A question for Scenery Builders

[falcon409]

Controlling the large volume of custom objects I have accumulated over the past several years has become a real problem. For the most part it is of my own doing and the recent debacle with Block Island and Montauk is an example.

When I do a new scenery that requires custom built objects, they are ultimately placed in the scenery folder for that project along with the required texture files. Once complete and ready to package and upload, everything is right there and no outside object libraries are required. . .very efficient. Next project comes along and new objects built and placed inside that scenery folder, and on and on and on.

At a point, way back when I started using odds and ends from previous projects to keep from building new objects. So I copy those borrowed objects and textures and place them in the new scenery folder. Do that a few dozen times and now when I go to do a scenery project and load Instant Scenery3 even though the objects I need are in the current scenery folder. . . .they are also in 5 other scenery project folders. . .and all the objects have kept the same original name. Instant scenery spots the object, I place it and once the project is done I sometimes check the list of objects used in a menu within IS3. What I find is that many of the reused objects are being loaded not from the current folder, but from one of the other projects.

Instant Scenery just looks for an object name and loads it. Just because I have the correct object bgl's in my current project scenery folder doesn't mean that's where it will load it from. . .because that same object is in 5 other projects I did previously.

My question is this. . .with the massive amount of custom built objects that you folks accumulate over years of building, how do you maintain control of those objects. Do you make a separate "Custom Objects Folder" for scenery bgl's and textures and only load via Instant Scenery from that one folder or is there some other way to get all these objects under control?

[ian elliot]

I have the same problem im afraid, i try, just like you, to keep the right objects with the right scenery and keep the external library's down to a few well know downloads, and i also attempt some house keeping now and then but something always slips the net. trouble is, the problem only really arise's after ive uploaded something and i start getting PM's about objects with no textures. be intrested to know opinions on this one.


cheers ian

[Lane Street]

The problem is probably due to the fact that you end up with multiple copies of objects with the same GUIDs.

One easy fix would be to change the GUID when you copy an object to another scenery.

This would also help prevent problems caused by end users having multiple copies of object libraries where a/some copies do not have all of the required textures. This is a common cause of missing textures.

FS indexes objects by the GUID and only uses one instance of a GUID. So when that GUID is called by object placement .bgl files, no matter where they are, FS will always look at the same folder for that GUID.

So keep your .mdl files, even after you compile them into a .bgl. When you want to reuse the .mdl in another scenery, copy the .mdl to the new scenery, then run it through ModelConverterX and change the GUID (might not hurt to change the friendly name too) before compiling the .mdl into a .bgl. Don't forget to make sure you copy all of the required textures also.

cheers,
Lane

[roger-wilco-66]

I try to overcome object entropy by organzing everything in standardized folders.

So I have a strict development folder structure for each project.

One sub folder is for object developmment itself, another one is for gathering the "productive" objects and texture files for making the BGLs. As I said, everything resides in standardized sub folders, and I never do dev work in the "hot" addon scenery folders of the sim.
When I share objects between projects, they are copied into the new project folder structure and the GUID is changed.


Cheers,
Mark

[spatialpro]

The GUID rules. I change the GUID, as someone else mentioned above.

Andy

[stovall]

One of the best thing I ever learned from Mark when I got into making scenery. The final production usually has these basic folders:

1. Name of Scenery Landscape
2. Name of Scenery Objects
3. Name of Scenery Mesh (Only if you need it for reality)
4. Name of Scenery Photo Scenery (Only if you make Photo Real)

There could be others like elevation correction etc. As Mark mentioned the most important thing to do with objects is give them a new GUID number and name. This keeps the duplicates from happening.

The sub-folder design helps especially when finding problems and correcting them. If an object isn't showing you know the problem is usually in the objects folder. A clarification on the objects themselves and those placed by say Instant Scenery or SBuilderX. Only the objects themselves that Instant Scenery and or SBuilderX uses are in the Objects folder. Those placed by Instant Scenery and or SBuilderX are in their own bgl file in the Landscape folder.

Hope all this makes sense. Before Mark taught me the basics my productions were a mess. I could remember where and what objects I used. Some would show ans some would not. So I replace them again causing havoc eventually. Now with P3D and FSX sometimes needing their own specific objects, this arrangement is especially important.

[Dimus]

I too am with Mark on this one. Different name and GUID for each project. This way you can also make changes to textures to adapt the object better to the new scenery. Also people who download never get confused with the same instance of object in two sceneries.