery combined amounts to about 5.5GIG and that's with tons of both freeware and payware scenery including the entire cal classic collection all on a 500GIG HD.

 

Installing object libs is not a one time proposition. Once I removed the object lib files from the KALB_CSAB folder that I already have installed as libs, some things didn't work because I didn't have the most updated version of those libs so I had to go out and find them and install them and make sure I have all the updated versions. Some of which were updated within the last 15 months.

 

The bottom line here is how you want to create and distribute scenery. Not politics. Politics is down the hall.

 

Bob

[Bob_2]

Tim

 

I'll get back to you. I'll finish cleaning up your AF2 file and contact you with instructions for sending it. Yes in many cases, it is better to have more smaller bgl files rather than fewer large ones though that's not really a big issue. The problem of having many scenery objects in the AF2 file is that AF2 files are compiled and handled by the sim much differently than other scenery files. I know that ADE lets the designer add many different types of objects but it's best ro keep that very limited by using an object placer for the actual scenery.

 

Have you used the fault finder in ADE? I checked it with both ADE and AFCAD 2.21.

 

BTW, the terminal and military area look great.

 

Bob

[StringBean]

Yes in many cases, it is better to have more smaller bgl files rather than fewer large ones though that's not really a big issue.

Not an issue at all, in fact it has never been proven to matter one iota if you have a bunch of files or one big one.

 

The total amount of data would be the same.

 

Where having many files becomes a benefit is it allows the end user to disable elements without having to edit the files.

 

Case in point, having the perimeter fence all in one file by itself allows the end user to easily get rid of it should they choose to do so.

 

In terms of performance, it makes no difference.

 

The problem of having many scenery objects in the AF2 file is that AF2 files are compiled and handled by the sim much differently than other scenery files.

No, they are not. Airport Facilities Data (AFD) in "afcad files" is .XML based scenery, just the same as object placement data.

 

In fact, AF2 implies the file was created with Afcad2.21, which has no ability to contain 3D objects anyway. Using the AF2 prefix on a file not created by Afcad2.21 is not advisable as it can cause confusion to the end user.

 

I know that ADE lets the designer add many different types of objects but it's best to keep that very limited by using an object placer for the actual scenery.

Nothing wrong with adding objects in ADE. It is designed for that purpose and does an outstanding job of it.

 

I have seen many well-designed scenery addons that used ADE to add objects without any problems.

 

In fact, adding objects with ADE is no different than adding them manually by creating an .XML file in Notepad and compiling it with BGLComp.exe. Which is the Microsoft designed and approved method of adding objects to the sim, as per the SDK.

 

peace,

the Bean

[tnyland]

Hi Bob,

Don't know what that is or for but I will check it out now that it has been brought to my attention.

The Passenger terminal is from Jaxan's ALB2007.zip. The entire Military complex is an opriginal work by myself with the exception of the Helicopters and cars along with the Military vehicles. The HEMTTS (Fuel tankers) are my creation which I drove and the tractor trailer is part of my first modling project in GMAX. I have them in 5 colors .4 positions , 4 different sets of rims and all in clean and dirty textures.I also have 20 Ft 30 Ft 53 Ft box ,lowboy and flatbed trailers. I tried to calculate how many different combinations you could make with everything but I spaced out trying but a guess... probably over 1000 or less maybe. The airport was an impulse reaction to FS but that is why they make programs for people to help them do what they do not have the time to do. I will be planning to upload my truck and trailer libraries when I convert them all to BGL files form GMAX models.

And Stringbean has a valid point which I did not think of...Maybe something like the perimeter fence should be an option if someone doesn't want it in the scenery. These are things to consider for frame rate issues or for someone who thinks it may be distracting . I am open for any suggestions or ideas to learn better skills and make it enjoyable for people to use my scenery. Maybe it could lead to a colaberation with another designer to produce other airports. You may be great with animation and I am good with layouts. Regardless, I needed to know I made mistakes. I figured I did just because of how detailed I made it...Never again , keep it simpler next time for the frame rates.

 

Tim

[Bob_2]

Tim

 

Actually, the level of detail shouldn't be an issue. I'm not entirely sure if the fence is the issue. If it is, it might be a simple matter of selecting a fence that is more frame rate friendly. I remember when they re-did that whole area and thinking to myself, I should put that green fence around Jaxan's scenery. I was thrilled when I saw that you did. I have FlyTampa's Old Hong Kong. It has lots of fencing and it's a rather large scenery and I get around 38 fps on final. I also have ImagineSim new Hong Kong which is flown over while on final to old Hong Kong. No problems and that's a lot of scenery. I also have Aerosoft Manhattan, FSDream Team KJFK, and ImagineSim KLGA. My lowest fps flying around there is 27. It only drops down that far for a moment with no stuttering.

 

I'll get back on your scenery in a day or two. Right now I'm finishing up a panel merge with Wilco's A330 panel and Project Open Sky's A330's. I'm at the point now where I'm doing small tweaks and lots of flight testing.

 

Yes I agree with beans point for using many smaller files. I've done a lot of mix and matching but more to get the most scenery rather than removing things.

 

My PC

Windows XP

E8600 core2 duo

4 GB G-Skill 1066Mhz Ram

GTX 670

[tnyland]

Hey Bob,

I am glad to hear that some things may not be a huge issue with a correction . I was thinking of not putting fence up because I thought it would to alot but there are those who create like me doing graphics at work and those who say you can't put this in there because of legal stuff. I create my vision but don't see the practical side I guess but all I ask of anyone is to show me how to fix it. I did actually take the fence out and it made no difference so I left it in...glad I did now. Could you email me sometime with some good tutorials on what you have told me so I can read up on it more like not putting scenery in an afcad bgl? just some time down the line not right now.

Thank you,

Tim

[gwillmot]

I know this was suggested before, but it might provide a quicker way to clean up the scenery and educate you at the same time. Result - the "public" can see your creation in a better light .... and we can look forward to more scenery creations from you.

 

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