Hi Smartguy
I don’t use FSSC, I use ScenGenX, but I am pretty sure that they work the same.
If you were working on top of an existing airport you likely wont need to flatten it, as it is likely already flattened, you would use the flatten tool if you were working someplace that needed to be flatted.
The excluder tool is used to remove buildings and objects that you don’t want, BUT you wont see the default buildings from the game in the FSSC working window, the only things you see in the working window are things that you put there. You make an excluded area over the whole airport or just over a single building. Go into the game, get into slew mode pick a building you don’t want slew around it get the cords from around it. (In ScengenX you make a box so I get four points, seems to me that I have seen some that do three points) but what ever get the cord from around the thing you want gone, then reopen FSSC and make your excluder box using those cords, then save your work make a BGL file, install the BGL file into the game, and if the scenery gods are good to you when you go to the game in the excluded area you wont see any default stuff, which then allows you to put in the things that you do want. I have been into the wine tonight so I hope this makes sense hehe
Farfy

Hi Smartguy
Ok the wine has wore off and in the light of day I realize I didn’t ask which sim you are using, but I hope its FS1 of FS9 as these are the only two I have worked with.
Likely the scenery guy’s best friend is SLEW mode hehe. Go into the game and then hit the Y (slew mode key) I also hit the W key twice to get rid of the panel, you can use the Q and the A key to move up and down. Once in slew mode you can use your joystick to move anywhere you like. You will also notice that the cords of your location are now in the upper left of the screen. So now just slew to the thing you want gone move around it and write down the cords. In SceneGenX you pick the area you like to exclude the right click and select the exclude tool from there you can input the cords you wrote down or you can drag the corners of the box to where you need them, if you look at the bottom of the screen you will likely see the position of you mouse point in long /lat that may help you. And just to try to clear this up these program’s do no import the default scenery you work from the cords…well there is a way of taking a screen shot from over head in the game and putting that in as a back round to use as a reverence. But if you have the cords that is all you really need.
Farfy

Well, I've gotten the Exclude stuff figured out.

Now I've run into another snag.

In Easy Object Designer...I follow the tutorial instructions, I create the basic cube, then it tells me to texture the object. The only problem is, when I click the texture tab, it says "texture path could not be found, please set a correct path". What is this correct path?

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Yeah, thats what I thought too. Only thing is...I don't know where the heck the textures are...oh wait a minute...do I look for the default texture folder of FS9 and set that as the preferred texture destination?

I'll be using my own custom textures eventually of course...but I'm assuming thats where I'd get started.

Ah, I think I understand it all now. Thanks, Hagar.

I can't catch a break...I've run into yet another snag.

Following the tutorial...I created a sample building like it told me to in EOD.

The tutorial says this:

Now click the SAVE button in the toolbar – you will be prompted for a filename the first time, so give it a meaningful name and save it. Now click the CREATE API button in the toolbar and an API file (what is also know as an “API macro” or simply “macro”) will be created in the EOD program folder.

I saved it and all...but when I hit the Create API button, it said "Path Samplecube1.api not found"

So for the lack of a better term...how do I "find it"?

For the heck of it I tried exporting the API file (in FSSC) that I manually created by manually typing in the ".api" file extension when I tried saving it again. But that didn't work either. I'm assuming because of the original error in EOD.

I need to track down the author of this tutorial...he could probably give me some great help.

OK. I tried it & all works as advertised.

Before starting your project make sure you set the various paths from EOD Project/Options/Paths. You will see there is one for 'API macro file path'. You can leave it on the default location in the EOD root directory or redirect it to another one. This is where your API files will be exported to. You also need to set the path to Scasm.exe wherever that might be.

After saving the project the API should be created by clicking File/Create API. It will have the same file prefix as your saved project. For example: If the project is saved as Project1.eod the new API will be named Project1.api. That should be all there is to it. No messing around manually creating or renaming files.

To import the API macro into FSSC, right-click anywhere on the screen & select New 3D Object/Macro. Browse to where your new API is located & select it. Click OK & it should appear in the project.

Ah...thats what I get for messing around in that screen.

Thanks very much Franky and Hagar.

smartguy24 wrote on Dec 16^th, 2006 at 2:14pm:

Did you paste copies of the textures into the Texture folder of your new scenery? These must be in a format that FS can read, just like aircraft textures.

smartguy24 wrote on Dec 16^th, 2006 at 9:50pm:

If you can't figure this out you're likely to have the same problems with Gmax.  The basics are just the same whichever programs you use.

I'm aware of the steep learning curve with Gmax...but doesn't it give you better results than EOD would?

Anyway...here's one last hail mary in hopes this helps somebody fix my problem.

But first...here's the tutorial I used: http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/syb.cgi?section=misc&file=Airport.zip

I should probably mention I got along just fine with using the default FS2004 textures...its when I started making and converting my own that things got whacky.

The very last section in the tutorial..."DXTBMP - Creating Your Own textures" I think is where my problem is.

It says name in the 8.3 format...hmm, does that really matter in the end if its not named in that format? It would still show up wouldn't it? Cause the few custom textures I experimented with aren't even close to having an 8 character file name. Maybe thats my problem?

But yeah...anyways, I created the textures in Paint Shop Pro 9, saved them as BMP's. Then converted those BMP's into DXT1's. But it wouldn't work.

On another note...how do I put in jetways? Rwy12?

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Thats the one thing I know I've done right.

I had come up with a method to fix my problem earlier...after slipping my mind now.

Meanwhile, hopefully you can answer me this question too...how do you add jetways to a scenery?

smartguy24 wrote on Dec 19^th, 2006 at 5:43pm:


Bingo! The help file in EOD explains the texture compatability.

Ok...now I'm lost again...

The tutorial says this:

"If you are creating your own textures, you need to use DXTBMP to convert them from normal bitmaps into DXT1 format bitmaps (this format is used by FS2004)"

So I'm guessing FS readability wins out over EOD readability.

What does "EOD can't read this file format" mean anyway? I can still use DXT1 with EOD to texture the buildings can't I?

Me thinks I'm going to rename them into an 8.3 format. See where that gets me.

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I certainly can I suppose...but did you miss the part in brackets that says "this format is used by FS2004"?

Wouldn't I be wasting my time by reformatting the textures? They still wouldn't be showing up.

And why would the tutorial be telling me to use DXT1 with EOD when its very clear that they don't work?

Just checking...

I'll probably give a new texture format a whirl later on tonight. Start from scratch too...I'm after deleting all the files I had made. (Textures not included).

Thanks, Hagar.

By the way...as a more general (and easier) question to answer...since all the textures are squares, how does it texture a rectangular side of a building? Does it stretch the texture square or "tile" the square across the side?

Hagar wrote on Dec 20^th, 2006 at 5:42pm:


This is correct. There are two ways of dealing with this. The way i do it is to make seperate blocks and join them side by side with a seperate texture on each. I use photo real textures which i make with my digital camera. So for a long, narrow building, i take seperate pics of the long side and paste them on my blocks. The other way is to paste the pics together in a paint program and resise this long, narrow pic and paste it onto a square bmp. Then it can be applied to the buiding. Hope this is clear.

Hagar wrote on Dec 20^th, 2006 at 5:42pm:


I just did an experiment. I changed one of the textures on a macro of mine, to a DXT1 default texture in the FS9 texture folder. It didn't show. Seems that EOD will disply it in the program but it doesn't apply it to the macro.

smartguy24 wrote on Dec 26^th, 2006 at 2:05pm:


Yes, designers do that all the time. The res will be less as the image will be smaller but that can be a good thing for frame rates.