The Bridge That Wouldn't Die

[simonovman]

(Posted this first by mistake in the GW3 forum, sorry. Try again - )

What is it with Excbuilder and bridges? Is that just something it doesn't do?

I've been playing with Excbuilder and think I've pretty well gotten the hang of it - been working on the Tulsa area, managed to get rid of the Oral Roberts Tower (!) and some other anachronistic buildings, but I've taken half a dozen passes at that bridge at Jenks and it won't go - I've leveled everything for half a mile around and there's that bridge still standing.

I admit I haven't tried any other bridges but I would assume a bridge is a bridge barring special cases like Golden Gate. This is a real problem because postwar bridges are among the most common and noticeable anachronisms at least in this part of the country.

If Excbuilder won't remove bridges then how can it be done? (If it can.)

I will now wait while everyone writes explanations that I don't understand a word of....

[Admin]

I have no explanation but I believe bridges are a seperate class of objects. If nobody has abetter answer in the next 24 hours, you might want to check the FreeFlow forum and ask ]Joe Watson who is the FreeFlow bridge expert.

[thatch]

Tom, The best person to ask is "Scott" at Freeflow.

Cheers
Ian

[simonovman]

Freeflow? This is what? where?

[thatch]

You will find Freeflow at fs-freeflow.com

[simonovman]

Thanks. If I find out anything useful I'll post it in here. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's had this problem.

[nobicus]

Bridges are easy to deal with if you have XP and the relevant xml stuff installed. The file bridges.bgl is held in the scenery/generic folder. This can be disassembled by using the new bglanalyse. The relevant bridge can be deleted and the file then recompiled. If you don't want to delete the bridge but just move it this can be done also (and you can alter the scale to fit the landscape better if need be).
You will need the bglcomp SDK which will tell you what else in the way of xml files you will need to download direct from Microsoft. No professional scenery maker can do this and offer the files because they are disassembling original Microsoft files which is a complete no-no.
(I am a complete idiot and I managed to move the English bridges to fit the VFR Photographic Scenery and, again because I am an amateur, I posted the amended file on the VFR Addons site.
Do have a go - it is amazing how it will increase your confidence in dealing with FS files and you can't break anything if you take a copy of the bridges.bgl and keep it safe before you start.

[simonovman]

Nobicus, that's really fascinating. I'm sure it would be even more so if I had the faintest idea what you just said.

I have XP of course. (I assume you mean Windows XP?) I don't know what you mean by "the relevant xml stuff." I don't know what "bglanalyze" is. I don't know what "bglcomp SDK" means.

I don't want to move the bridge, I just want to eliminate it, and a number of others as well.

[simonovman]

Don't feel bad; I got a reply at Freeflow and couldn't understand a word of it either. Something about "VTP lines" whatever that may be.

It seems that all you clever people overestimate the technical knowledge of the rest of us. Particularly those of us who, between advancing senility and the excessive ingestion of Canadian Hunter and the odd stroke, have to get way down into the low-end gears to climb these learning curves.

[Admin]

simonovman said:

Don't feel bad; I got a reply at Freeflow and couldn't understand a word of it either. Something about "VTP lines" whatever that may be.

It seems that all you clever people overestimate the technical knowledge of the rest of us. Particularly those of us who, between advancing senility and the excessive ingestion of Canadian Hunter and the odd stroke, have to get way down into the low-end gears to climb these learning curves.

Better to overestimate your ability and challenge you than to under estimate it and insult you. Nevertheless, the catch 22 here is that it can be done, but it can't be distributed because it essentially the same as hacking MS copyrighted files.

you can find bglanalyze at avsim & flightsim, the SDKs are all found here:

www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2004_downloads_sdk.asp

every tool has its learning curve and no, none of them are easy.

Motivation to learn new tricks comes in many forms. I wanted a Golden Age Bangor for Golden Wings 98 so I learned Airport.


OK, I just went over to FreeFlow and read the Q&A. From my point of view there was no problem understandiung what Scott said, but I can understand your confusion. My recommendation is to learn SBuilder and not RWY 12. Yes, it will be hard, yes it will take a while but when you get some proficiency, think of the creative power you will have.

Yes, some of us already know these things, but it didn't come in a pill and there was a time when we didn't know these things. We all started at square one.

[simonovman]

Ah! Now that part about the MS copyrighted files I DO understand. (Retired professional writer; I may not know from polygons and VTP lines but copyright is part of my medicine.)

I must say, with profound respect, that I don't entirely agree with your initial statement there. I've always considered it's better to tell somebody something he already knows than not to tell him something he needs to know. They taught us that at NCO school.

And if somebody does tell me something I already know, I don't get insulted; and if somebody else does, I figure he needs to work on his attitude.

I'll go ahead and get those SDKs, whatever they may be; maybe when I have them I'll find out what they are and what they're for.

I guess you're right about motivation. It's just that these days I'm having transmission problems. Can't seem to get my butt in gear. Right now for example the yard is half drunk and I need mowing.

[simonovman]

And as for creative power, man, I leave that stuff to people like you and Bill. Thirty years of writing for a living, I'm created out.

All I want is to be able to do a little editing. And, OK, it's a bit of a kick wiping large structures out of existence with a godlike wave of the mouse. (You'd have to live in this part of Oklahoma to appreciate how good it felt to obliterate the Oral Roberts Tower.)

Start at square one, huh? That sounds good, if I can just find out where the board is.....

[thatch]

I see that Scott has added to your Post at FS FreeFlow with a number of ways that you can fix your problem, might pay to have a quick look. I know Scott well and he will help you as much as he can.

Cheers
Ian

[Admin]

I agree with Ian... Check that thread out if you have any interest in removing not only bridges but many objects. Scott's instructions should make using sbuilder a snap I need to spend time this winter to learn sbuilder because Airport for Windows is a bit long in the tooth. Also worth noting is that that kind of exclude bgl can be shared as it is completely different from editing a default bgl.

[simonovman]

Yes. In fact I would like to post this little shortcut to the relevant page:

fs-freeflow.com/forum2/index.php?topic=584.0

Because what he has done is create a kind of mini-tutorial, of outstanding quality and clarity; in fact it could serve as an example of how this sort of thing should be done. I'm saving the whole thing - I'd even print it if I owned a printer - and if anybody else in here is trying to deal with the same problem, and doesn't know all this stuff, I recommend it very highly.

Thanks for directing me to this guy. I see what you mean.