Hello and welcome to a new series of tutorials showcasing the features of Overlay Editor, a wonderful tool used in the creation of X-Plane sceneries.

Overlay Editor is the brainchild of Jonathan Harris, known in the X-Plane word as 'Marginal'. His software allows you to create (with relative ease) X-Plane sceneries which range from small dirt strips in the back of beyond to full blown international airports located next to a metropolis.

Over the course of these tutorials, you will discover not only how to create your first basic scenery, but also additional sceneries which contain that added 'wow' factor.

So What Is Overlay Editor?

In basic terms, Overlay Editor gives us (the developer) the tools to either create a new scenery from scratch or enhance an existing scenery which is always located within your X-Plane Custom Scenery folder.

The great thing about X-Plane is that it has a very modular layout in terms of where everything is located. Sceneries, as mentioned, always go in your Custom Scenery folder and aircraft always go in your Aircraft folder. There are no other locations where additional 'user' files are stored (except plugins), but that's a different topic. The upshot however of having a layout like this, is that it's very easy to keep everything under control, which includes your scenery.

To create a scenery, X-Plane first has to find the airport data which will be used as a foundation for our scenery. X-Plane holds this information in the form of a database and this is where the information (apron and taxiway layout) of thousands of airports is stored. The basic layout of each airport is known as the .apt file. This .apt file contains only concrete foundations, taxiways, local roads and taxiway markings. This is our foundation, our starting point, and where the developer can add additional buildings, etc.

Where To Get Overlay Editor

The first thing we need to do is download and install the software. You'll find the download for Overlay Editor here (Windows, OSX, Linux):

http://marginal.org.uk/x-planescenery/tools.html

Once you have unzipped the file a good place to move it to is your X-Plane directory. This keeps everything in one place. When first opening Overlay Editor, it will ask you to locate your X-Plane directory. Once done, it will then load into the opening screen.

To open an unpopulated airport and create one from scratch, we need to click on the menu icon labelled 'Go To Airport' (Figure 1).

Figure 1

With this done we are then presented with a dialogue box in which we can select our desired .apt file either by airport name or by ICAO code. When an airport is selected, you'll see that the longitude and latitude of the airport is also shown (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Once an airport is selected (depending upon the complexity of the chosen airport) you will be presented with a view of the .apt file. This can range from a just a simple grass strip to a complicated tangle of runways and taxiways. Figure 3 shows what a typical medium density airport .apt file looks like.

Figure 3

To zoom in so as to see more detail, you can use your mouse wheel. If you have a clickable mouse wheel, then you can zoom and also drag the view around to suit your needs.