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Hi Jim The Bar Harbor screenshots are superb. I have managed to get the latest SDK loaded per your instructions and the exclude poly's work as expected now. Some time down the line I will have to put these bridges back in where they should be. At the moment though I am still trying to get the water to look right and look as if it has varying depths. I am using zoandar's technique of placing a solid greenish colour layer where the water is but it is taking a while to get the shades right (especially since I'm using my wife's laptop and she keeps taking it back!:o). Regards Archie

Hi Jim I'll give that a go. I'll also try Zoandar's suggestion of using FreeCommander. Would another option be to update the .xsd file by copying and pasting the latest contents to it? Cheers Archie

Hi Jim Wits and End describe where I am at right now. I have downloaded the SBuilderX313.zip file from three different sources and the .exe and .xsd are all last modified in 2006 and there is no "excludeExtrusionBridgeObjects" in any of the .xsd files. That also goes for the ones in the SDK which I installed from the original FSX discs. It must be there somewhere or else why have a function that uses it? Here is the contents of 000_Poole_Harbour.xml: version="9.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd"> latitudeMinimum=" 50.7279661666667" latitudeMaximum=" 50.7300475555556" longitudeMinimum="-2.01257444444444" longitudeMaximum="-1.99150641666667" excludeAllObjects="FALSE" excludeBeaconObjects="FALSE" excludeEffectObjects="FALSE" excludeExtrusionBridgeObjects="TRUE" excludeGenericBuildingObjects="FALSE" excludeLibraryObjects="FALSE" excludeTaxiwaySignObjects="FALSE" excludeTriggerObjects="FALSE" excludeWindsockObjects="FALSE" /> latitudeMinimum=" 50.7184512470476" latitudeMaximum=" 50.7214124209482" longitudeMinimum="-2.0457463772057" longitudeMaximum="-2.03713684493263" excludeAllObjects="FALSE" excludeBeaconObjects="FALSE" excludeEffectObjects="FALSE" excludeExtrusionBridgeObjects="TRUE" excludeGenericBuildingObjects="FALSE" excludeLibraryObjects="FALSE" excludeTaxiwaySignObjects="FALSE" excludeTriggerObjects="FALSE" excludeWindsockObjects="FALSE" /> Thanks again for your assistance, it is greatly appreciated. Regards, Archie

Hi Jim You're the man! My files are from 2006 and the excludeExtrusionBridgeObjects string doesn't exist in the .xsd file. Where's the best place to get the latest version from? There are several sites hosting it but they all say SbuilderX313 like my version. Regards Archie

Hi Jim Check and check to the first two points and I am running FSX Acceleration and have the SDK installed. Regards, Archie

Hi Jim I have run the batch file and the results are: Parsing document: D:\Program Files (x86)\SBuilderX313\Tools\Work\000_Poole_Harbour.xml INTERNAL COMPILER ERROR: #C2033: XML Parse Error (line, column, error) ERROR: 19, 37, The attribute 'excludeExtrusionBridgeObjects' on this element is not defined in the DTD/Schema. INTERNAL COMPILER ERROR: #C2033: XML Parse Error (line, column, error) ERROR: 33, 37, The attribute 'excludeExtrusionBridgeObjects' on this element is not defined in the DTD/Schema. INTERNAL COMPILER ERROR: #C2606: Schema errors detected, compilation failed! Parse complete! Maybe they didn't include excluding extrusion bridges in the compiler? Regards, Archie

I have the same problem as Thunderchicken. I can't open Annotator.exe either. Actually I'm having a bit of a 'mare at the moment. I have colourised my underwater scenery and recompiled the .BGL but now I can't see it in TMFViewer. I have created two exclusion poly's but when I try to compile the .BGL file I get an error to the effect that it could not produce the file (see screenshot). [ATTACH=CONFIG]141066[/ATTACH] And to top it off, I've put objects in my scenery and compiled the .BGL file without problems but they don't show up in FSX. TiberiusK made it seem so easy but obviously there is more to it than meets the eye. If anybody has any ideas what I might be doing wrong, please let me know. Regards, Archie

Hi Chaps @Jim, I think I'll have a go at replacing the bridges but will forget about the roads and railway. @Zoandar, the clouds around the pontoons is water spray. I cheated and did those shots in slew mode so the plane thinks it is still on the water. That is a really nice effect with the river flowing into the lake BTW. Cheers Archie

Thanks, Jim, that was what I was afraid of. The roads are pretty close to perfect it's the railway line (railroad) that I thought was showing up in my scenery but I have had another look and here are a couple of screenshots: [ATTACH=CONFIG]140760[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]140761[/ATTACH] It looks like a bridge of sorts almost following the line of the causeway and running from one side of the lake to the other. As this is an object would I be able to edit it? You were correct, the roads and railroads don't show up in my scenery but if there are no AI trains as Zoandar says then maybe I should just forget them. In the first screenshot you can see an AI boat on my scenery lake so I suppose the AI road traffic will just follow the lines that are hidden by my scenery. If that is the case all I have to do is exclude the railroad lines and redraw them (there are only a couple) for AI trains to follow the rails in my scenery. I will give it a go and see what happens. I had another question. Can I use water class tiles to show varying depth in my harbour and can I change the colour according to the seasons? Once again, maybe I should just give it a go and see what happens. Regards Archie

Hi Zoander I have been following the discussion between Jim and yourself with great interest and have tried using TMFviewer in the way he suggests. If you open your photoreal scenery .bgl file and then click the Open option in the File menu of TMFviewer and select the cvx????.bgl file. You will then find that the last one opened is overlaying the first and you can alter its transparency from the Overlay transparency... option in the View menu. Under Vector Data, Layers you can remove the water poly's, exclusion poly's, etc to give you a clear picture of what's going on. I hope that will help a bit. In doing that I have found that there are roads and railway lines criss-crossing my scenery, which is great. The roads are fine but the railway lines don't match my scenery. Do you or Jim know if is there any way to move them so that they line up properly or do I have to exclude them and redraw them in my scenery? [ATTACH=CONFIG]140747[/ATTACH] In the screenshot the road is on the right in red and the railway is on the left in a shade of green that causes it to blend into the background. However you can see that it crosses an area of water on a causeway and a couple of bridges and in FSX the line is just hanging in the air above the water to the side of where it should be. Regards Archie

Hi Zoandar Here are some screen shots of the Poole Harbour scenery. The aircraft is a beautifully modelled Short Empire S33 by Jens B. Kristensen in the British Overseas Airways colours and would have been one of the fleet flown by BOAC from 1939 until about 1948 from its base in the harbour. Poole Harbour was also a base for military flying boats, RAF Hamworthy and RNAS HMS Daedalus both located on its banks. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140627[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]140628[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]140629[/ATTACH]

Hi Zoandar Thank you, that is a very good explanation and I will give it a go. I have got a working scenery for Poole Harbour but, as you mentioned above, the water is much too pale so will have a go at colouring it as you suggest also. I will post a screen shot if you would be interested in seeing it. Regards Archie

Hi Zoander I will do that.

Hi Zoandar Thanks for your reply. In Tiberius tutorial there is a screen shot of the file menu in GIMP and options to import and export but in my version (2.6) they are missing. I checked on the GIMP help forum as I thought I might be missing a plugin and there was a thread about using save instead. I have just had another look around and it would appear that you can export in 2.8 and have to because the original format is converted to XCF. As I see it the only difference is that when I save as a BMP file I don't get the 'Do not write color space information' check box. I don't know what effect this would have on the saved image, maybe it just reduces the size a bit. On the elevation data problem, I have read your response above and will give your suggestions a try. I am doing Nauru only to get my head around the tutorial but my intention is to recreate the old flying boat base in Poole Harbour in the south of England. How would you go about sorting out alignment problems on a small portion of a larger landmass? It is easy to relocate an island like Nauru but Great Britain would be a bit more difficult I assume. Thanks for your assistance, it is much appreciated. Regards Archie

Hi Tiberius K. This is an excellent tutorial and I have got to this point without any major problems. It took me a while to get round the fact that you can't export in GIMP any more but saving as a BMP seems to do the same job. The problem I have is to do with FSX basic scenery, I guess, as my island has no topography, it is as flat as a pancake and looking at your screenshot above the island should rise up from the shore. Any ideas what I can do about this? Thanks Archie