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General
Information
This information is provided
by author Louis Sinclair. It contains hints and tips that he's
found useful in working with dynamic scenery and FS Action! Scenery.
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Using Custom Vehicles
Concepts
In FS98 and FS2000, the 'models'
of dynamic vehicles are stored in a special BGL file. The file
that defines the default vehicles is DynLib.bgl. We anticipate
that collections of aircraft will become available as people
create them using tools such as DynKit (see below.)
For FS98, each vehicle in a
BGL file has a unique 16 byte identifier that is used to reference
the vehicle in dynamic scenery files. For FS2000, each vehicle
in a BGL file has a more complex header.
In either case, for FS Action
to use a vehicle that resides in one of these BGL files, you
must load the BGL file into FS Action so it can read the identifiers
to use in BGL files it creates. These codes can be viewed in
FS Action. Load a video or project into FS Action and select
the 'Vehicle' menu. Select 'Settings' from the vehicle menu and
then click the 'Edit Vehicle List' button. Select a vehicle that
starts with 'FS98:' or 'FSAS:' and click 'View/Edit.' The 'ID
String' field shows the 16 byte ID in hexadecimal format.
DynKit
DynKit is a utility by Konstantin
Kukushkin that allows you to create dynamic scenery vehicles
by converting objects created with Apollo Software's Flight Shop.
It also will allow you to change the vehicle in an existing dynamic
scenery BGL file to whatever vehicle you wish. DynKit is available
at http://www.pobox.com/~kk/fs/dynkit/
as a shareware program.
For details on using the DynKit
program, consult the DynKit instructions or the web site above.
Here is a brief outline of the steps required to convert a vehicle
with DynKit and use it with FS Action! Scenery.
- Start the 'DynKit
Hangar' application.
- In an explorer window, locate
the MDL file in Flight-Sim for the plane you want to convert
(ie: FlightSim\Aircraft\Mooney\Model\Mooney.mdl.)
- Drag the MDL file onto the
DynKit Hangar window.
- Repeat for any other planes
you want to convert into the same plane library file.
- Save the file into the Flight-Sim
Scenery directory (ie: FlightSim\Scenery\MyPlanes.bgl.)
- Copy the files from the planes
texture directory (ie: FlightSim\Aircraft\Mooney\Texture) to
Flight Sim's main texture directory (ie: FlightSim\Texture.)
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Technical Considerations
Flight-Simulator Version
Differences
Flight Simulator 2000
Dynamic scenery files do not
have the previous 32k size limit of FS98.
The header for each vehicle
has changed from 16-bytes to a more complex format.
Flight Simulator 98 (version
6.1)
Dynamic scenery files are limited
in size to 32k (32768 bytes.)
Vehicles will avoid collisions
by stopping and waiting for the other vehicle to pass. This can
result in deadlocks, or planes stopping in midair!
Flight Simulator 95 (version
6.0)
Dynamic scenery is very touchy
in FS95. Many dynamic scenery files that work fine in FS5.1 and
FS98 will not work with FS95, and may even crash Flight Simulator.
Most scenery created with FS Action! Scenery should work with
FS95, but be very careful not to allow scenery area boundaries
to become even remotely near each other. Unfortunately, the best
solution for this problem is to upgrade to FS98.
Dynamic scenery files are limited
in size to 16k (16384 bytes.)
Flight Simulator for
DOS (version 5.1)
Dynamic scenery files are limited
in size to 16k (16384 bytes.)
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Trouble Shooting
After creating a dynamic scenery
file, nothing shows up in Flight Simulator.
- Make sure the dynamic scenery
BGL file is in your Flight Simulator scenery directory.
For example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator\Scenery
- Make sure that the BGL file
is under 32,768 bytes in size for FS98 or under 16, 384 for either
FS95 or FS5.1. The maximum BGL file size for FS2000 is not known
at this time, but the default "dynlib.bgl" is more
than 330KB.
- Use the Dynamic Scenery Map
(in the 'View' menu) to verify that your scenery area doesn't
overlap any other dynamic scenery. If necessary, disable default
Microsoft dynamic scenery by renaming the files. Microsoft default
dynamic scenery filenames end with the numeral '5', as in NewYork5.bgl.
Make sure you check all your third party scenery for dynamic
scenery files that may overlap your area.
- In Flight Simulator, look
at the 'World/Dynamic Scenery' option. Make sure all check boxes
are checked, and that the scenery density is set to 'Very Dense.'
Save a situation (File/Save Situation menu) with these options
set and check the 'Make default situation' checkbox when you
save the situation. This ensures that future flights include
your dynamic scenery.
- Sometimes flying planes are
hard to find in Flight Simulator. Try placing some stationary
vehicles in an easy-to-find location and see if they show up
in Flight Simulator.
- Make sure you are using appropriate
vehicles for your version of Flight Simulator. If you have FS95
or FS5.1 you can only use the stock objects that come with Flight
Simulator. Only vehicles with 'FS95:' at the front of the name
can be used. If you are running FS98 or FS2000 and are using
custom vehicles, see the 'Using FS Action! Scenery' with DynKit
section of this document.
My dynamic scenery stops or
suddenly starts over after about a minute.
- You are either running the
demo version of FS Action! Scenery, or you did not enter a valid
User ID and Serial Number, which causes the program to run in
demo mode.
Landing gear do not retract
on some vehicles.
- Many dynamic scenery vehicles
do not support landing gear retraction.
My dynamic vehicles don't have
any textures when I view them in Flight Simulator.
- Only a few of the Microsoft
default vehicles have textures.
- For custom vehicles (including
those converted with DynKit,) make sure all the textures for
that vehicle are in the Flight Simulator main texture directory.
For example: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator\Texture
I can't get BGL files to display
using the 'Read BGL File' option.
- Some of the Microsoft scenery
files have invalid Longitude ranges. This causes FS Action to
skip those files when scanning for BGL files that have data for
your work area. If you load the files explicitly rather than
using the wildcard scan, the files will display correctly. Unfortunately,
finding the correct file can be very difficult. A future upgrade
of FS Action! Scenery will correct this problem. The correct
filename for the default scenery that covers the tutorial area
is F540635.bgl in the 'Europe' subdirectory of the Flight Simulator
'Scenery' directory.
When I zoom real close, I get
crazy lines on the screen, or FS Action locks up.
- Version 1.0 of FS Action!
Scenery has difficulty with extremely close zoom levels. A future
upgrade will address this by enforcing zoom limits. In the meantime,
make sure you save your work before starting any extreme close
up work. If you see the 'crazy lines,' you'd better stop zooming
in as you are entering the 'danger zone.'
If I change colors on my vehicles,
sometimes they don't appear in my scenery, or Flight Simulator
locks up.
- Changing colors using the
Vehicle/Settings dialog box can result in this problem. In particular,
the nose color seems to be very sensitive. This appears to be
a problem within Flight Simulator. We don't have a solution to
this problem, other than to use the new textured vehicles for
your dynamic scenery.
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Other Resources
Konstantin Kukushkin's DynKit
home page at http://www.pobox.com/~kk/fs/dynkit/
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General
Information