hjwalter

defaid, Thanks for your very clear explanation and drawings. One is never too old to learn and your's was a very good lesson, even after almost 20 years of simming and tweaking myself. I'm now searching through my huge pile of CDs and DVDs to see if I can find the original download ..... and ofcause it's "read me" file. Hans

Hey Guys, Has any one of you been able to find a Kenian mesh BGL file with a size of 16887 Kb somewhere within your Kenya scenery or elswhere ? If yes, then please temporarily de-activate it to see what happens to the lakes near HKNV and then post your findings. Thanks Hans

Hi Guys, I think I have found the culprit file, which is at least causing my own "elevated" lake with it's steep sides, near the Kenian Naivasha airport HKNV. In the past I've re-organized all my own mesh BGLs, at least all those I could find, into one single folder (cut/Paste) with a low scenery priority but because there were so many of them, it was necessary to rename them all in my efforts for creating a clear and meaningful file organization. My renamed culprit mesh file is: "Kenya1.BGL" and it's file size is 16887 Kb. My other Kenian mesh files in the same series have all been renamed into: Kenya2.bgl - Kenya10.bgl but with a single exception for the separately renamed: "Kenya Mt. Kenya.BGL" but this was done for my own clarity. I believe that if any of you have Kenian mesh files, then the 16887 Kb file size would be the one to search for and to (test-)de-activate it. In my system the Lake Naivasha surface elevation is at 6778 feet and the Naivasha airport's elevation was at 6446 feet, down in a shallow valley. However, my stock Naivasha airport's elevation is at 6380 feet. A flatten statement at 6778 feet for the Naivasha airport and it's not too large (mesh) valley rims around it, did the trick. At least, it did for me. Good luck guys. Hans

Great surprise for me because jgf clearly wrote in his initial post that his elevated lake was near Kilimanjaro (in Tanzania), while it now turns out that his lake problem actually lies many miles to the North/West and near the Naivasha airport in Kenya !!! Hans

Hi Guys, I had my power supply replaced in the supplier's workshop and it took all of two full hours for the technician to finish. Not only that but my two SSDs in RAID-zero setup, which contain my Win7-pro, were replaced as well after cloning my two original ones. The reason for this was that the original ones were of a "not so trustworthy" brand ........ according to the technician and he was "surprised" that they were still working after 11 years of very intensive service !! O.K. Guys, when I got back home I immediately test-deleted all mesh sceneries for both the complete countries of Kenya and Tanzania, which in so doing also included the area around my addon Kilimanjaro airport and around the snow covered mountain nearby. I did the same for all "flattens", even although these were only related to my East African airports/airfields. I again took off from the Kilimanjaro airport, flew around the mountain at low altitude but saw no elevated lakes whatsoever. Even the large lake at about 124 dgrees from the airport looked pretty normal but in any case, not elevated. However, the airports which were now missing their "flattens" were in a real "mess". I also test-deleted all my default FL957nnn.bgl files from my default "Afri" folder but still no elevated lakes. sgf. After all of this I still do not have any direct solutions for your elevated lakes problem at Kilimanjaro because I just cannot succeed in re-creating your problem myself. However, I would now want to suggest that you make one or more flatten files at your elavated lake(s) level and make them in such a way that they also cover the direct land area(s) around those lake(s). Anyway, I wiish you good luck. Bernard, The back-ups I've been doing upto now have only been my complete "D" SSD containing my whole FS9 but the technician in the workshop had also suggested that a complete "image" or clone could be made for all three of my SSDs and that is certainly something I will be following up with haste. Regards Hans

Bernard, As the Massai people say in East Africa: Hakuna Matata. I think you will be able to find what that means somewhere on the internet. Now then, my own problem. I switched on my trusty desktop machine this morning in order to do as I had promised but ........ nothing ......., it was as dead as dead can possibly be !! Most probably a power supply problem. This machine was custom made back in 2012 with at that time all the fastest available hardware and especially with a stutter-free FS9 and video processing system in mind. It has run problem free ever since then ...... untill this morning. Tomorrow I have an appointment with my supplier in Amsterdam and I certainly hope the machine can be fixed without to much trouble. Anyway, my promise still stands, although it will now take a little longer. Sorry Guys. Hans

Hey Guys, You've now made me very inquisitive and tomorrow I'm going to test-delete some of my meshes for the Kenya/Tanzania border area, in order to see what happens in my version of the, by the looks of it, rather "meshy" Kilimanjaro countryside ..... and ....... to see what exactly I did all those years ago to make it look that way. I'll report back in this thread. Hans

jgf, Long ago I downloaded the Kilimanjaro airport from somewhere but cannot remember from where. I also installed mesh and LC scenery for the whole area around mount Kilimanjaro and it still looks great. However, I do remember that I had many elevation/bleed-through and other problems with the airport itself but not with the surrounding country or with the mountain. Following your "elevated lakes" pic I took off from the Kilimanjaro airport and flew around the mountain, while searching for possibly elevated lakes but found none even remotely resembling your pic. There is one large lake within a few miles at about 124 degrees from the Kilimanjaro airport and a few more smaller ones North of the mountain but none of them were "elevated". I have 5 flattens in my scenery.cfg file but these are most probably all related to airports/airfields in the immediate area, e.g. Moshi, Kilimanjaro itself and others. Do you have any installed addon scenery at all in the Kilimanjaro area or is it all still default ? Hans

Have you tried any "flattens" yet at the elevations outside your lakes ? Good luck. Hans

You could de-activate the whole thing via the same internal FS9 procedure where you were initially able to activate it. However, that would certainly be a great pity for such a wonderfull piece of scenery enhancement, so I must agree with Tom and would therefore also go for an exclude rectangle, only for the buildings and possibly other scenery objects, which are getting in your way. Good luck. Hans

SCM0616, I had already begun doing as you propose with the original Afcad file but I immediately ran up against a multitude of direct errors, overlapping ground textures of different colours, different taxiway widths and same apron routes. In fact so much so that I wanted to try converting the file to XML which seemed far simpler and less work to edit. In fact, that's what this thread is all about and additionally because I found the combination of XML, ADE9 and BGLCOMP very interesting, as I had practically no experience with any of them. Anyway, since a few days I'm back at the original Afcad file again and have made many changes, which in fact only BEGAN with the ugly black taxiways. After that I will begin enhancing the airport itself by adding EZ library objects. Maybe not like the real airport should look but it will most certainly then look a lot less deserted. Hans

hgschnell, No problem about "misleading you", This whole, for me very interesting "issue", has only added to my knowledge and ......... has kept me off the streets and out of sleasy bars for many hours !! LOL. Yes Tom, I agree with you but only when it concernes FS9 itself. In my mind however, third party programs such as e.g. FSNav, ATC and possibly a few others, could and I repeat "COULD", cause potential problems and especially when the same processing priority of the two duplicate airport files, cannot always be guaranteed, predominantly because of their different sizes and different further contents. Regards. Hans

Please disregard my final question because the original Afcad file was set up via the Afcad program, which has no size limitations like BGLCOMP has. Hans

hgschnell, I tried what you suggested by removing the airport header data from the "Apron part" and then compiling the resulting XML via BGLCOMP but that only produced an error list of about a meter long. After correcting a few things, which I hoped would make BGLCOMP feel a little more happy, I noted that the errors were mainly about missing geographical and elevation elements, which these very specific types of (apron-)polygons evidently need for positioning relative to those elements. The only thing I could now do is to make all the necessary apron polygons myself and to compile them into a "normal" scenery BGL to be placed amongst the other scenery BGLs. However, I'll need a Monk to do that because it entails a tremendous amount of work. Conclusion: I will just flip the coin as I've said before. Hans P.S. This whole issue was definately not a matter of life or death but just one of keen interest on my part but which also brought up the question about how the original author(s) had managed to compile their very large Afcad file without "overflows" and/or ADE9 crashes.

Hi Guys, Opening the original AF2_OMAA.bgl airport in ADE9 and then immediately re-compiling it, causes ADE9 to crash, also when done via the "extended compile" procedure. So in this case no joy with ADE9 in which I had also noticed that it uses the same BGLCOMP program as the one from which I got the original "overflow" error message. Strange though that ADE9 just crashes without any such "overflow" error messages. However, I did split the de-compiled XML up into part1 containing everything EXCEPT the aprons and into part2, which contained ONLY the aprons ...... and ...... to my great surprise, both were compiled via the BGLCOMP program without any error messages. Even the visible results of these two new files seemed to be as I had hoped for. WOW !! The only (possibly technical) problem left is that a duplicate airport has now been created because of the two exact same airport header data sections in each active part. But anyway Guys, thanks for your suggestions and help. I've learned a lot from them amd all I now need to do is to make the decision, between having a duplicate airport with better looking taxiways etc. or a single one with the ugly black taxiways. I think I will just flip a coin !! Thanks again and regards. Hans

Hi All, In my FS9 addon version of the rather complex OMAA (Abu Dhabi) airport I've made quite some changes via the old Afcad program, especially concerning the ugly black taxiways, aprons, etc. and have changed them all, either into asphalt or concrete. Maybe not like it actually is in real life but just to make it look better for my own personal FS9 taste. The way I've done this is by de-compiling the AF2_OMAA.bgl file into an XML file and then making all my changes and some minor error corrections in it. However, when trying to compile the resulting XML (837Kb) file I get a message saying: FATAL ERROR: Airport Output Buffer OVERFLOWERROR C2470: Unrecoverable error parsing XML! No other error messages before this one because I had previously corrected them all. This "output buffer overflow" error sometimes also happens when compiling old SCASM based SCA texture files but that has the simple solution for increasing it's output buffer by adding a few (buffer extension) lines in the input SCA file. Does anyone know of something (preferrably) simple to increase the output buffer size for the XML compilation process ? Regards and thanks in advance for any reactions/solutions. Regards Hans

Andy, Did you switch on your generator(s) immediately after having started your engine(s) ? Do you not receive any warning lights on your panel(s), e.g. about low battery voltages and/or generator problems ? Regards Hans

Sounds very much like some kind of error or combination of errors in your FS9.cfg file. Under certain FS9.cfg conditions, one of which is starting the default Cessna-Seattle flight, this file is automatically re-created and which COULD be the reason why your own pre-saved flights then work correctly. I would therefore want to suggest that you (test-)shut down your FS9 immediately after having opened ONLY your default "Cessna-Seattle" flight. That you then re-open your FS9 and start any one of your pre-saved flights to see if your problems are solved. If yes, it then becomes necessary to shut down your FS9, to then re-open it and to immediately fly the same pre-saved flight to see if your problems have returned. If so, it means that your FS9.cfg file somehow gets structurally damaged and that could mean re-installing your FS9 from scratch ........ or ........ of cause "always starting the default flight" first, as you now seem to be content with. Good luck and regards. Hans

Thanks Guys for all your reactions but the problem at hand is most probably caused by the island's visible terrain area being at the very edge of a much larger default area, which normally consists of a combination of terrain and transparant areas, hence the now visible straight border between the two. This automatically also means that nothing in the form of terrain coverage can be accepted there. Strange though that the shorelines do remain visible. Yes Tom, a bug but in any case, a very interesting one. And hgschnell, no need to be sorry because you at least got me reading my dusty old tutorial again. LOL !! Regards Hans

hgschnell, I had already gone through the initial parts of the SBuilder tutorial immediately after Chris's suggestion and had more or less gotten as far as creating an island's shorlines in a non-default covered ocean area but the filling up of the land within those island shorelines then seems to be just as impossible as trying to do the same between the already existing shorelines of my problem area. As a result I've now given up on this problem as being unsolvable but also because my problem area already has visible island-like shorlines. Creating an LWM file has no effect either. However, it definitely does not concern a "life or death" situation on my part nor am I somehow emotionally involved with the airfield in question, it was just an anomaly I saw by chance as I was flying over it and immediately related it to the same anomalies I saw with some of the most Northern Bahama islands. Too bad but I now dare any experienced scenery expert to solve this seemingly impossible problem, not directly for this rather trivial problem but far more in order to prove that the impossible can sometimes become the possible. Good luck. and comments remain welcome. Hans

Hey there Chris, Thanks for your reaction and I will now certainly go searching for a tutorial on the subject because this issue just keeps bugging me. The strange thing about it is that the airfield's elevation is at 60 ft, the terrain stays at that elevation across the straight land/water border for some distance and then gradually decreases towards the surrounding coast lines in all directions. Not only that but the water surface undulates as land would normally have done, which to me then means that there is something mesh-like under that water texture. As I've said earlier I've created a (test) SBuilder tropical forest VTTP polygon for the whole water area but strangely enough and as I've now discovered, that only works for the automatically included (autogen tropical) trees and not for the hoped for terrain texture. There is now even a (small) possibility that one of the other SBuilder VTTP terrain textures might actually do the trick. I'm testing further but have not succeded yet with creating a LWM file as Tom Gibson has suggested. I'll also see if the SBuilder tutorial can shed some light on this as well. Hans

Thanks guys and especially michaelkalinowsk for taking the trouble to post your top-down pics. Some time ago I had already discovered more of the same issues around some of the most Northern Bahamas islands, which I had also wanted to improve by giving them the real tropical look, e.g. like planting palmtrees, coconut trees, etc around self created little GA airfields but alas, this now seems to be a structural and non-fixable default FS9 issue. In the meantime I've been trying to use the Sbuilder program as Tom Gibson suggests, for creating a LWM file to cover the very specific Punta Cocos water area in question but that only seems to work on or on top of existing default scenery and quite evidently not on purposely left "blank" (= basic water coverage) areas of the world. On the positive side though and after a sigh of relief, the issue is/was not caused by something I had done wrong somewhere within my own FS9. Thanks guys. Hans

Tom, Thanks for your reaction but because it seems that my issue could be caused by an error in my default FS9 setup, I've become very inquisitive about whether or not this can be confirmed by anyone. Could you therefore, whenever you have time, please take a "top - down" look at your FS9 (default) MP0H airfield and then post your findings about my water problem. Your answer will at least give me a direction as to where to begin looking. In the meantime I will certainly try to create a Sbuilder LWM land polygon as you suggest, but will need to find out how to do that first. Thanks again. Hans

Hi All, I'm trying to improve the scenery around a small default Panamanian airfield named "Punta Cocos" (MP0H (the "0" is a zero)) but near the beginning of runway 25 I just cannot get rid of the water area inside part of the existing (default) shore lines. I've tried the SBuilder program to cover that part of the island with a VTTP texture and that works great but sadly, not for my problem area where the water persists whatever I try. My first question is therefore if any of you scenery experts can confirm my problem by "going to the default MP0H" and having a "top down" look around there. If your answer is "yes" then my more obvious question is, what can be done about it. Looking forward to any reactions and thanks in advance. Hans

I've never selected/positioned any static scenery objects via ADE or via Afcad but did try some of the standard and technically problem-free RWY12 objects but that was very long ago. Since then I've been using the EZ program to select and position the far more efficient so called "library objects" from within other addon sceneries, which are active parts of my FS9. I have no problem with the basic disassembling of the BGL file(s) concerned and can clearly identify the texture names being called for but apart from that, the rest of the listing is un-readable. My main question is therefore as to which software can be used to fully disassemble the XML based BGL file(s) concerned and furthermore, how to edit the model data, in order to correct any mipmap-distancing errors. Thanks in advance for any advice. Hans