Anyway, last week I finally I loaded up Snowman’s FS2004 excellent Palmerston North
http://snowman.ozsimdev.com.au/index.php?i...ew&iden=232
(but as expected ran into some problems running it in FSX).
I have outlined here the fixes I did to make the scenery work in FSX in the hope that others might assist in converting all of Snowman’s excellent fs2004 sceneries into FSX. I am aware some airfields have already been done (e.g. Napier etc),
Anyway, here is what I came up with in terms of issues with the FS2004 version installed in FSX
1. I am using 20 mesh and NZ Combo scenery ( Topography, Landclass, Roads and Rivers ) from Christian Stock . There is also an update for the NZ roads and rivers for FSX at the following web site. http://www.simpilotexperience.com/support/...ds/Support.html - then download .NZ_FSX,zip
In the palm north scenery the airport is sitting on a plateau caused by a mismatch with the 20 mesh. Also some of the NZ topo roads are running through the taxiways (not a good look)
2. Another visual problem I found in FSX was that the palm north airfield now has default buildings, taxiways, autogen scattered through it. The land class has incorrect textures (city class) underneath part of the runway and the runway has a valley under it at one end. In addition, the trees and other objects are transparent in the airfield scenery. This last problem is mainly due to my FSX having SP2 installed.
Pheww !All in all.... a bit of a challenge to get it working in FSX correctly. Here are two piccies of an unmodified FS2004 install into FSX (showing the visual problems I encountered)
Figure one FS2004 Snowman Palmerston North Airport unmodified install into FSX - problems with default objects and land class
Figure two FS2004 Snowman Palmerston North Airport unmodified install into FSX - problems with Runway plateau and ridges
Here is my FIX to make it work in FSX (not necessarily the best or most elegant fix... but workable)
1. The first step is to set up your scenery folder like this I have installed 20 Mesh and NZ combo scenery of NZ
Figure three Scenery Folder Setup
2. You need to install the update NZ _Fsx.zip (Roads and rivers update). Very important to note is that in this file is some instructions to remove the new topographical urban roads and retain only the default FSX roads if you so wish. It is necessary in the palm north scenery to use only default FSX roads as some of the topo urban roads were running over the palm north airfield taxiways and they had to be removed. So go ahead and delete the topo roads as outlined in the instructions.
3., You need to install a new "Static Object Library" to suit FSX ONLY .With the new modified Static Object Library there is a high probability that most of Snowman’s Airports/Airfields objects will now work properly in FSX . Unfortunately, this library has had all the incompatible tree objects removed, as it seems they don’t work correctly in FSX. Other objects may be affected also but with mixed results depending on if you have SP1 and/or SP2 installed.
This is a necessary but drastic step removing all the tree objects because it means that you will have to somehow replace all of Snowman’s tree objects that he has diligently placed in his airfield sceneries as they are no longer available. Anyway the first step is to download and install this modified library from NZFF - http://nzff.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...6&hl=napier
FSX Static Object Library (198mb). It’s a big file but is essential if you want to use modified Snowman's sceneries in FSX
4. You will also need to delete any tree.bgls in Snowman’s scenery such as NZPM_PinTre.bgl, NZPM_MsyTre.bgl, NZPM_Fir.bgl??, NZPM_CpkTre – As they are accessing the now deleted library objects and /or are accessing default fs2004 textures which will cause visual problems The fence objects seem ok in the palm north scenery but I believe may have had to be deleted in other modified sceneries??)
5. You need three freeware programs to fix the scenery. You need to fire up SBuilder X and create proper exclude polygons, create an accurate flatten polygon, adjust the landclass under the airfield, make gently sloping polygons all around the airfield to mask the ridges and the plateau that the airfield is sitting on. In addition, I used Whisplacer to add default FSX trees and a boundary fence to the palm north scenery to replace the static object library trees that were deleted. Finally, I used ADE to adjust the AFCAD. Then I placed the compiled BGL fixes into the addon scenery folder.
Note: One hassle when using Whisplacer to place default FSX trees in place of Snowman’s deleted object trees was that the default FSX trees have these ugly square shadows and these had to be removed by altering the xml code
The final fix looks like this Download from here http://www.4shared.com/file/FACA3d04/PN_FSX.html
Note : Cos it’s a free file share site you have to wait 20 seconds for download to start . Here is what the fix looks like
and this
Again there may be more efficient/elegant ways to do this conversion but it works for me and didnt take too long, only a couple of hours of dedicated work. Please email me ( s.reweti@massey.ac.nz) if you have any difficulties with the conversion. Also i havent tried it with the 40 mesh or 75 mesh so cant give you any guarantees it will work with these meshes .
P.S. I forgot to mention I also installed Name: oceania_agn_texures.zip Size: 999,555 Date: 01-31-2010
by creator 2003 from www.flightsim.com to make the autogen houses around palmerston north look more NZ like . This is not an essential download for this conversion but highly reccommended
Plese note the following disclaimer I take no credit for Creator 2003's scenery Snowman's scenery , Christian Stock's combo and 20 mesh scenery or Bluebird's modified static objects library. These all must be purchased and/or downloaded and installed independently before downloading and installing my palm north FSX conversion files.
