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FSX Whisplacer.....a really useful piece of Abandonware

R

Robertium

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75
Country
mexico
Whatever I tried, I couldn't get the FSX SDK to work with Steam Edition. Payware alternatives were not accessible to poor people like me, but I found something great. It's called Whisplacer.

Whisplacer is like the FSX OPT, except it's an entirely different program. The learning curve is a bit steep, but I watched some tutorials (they're in Portuguese, but fortunately I can understand it thanks to Duolingo) and now I sort of got the hang of it.

It basically scans your FSX and gives you a library of objects that you can just place down into your game IN REAL TIME, just like Instant Scenery or the OPT. Apparently, there is a way to import .MDL files and make scenery with them; I tried converting some buildings with MCX but for some reason they're not showing up when I plop them in Whisplacer. Additionally, there is an option to make a generic building with custom dimensions and that isn't quite working either.

Video demonstration of Whisplacer

The other features might be a bit of a pickle later, but for now I can plop a lot of things from just the FSX object library. You can scale, rotate and do many things with them already.
 
Yes, I've always been a big fan of Whisplacer. I used to recommend it a lot, but people find it tricky to set up -- once it's done, though, it's easy sailing.
Whisplacer can put objects on a multi-vertex line, with a great selection of features -- vertex only, equally spaced, random spacing, fixed distance, and the wonderful Border Covering, for fencing. It can fill a poly with objects at fixed or random heading/pitch/bank, with a range of scales if you want. It'll warn you if you are going to spawn hundreds of objects, though!
Just one thing regarding your own object libraries -- it won't display the newer drawcall-batched objects, just the older style. You can tweak this in MCX, but since I use GMAX anyway, which experts the old method, my workflow is this:
Export from GMAX;
Add the MDL to my BGL library using Library Creator;
Run Whisplacer and re-add the library, re-export the simobjects;
Then convert the library to P3D using MCX.

That way I'm seeing old-style objects using Whisplacer, but proper objects once placed.
 
toprob said:
Yes, I've always been a big fan of Whisplacer. I used to recommend it a lot, but people find it tricky to set up -- once it's done, though, it's easy sailing.
Whisplacer can put objects on a multi-vertex line, with a great selection of features -- vertex only, equally spaced, random spacing, fixed distance, and the wonderful Border Covering, for fencing. It can fill a poly with objects at fixed or random heading/pitch/bank, with a range of scales if you want. It'll warn you if you are going to spawn hundreds of objects, though!
Just one thing regarding your own object libraries -- it won't display the newer drawcall-batched objects, just the older style. You can tweak this in MCX, but since I use GMAX anyway, which experts the old method, my workflow is this:
Export from GMAX;
Add the MDL to my BGL library using Library Creator;
Run Whisplacer and re-add the library, re-export the simobjects;
Then convert the library to P3D using MCX.

That way I'm seeing old-style objects using Whisplacer, but proper objects once placed.
Click to expand...

EDIT
So, I've found somethang odd. FSX refuses to respond to any big building I've put in it if:

1)- it's in the Scenery folder
2)- it has not been re-exported/copied using MCX

Right now, I've had total success with one city BGL and partial success with another. A while back, I re-exported the Mexico City BGL file to fix location issues with some of the buildings in there, so I tried importing THAT file into Whisplacer and all the buildings I tested with that one worked flawlessly. I don't know what happened with that one. Meanwhile, I re-exported the New York City BGL file (and copied textures) to another folder and tested it. The result was a bit weird. It displayed the BUILDINGS properly, but they were all pitch-black, no textures whatsoever. The textures show up on them in MCX but not in the preview.

ORIGINAL POST

I'm glad that you have some knowledge/prior experience with Whisplacer. Now, I'm having a little technical difficulty with it. Up until now, I've mainly just used it to place some gas stations and shops in forgotten corners of auto-generated cities. Perhaps Whisplacer was not designed for this, but I imported some of FSX's city-scenery BGL files into Whisplacer. I exported them into a format you can use with it, then restarted both Whisplacer and FSX. So, for testing purposes I plopped the John Hancock Center in the middle of Friday Harbor, and.........I turned the camera over to look at it, but FSX suddenly froze and crashed. I've tried it some 3 or 4 times with different buildings in different places around the harbor and unfortunately it yields the same result. I guess it's alright if Whisplacer wasn't made for this (although I was planning on making some big cities with it :() but could there possibly be a tweak/workaround to this so FSX won't crash whenever I plop any of these?
 
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It's possible those buildings are geographically locked. Importing them to MCX, and then exporting them as unlocked objects might work if so.
 
rhumbaflappy said:
It's possible those buildings are geographically locked. Importing them to MCX, and then exporting them as unlocked objects might work if so.
Click to expand...

Yes, that may be possible. Re-exporting the models does seem to do the trick, at least for city BGLs. Now both the Mexico City BGL and New York City BGL buildings import flawlessly, with textures too. However, I tried to import my OWN buildings and also some others I downloaded off the internet;, however I haven't had much success there. This freeware model of the new WTC towers (it was meant for FS2004 but works fine in FSX) I re-exported, it froze up. I converted it to another file extension and back to BGL, it froze up. Over and over again I tried re-exporting to no avail. Is there a specific way to remove geo-locking in MCX?
 
I saved the WTC_MDM as an x file and then re-imported it, then saved as a FSX BGL.

Remember to do 'maintenance' in order to add the object to FSX Simobjects folder.



WTC_MDM.png


And library and placement BGLS in P3D:

WTC_MDM_P3D.png
 
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The x-file->bgl creates a library object BGL. That needs to be added to the simobjects folder by Whisplacer.

The resulting BGL from Whisplacer is a placement BGL.
It doesn't contain the actual model. The Library object BGL came from MCX.

Both the Library object BGL and the Placement BGL need to be in Addon\scenery and the textures need to be in Addon\texture.
 
But P3D has the SimDirector, which does the same type of thing. And placement BGLs from SimDirector are valid for FSX as well.
 
Alright, I've made a little Apple in Friday Harbor!
little apple.png

Thanks for all of your help. I'm just really glad that Whisplacer still has a helpful user base who last posted today at 20:07 and not in 2007. This is definitely going to work.
 
rhumbaflappy said:
But P3D has the SimDirector, which does the same type of thing. And placement BGLs from SimDirector are valid for FSX as well.
Click to expand...
Negative,pity the program doesn't find the simulator...I have the same problem with Instant scenery, I must use the program on fsx and after I change the scenery on Prepar 3D v.4, double work!
 
muffo said:
Negative,pity the program doesn't find the simulator...I have the same problem with Instant scenery, I must use the program on fsx and after I change the scenery on Prepar 3D v.4, double work!
Click to expand...
Odd that your P3D can't use SimDirector. It's part of the program.
 
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