Exclude scenery objects?

[danbiosca]

Hi scenery designers out there:
I've got two scenery files (basically landmark collections) covering about the same area. If I install both in Community, some objects (which are included in both files) appear duplicate, conflicting badly.
I'd like to keep some objects from each file, but avoiding any duplicities.
Is there any tool and/or tecnique I could use to exclude the unwanted objects?
Thanks in advance, best regards.

[grimsel]

Hi danbiosca,

 

The approach I am going o describe assumes that you have a basic knowledge about how to create scenery projects. And it assumes that we are dealing with freeware sceneries, not commercial ones.

 

In general it is possible to exclude scenery objects from a scenery, but data management is a bit difficult. This is because you need to decide, which scenery is the one that will loose the duplicates and which scenery is the one to keep the objects. You can not mix it. For the reason, please see below.

 

Then you create a project which contains "Exclusion Rectangles" or "Rectangles" with the respective "exclude building" property for the location where a scenery object is to be removed. I am not sure, whether a rectangle or an exclusion rectangle works best (or at all...), you need to try. It also depends on whether you talk about buildings or other objects. then different properties need to be selected.

 

By default, the Flight Simulator loads community sceneries in alphabetic order. You need to make sure, that the scenery which is going to loose the objects is loaded first, your exclusion scenery is loaded second and the scenery which is going to keep the objects is loaded last. Change directory names, in necessary. This is why you cannot mix things and remove some objects from one scenery and others from the other scenery.

 

 

Another option is to decompile the BGL files and recreate the scenery, delete what you do not want and re-compile everything. This is a complex approach and I once did it for a test with mixed results. As long as you do not publish your work, you are probably fine. But you should carefully read any restriction the authors have defined for their work. And ask them for permission, if you feel unsure.

 

I hope this helps.

[danbiosca]

Hi grimsel, thank you very much for your reply.

Of course we are dealing with freeware scenery, I want to exclude objects only in one of the scenery packages, and I'm perfectly familiar with ordering (layering) packages.

The only requirement I don't meet, then, is the 1st one: I don't have any knowledge about creating scenery projects. That's why I expected some advice on the required tools or techniques.

Can you help me in that matter?

Thanks again in advance, best regards.

[grimsel]

Hi,

I will put something together, but that may take a day or two.

 

[grimsel]

faster than I had thought.

 

step-by-step guide attached. I hope, it helps.

guide.txt

[danbiosca]

Impressive. I can only be utterly grateful.

 

Now it will take me a bit longer in order to figure all this out

 

Thanks once again, this kind of support is what gives sense to a forum like this.