hjwalter

Mark, Many modern addon scenery objects use XML based coding (instead of the old SCASM) and related GUIDs, while the EZ program itself has an option to scan all your addon scenery folders every time you open your FS9. A list of "library" BGL files is then produced from which you can select scenery objects for positioning in 3D wherever you want. Obviously, the more your FS9 contains addon XML based library scenery BGLa, the more choices you have for positioning selected objects in other sceneries. Possibly even the "circles" you are looking for. However, there are also many dedicated EZ library files available for downloading on the web. Good luck and regards. Hans

Could it be that your default APnnnnnn.bgl file, which contains your default KJFK airport and it's basic Afcad data, is somehow positioned at a higher scenery priority level than your Afcad (or ADE file), which you evidently keep editing but to no avail ? In your scenery.cfg file, ALL these default scenery files should be positioned down near the bottom, i.e. have a very low scenery priority, in any case (far) lower than any scenery file which contains your edited Afcad file. Hans

Don't forget the absolutely massive amount of mind boggling brain-, research- and developement work performed by strongly dedicated FS teams at Microsoft and which resulted in ever more sophisticated versions of FS, including the production of extra software for developing/supporting decentralized FS extension/addon activities by growing hoards of enthusiastic FS users and commercial companies the world over. Hans

Carlos Si, Could it be that you are having problems with the difference between wigspan meters (specified in FS9 AIR files) and parking position sizes specified (in feet) in Afcad files ? E.g. An AIR file wingspan of 25 (meters) should fit into an Afcad parking position of 83 feet. Conversion factor is 1 meter = 3.2808 feet. Not sure though if ADE parking positions are also specified in feet because I've never used that program myself but I've did have the same experiences (with Afcad) as you are now having, but very long ago. Regards and good luck. Hans

When positioned at any airport anywhere in the world, what happens when you "Go to Airport SBGL" from your "World" drop down menu ? Hans

Hi Guys, Thanks for all your reactions but with much steam having come from my ears during the last few days because of my hefty AI/AGS/AES brain work, especially in relation to my own great variety of AI aircraft, I'm slowly but surely beginning to realize that, not only will the specific and number of AGS/AES objects per AI aircraft type be quite an effort to make but will most probably also need all those AI aircraft to carry far too much individual activation and positioning "ballast" in their model files. This could also cause problems with the SAAM program, via which static versions of all such AI aircraft can be made. Furthermore, all these AI aircraft model files will need to individually be able access a central dedicated library folder from which they conditionally select and position their specific AGS/AES objects around them, e.g. as soon as their engines are shut down in their designated parking positions. Not only that but the selected AGS/AES objects will need to be different when parked, e.g. at a gate which has an air bridge or at an "open" apron position. Nope, I'm now definitely cured and static (AGS/AES type) objects positioned around static aircraft, remains for me the best way to keep enhancing my airport sceneries. Regards Hans

Tom, On the assumption that you are referrig to an AI F-27, I request you to post a file name and where it can be downloaded from. Thanks in advance. Hans

Tim, In the meantime I've read a lot about AES and what it does or can do but the whole system seems to be only applicable to flyable aircraft and not to AIs. I already have some experience with the (I think) very first AES (type) of animated apron ground traffic made by the brilliant designer named Otto Pabst, who now seems to be working for the AES vendor. Many years ago this designer made the freeware German airport of Bremen, in which a "follow me" car would drive up to a taxiway sign saying something like "Stop here and wait for the follow me car". This car would then visibly position itself in front of your stopped aircraft and would lead you to a vacant parking position, where a marshaller would then take over untill your final full stop. He had also made some "animated" flying aircraft at this airport but which sometimes got in the way of extra self made AI flights and sadly in no way would heed, e.g. wind directions and/or ATC instructions. The full AES system therefore seems to be a continuation and great expansion of Otto Papst's original work. Brilliant !! Regards Hans

Bernard, I've been experimenting for years with what I call "animated" apron AI busses, trucks, tugs, stairs, etc, which follow their own "airport" taxiways and eventually end up at "hold short points" before non visisble and startegically placed runways, where they stop and then disappear because they get "timed out". They are technically speaking, AI "aircraft" which cannot fly but furhermore have two main dsiadvantages: !. They produce AI sounds which seemingly cannot be "silenced". 2. They cannot be synchronized with the periods that any of the to be serviced AI aircraft are actually parked in their designated parking positions. Thanks anyway for your reaction. ================ Tim, I'm actually ashamed to have to admit that in all my simming years I've never even heard of this Aerosoft AES system and I'll certainly look into it to see what it does. Thanks anyway for your tip, link and YouTube movie. Regards Hans

Hi Guys, I'm just wondering if it would be possible to have certain AI aircraft to somehow automatically generate Camil Vallequette's type of intensive AGS activities around them, e.g. as soon as they have parked themselves in any specially dedicated parking positions. There are in fact a few of these AI aircraft in existence here and there but their "AGS" activities are all very limited and especially, simple. Upto now I've been concentrating on static aircraft and ditto apron vehicles, baggage objects, etc. but these all remain visibly very "dead". So called "dynamic" apron vehicles are also possible but can only remain very limited in the immediate vicinity of any (static) aircraft. Suggestions, anyone ? Regards and thanks in advance. Hans

O.K. Guys, thanks for all your reactions/comments but as far as the SBuilder program being directly able to delete autogen poles or not, was for me just a way of trying to bend my learning curve a little further. What I have now and finally learnt though is that editing the autogen densities in the terrain.cfg file, seems the better way to go, even although it's a very "heavy handed" method, which effects autogen pole densities around the whole world. Thanks again Guys. Hans

Oops, I must have pressed a wrong key somewhere and which resulted in a more or less duplicate post. Anyway, the second one has an extra comment. Sorry. Hans

Greg Putz's latest product seems to be the "Roland Garros" airport (FMEE) on the island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean, between Madagascar and Mauritius. Very well made indeed and beautiful as well, especially in combination with the French made mesh and VFR scenery for this very mountainous island. Just one comment though and that is that because the original name (Guillot) of this airport has now become "Roland Garros", the default file needs to be edited as well, otherwise there will be duplicate airports showing up in, e.g. the FSNav maps. Anyway, Greg can now add a new admirer to his list and I expect that many more will follow. Thanks very much for this beautiful freeware piece of work. Kind regards. Hans

The most recent of Greg Putz's FS9 airports seems to be FMEE on the mountainous island of La Reunion, between Madagascar and Mauritius, in the Indian ocean. It's very well made and beautiful as well, especially in combination with the separate French made mesh and VFR scenery of the whole island. Well done Greg and you can now add a new admirer to your list. Kind regards and a big thanks for all the work which must have gone into the making of this beautiful airport. Hans

I already have quite some experience with making ground texture polygons via the SBuilder program but am still trying to figure out how to specify the (autogen) exclude areas, which would do the same thing as decreasing their densities to zero in the terrain.cfg file, but now only for very specific areas. Upto now it seems that only rectangular exclude areas can be specified and I've even got as far as producing technically correct exclude BGL files of which their generated names begin with 00 (zero zero) .... BUT ..... they don't seem to want to work, at least not with my (now test) autogen telegraph poles. Can any of you SBuilder "experts" turn my nose into the correct direction because I must be doing something wrong somewhere and especially after clicking the "exc" tab. The main difficulty seems to be specifying the correct exclude area, which I expected to be more or less the same as specifying a ground polygon. Also, I would appreciate it very much if any of you can confirm that my developing hunch is correct about autogen objects being SBuilder-exclude-proof. Thanks in advance. Hans

Hi Bernard, I compared my original terrain.cfg with Tom's as well but all I could see was that the generation densities of autogen poles and large advert boards, were being structuraly reduced from 95 to zero, most probably even world wide. Therefore no mondial exclude rectangles, which evidently do not effect autogen scenery objects anyway. However, my TNW (The Natural World) installation process had even increased some of these "95" autogen densities to 100 but I reduced those to zero as well. Anyway and as the saying goes: All is well that ends well. Regards Hans

Thanks Bernard and Tim for your sugestions. I began with Bernard's link because for me that was the way of the least resistance and it actually worked as well, no more (AT&T or other brands of) poles visible. Thanks also to Tom Gibson for having solved this seemingly structural FS9 issue at an earlier date and against which I had now also bumped myself. However, I needed to be very careful here because during the TNW (The Natural World) scenery installation procedure, some automatic edits had already taken place in the terrain.cfg file and it's for this reason that I did not copy/paste/overwrite Tom's complete file over my existing one but have instead edited it by using his individual edits, as given in the second half of his readme file. Tim, I am no SBuilder expert (yet) but I'm learning. I had also downloaded the instructions file but it could somehow not be opened. Thanks again Guys. Hans

Hi Guys, Some time ago I downloaded and installed the rather well made WMKN (Sultan Mahmoed) airport situated along the East coast of Malaysia. The apron and immediate surrounding area was rather sterile looking, as well as the area around the airport itself. So, I added quite some static apron vehicles, many palm trees, tropical forests, static aircraft in local paints, along with some local AI flight plans, etc. etc.......BUT.......when I wanted to take off there myself, I found a whole row of telegraph poles right in the middle of the taxiway leading up to the RWY 4 hold short point. Try as I may and by using all my trusted "exclude" procedures, I was not able to get rid of these poles but after much "trial and error work" I found that these poles were being positioned by the default file: RD974300.bgl (22Kb) in the default "Asia" folder. According to my Scasm disassembly program the file contains: "FS2002 terrain data of textured polygon type" but that's it, no further possibilities for finding and deleting these poles. De-activating the whole file does solve my direct problem at WMKN but then also seems to no longer display roads in the area either. Does anyone of you technical experts out there know of a way to find and delete ALL such telegraph poles from this default file...... please ? Thanks in advance for any help given. Hans

Ben, Under normal circumstances, most commercial jets flying under auto pilot control are in fact steered by their trim tabs, which normally means that as soon as their auto pilots are switched off, their trim tabs retain their (auto pilot) positions and should therefore not cause any unexpected pitching or yawing. Have you tried taking off manually, retracting your flaps at the correct speeds, trimming your aircraft into a stable flight, switching on your auto pilot, giving it time to stabilize and then switching your auto pilot off again to see what then happens ? Regards Hans

My personal experience is that VC panels require too much zooming out in order to be fully useable. Unfortunably this also very negatively influences the outside scenery in the same way, making realistic flying difficult to achieve. Regards Hans

Christopher, It would be very helpful if you would post the exact name of the downloaded file and where you downloaded it from. In this way I, and possibly others, can download the aircraft in order to test it and to hopefully help you. Regards Hans

Christopher, "Leaving the folder alone" could be neccessary in your situation but what is in fact the problem ? Hans

Hi Guys, Further testing has now revealed that decreasing scenery texture sizes in batch mode or even individually, can disrupt the way in which their related BGL files handles them. So, for me it's end of story, simply because the results can be so unpredictable. Regards Hans

Gregory, Yes, I read about your personal involvement in transforming this well made KGRR scenery from FSX to FS9, in the readme file. Great job and with the assistance of quite some well known international FS9 specialists. To me it has now also become clear that systematically decreasing scenery texture sizes only has minimal effects on scenery loading times and/or frame rates but this could also be influenced by the fact that my machine is fully equipted with SSDs instead of HDs. I guess I can sweep all my own FS9 improvement activities under three combined words: "Technical", "Hobbyism" and "Collectorism", which I think could be rather logical after years of "armchair" FS9 flying and covid lockdowns. Mallcott suggests decreasing the number of my scenery layers but to me as a collector this would be like sinning against myself or even like swearing in a church !! Moreover, my FS9 makes intensive use of library objects, which makes deleting any of my sceneries extremely unpredictable for remaining sceneries. Anyway, I've learned much from this whole "issue" and from all the reactions in this thread. Cheers. Hans, a still convinced FS9 diehard. P.S. "If it aint broke then don't fix it", but just as true, "If it aint broke then don't ...LET ... it be fixed", e.g. via Windows updates and it remains my opinion that the basic Win7 is still the most efficient platform for FS9, whatever it's size.

JSMR, The textures I was experimenting with were those of the Grand Rapids, Gerald Ford KGRR airport in USA. Why this particular airport ? No other reason than that it was the most recent one I had downloaded/installed. I've used FS9 almost from the day it was first published and through the years it has grown to 133 Gb, almost 1000 scenery layers, hundreds of different flyable aircraft/paints, 1318 active AI aircraft/paints, very many self made static versions and all are devoid of unnessary ballast while also having been optimized for utmost (frame rate) efficiency. After all this, one of my remaining ideas concernes texture sizes and whether or not these could have an effect on loading times, frame rates and possible stuttering. It's for this reason that I first tried converting the DXT3 textures to DXT1 via the Convim program but this proved to have some rather unpredictable results, especially with respect to alpha channels. Tim Wright suggested the Texture Manager program, so I tried that as well. However, this gave some strange error messages, which turned out to be related to my Win7 file, ntdll.dll. I downloaded and replaced it with a newer version and that worked great ..... until I shut down my machine and later wanted to re-start it ......> completely dead !! However, after my machine's resurection, I still had the texture folder with the correctly reduced texture sizes and with that I did notice some improvements in the loading up and the frame rates at KGRR but these were not such that I would want to shout out loud that in general the decrease of texture sizes is the way to go. I have therefore now restored all textures to their originals and will let my ideas rest at that. I hope this answers your question. Regards. Hans