FSX does not recognize SBuilder BGL

[lordofwings]

OK, I am a scenery newbie but I do know how to add/remove and manage add-on scenery.

Since one of my favourite islands is horrible depicted in FSX as just a sandy area with perhaps a tree or two I wanted to make it as it is in the real world: a proper island with a lot of trees, a couple of lakes and... an AIRPORT.

So, I spend a few hours doing the polygon design using a photo as the canvas and got enough done. I wanted to see it in FSX so I selected everything, compiled. Then I copied the resulting .BGL file to the FSX Addon Scenery\Panama\Contadora.BGL

Then I started up FSX, went to the Scenery administrator when I go there I see that the name selects "Panama" but does not show any "usable" file. Even when I go into that directory the same. It does not detect any usable scenery file and therefore the OK button does not work.

So, do I need to do something else in FSX to add scenery? is SBuilder missing something? ( Even when I compile it with "Copy file" it never puts it in the FSX add-on scenery so I had to do it manually.

 

[scruffyduck]

Addon Scenery\Panama\Contadora.BGL

If you have reported this path correctly then you have missed something.

I assume you have created a Panama Folder inside Addon Scenery to hold your new scenery files in that case you first need to add two new folders under Panama ---> scenery and texture. Your Bgl needs to go in

Addon Scenery\Panama\scenery\ and not in Addon Scenery\Panama.

 

[lordofwings]

Re: The scenery

Thanks! that does it, somehow in FS2004 I did not need to place them in scenery but at least it displays although I am very very disappointed with how it looks.

Could you perhaps tell me (roughly) how I can go about doing the following:

1. I need to replace that horrible sand bank at N 8*37.679' W 79*2.1923' with something that resembles the actual island more closely. In particular because the island has a nice regional airport.

2. The default island needs to be erased and replaced with a new one that has a more realistic shape and has trees, beaches, and an airport.

Basically what I did now was use SBuilder to create a big polygon and marked it as "Exclude everything".

Then I defined a poligon narrowly around the apron+runway area and tagged it as "Airport Flatten", give it the proper height (102'). Then another one superimposed on that one with the same altitude but tagged as "Airfield1". I don't really see what that Airfield does because no airfield is drawn (I guess that I will have to do with AFCAD right?)

I defined some roads as "Gravel 1 lane undivided" but that does not look very good. I was unable to mark the other area around the airfield as a gradient slope, I guess that is a defect of SBuilder.

The real island is located at the given coordinates (Shows with enough detail on Google Earth) and more or less is shaped like this:

http://www.contadoraislandinn.com/theisland.htm (scroll to the bottom for a map of the island)

 

[scruffyduck]

Well I am not that much involved with SBuilderX - you may want to ask over at www.ptsim.com - the forum there is for support of SBuilder

 

[Luis_Sá]

I defined some roads as "Gravel 1 lane undivided" but that does not look very good. I was unable to mark the other area around the airfield as a gradient slope, I guess that is a defect of SBuilder.

Hi,

You can use SBX to create slopped surfaces. If you can't please give specific details.

Regarding the final looking - vector scenery can not compete with raster (photo) scenery. In the next version of SBuilder, you will be able to "transform" the background map into a BGL.

Regards,

Luis

 

[meshman]

Could you perhaps tell me (roughly) how I can go about doing the following:

1. I need to replace that horrible sand bank at N 8*37.679' W 79*2.1923' with something that resembles the actual island more closely. In particular because the island has a nice regional airport.

2. The default island needs to be erased and replaced with a new one that has a more realistic shape and has trees, beaches, and an airport.

Here's a great PDF file that gives step by step details of wht you're trying to do; http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=100997

And Thanks to Luis Feliz Tirado for putting it together.

Your project has many steps. Remove the old water, bring in better water coastlines, make a flattened area for the airfield, texture the airfield area, make the airfield (which SBuilderX does not do) and then populate it with different scenery objects.

Not an easy task, but neither is it impossible. And if you're able to get quality display information from Google Earth, then SBX's ability to use those as a stencil makes the job a whole lot easier.