Howto

Create scenery with the Built-in CFS Editor

by

 

Nuno Mendes aka EURO_GCSMgaz (nmigaz@yahoo.com)

http://www.euro-squadron.co.uk

 

INTRODUCTION
HISTORY

QUICK START

BASIC FUNCTIONS

ACTIVATION DENSITY
SELECTING THE TYPE OF OBJECT TO CREATE
MOVING THE OBJECT AROUND
OBJECT HEADING
CREATING NEW SCENERY FILES

EDITING SCENERY FILES

CLOSING THE EDITOR

SCALING THE OBJECTS

ADDING AN OBJECT TO THE SCENERY FILE

EDITING/DELETING AN OBJECT IN A SCENERY FILE

CREATING AND PLACING GROUPS OF OBJECTS

CREATING NEW TYPES OF BUILDINGS

CREATING NEW TYPES OF RUNWAYS
SCENERY EDITOR OPTIONS

SCENERY GURU STUFF- WRITING THE BGL SOURCE CODE.

TO DO
THANKS TO

DISCLAIMER

 

INTRODUCTION

This document is directed to the less experienced scenery designers for whom the available scenery creating tools (though giving you much more control over your design) have a steep learning curve before you get some satisfying results.

 Fortunately Microsoft left inside CFS a tool that let’s you create/edit your own scenery files ( bgl extension) containing any CFS library object (planes, buildings, trees, trucks, runways, etc ) in a WYSIWYG environment .

 Since it was recently discovered a way to create new object library’s , I’m pretty sure that one of the Guru’s out there will probably find a way to expand the range of available objects inside this editor.

Would also like to take this opportunity  to thank  the CFS community for all the great enhancements it has brought to the game, and to remind  that there is always something new out there to be discovered.

  

HISTORY

 1st Draft . 10th Aprill 2000

I have first found out about the existence of the Scenery Library Editor a couple of months ago by looking at the CFS executables with a resource editor. However I thought at the time that it was some dead code left inside by the development team (there are a lot of FS windows lying around in the dll’s).

After the autofollow affair and all the shock waves it created, while investigating a way to block/detect it stumbled into this (it goes to show you that there is always something good out of any bad situation).

 

QUICK START

 

  1. Edit with notepad the Combatfs.cfg file in your main combat flight simulator folder.
  1. Add the following 2 lines to it

[LAYOUT_TOOL]  
Scenery_Edit_Enable=1

Note1: If you are a newbie and don't how to insert a new section/key inside the config file without breaking up the existing ones, just insert  those  2 lines at the top of the  Combatfs.cfg file. It will work fine.

Note2 : If you are not a newbie (like myself) to CFS scenery creation, then this is probably all you need to know.

  1. Goto the Freeflight option of CFS  and select the location where you want to add some scenery.
  1. Select the Scenery Editor Option on the World Menu.

 

 

  1. Three new windows should appear: MAP, SPOT and Add Scenery Library Objects

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Press the NEW.. Button and create a test.bgl file.
  1. Select the object you want to place ( in the example a V2 ).

 

 

  1. Move the object with the slew keys or using your joystick.
  1. When the location is correct press the ADD Button. Confirm the object placement when the message box appears. Easy wasn’t it : ) .

 

BASIC FUNCTIONS

 

Brief description of the available options in the main Editor window 

ACTIVATION DENSITY

 This Combo box let’s you select from witch Image Complexity (selected from the Settings window of CFS) the object you are creating or editing is going to appear.

Available options are :

-          Very Sparse.

-          Sparse.

-          Normal.

-          Dense.

-          Very Dense.

 If you select the Very Sparse option the object will always be visible no mater what the settings are, on the other hand if you select Very Dense it will only appear to people that have their settings set to Very dense.

 

 

SELECTING THE TYPE OF OBJECT TO CREATE

 The main list box inside the Add Scenery Library Objects window let’s you select one of the available objects in the CFS library. Try to select various objects and watch the changes in the SPOT window.

MOVING THE OBJECT AROUND

 When you activate the Scenery editor you are automatically place into SLEW mode. Just use the normal slew keys the select the location, heading and altitude of the object you are creating.

 

Note : If you change the focus from CFS to another application (like when you are writing a tutorial) CFS enters pause mode, witch blocks any movement of the objects. To unpause the game you first have to click on the main CFS window, then press P ( or the key assign to the pause function). Everything should then return to normal.

 

 

 

OBJECT HEADING

 

The value in the main Scenery Editor Window indicates the direction that the object you are placing is facing (It can be different from the position you are facing, because you can slew around the object if you want) . The coordinates and altitude values can be seen on the MAP and SPOT windows.

 

CREATING NEW SCENERY FILES

 

Just press the NEW… Button and a message box will ask you for the name of the new scenery file. The default path for creating new scenery files is the main CFS scenery folder witch means that your new scenery will become automatically activate as soon as you finish editing it.

 

 

 

If you are going to have multiple versions of the same scenery perhaps it would be wiser to save them all in a work folder of your choice and only copy the final version to the main CFS scenery library for a test flight.

Creating a new file enables the following buttons (GROUP, BUILDINGS, RUNWAYS, Set All Radii, ADD, EDIT, Write Source).


EDITING SCENERY FILES

 

Press the OPEN… Button and a message box will ask you for the name of the scenery file to edit. The default path is again the main CFS scenery folder

 

 

Opening a file also enables the GROUP, BUILDINGS, RUNWAYS, Set All Radii, ADD, EDIT and Write Source buttons.

Tried to use the editor to add some CFS objects to existing scenery files without much success.

CLOSING THE EDITOR

Just press the CLOSE button.

 

SCALING THE OBJECTS

By pressing OBJECTS 3X button you can increase the scale of the selected object by a factor of three. This changes the label of the button to OBJECTS 1X witch reverts to the previous dimensions.

 

ADDING AN OBJECT TO THE SCENERY FILE

The object you have selected and placed is only written to the scenery file after you press the ADD… Button.


 

EDITING/DELETING AN OBJECT IN A SCENERY FILE

 You can edit/delete existing objects in a scenery file by pressing the EDIT… Button in the main window. A new windows appears with the existing objects ( in this case a FW190A on the runway at Interlaken).

 

Note : Deleting or editing an existing object sometimes leaves a copy of the old one on the screen. However the scenery file is correctly created and the ghost object will disappear if you restart CFS.

 

 

Choosing to edit an objects leaves you with the following window, giving you the option to change the type, scale and position ( trough the slew commands).

 

 

CREATING AND PLACING GROUPS OF OBJECTS

 The scenery editor has the ability to create a file with a default group of  objects that you can use in all your scenery creations. This can be very useful if you want to create ground formations of planes for example You will only need a command to place a big group of objects.

To use this option, open a scenery file and add the objects that you want to belong to the group. In this example I’m using 3 FW190A at Interlaken.

 

 After you added this objects press the GROUP Button, at this point you shouldn’t have any group created, so let’s create one with the 3 FW190A.

You can name the group in the Textbox of the File Group template and then by pressing the “Add the file’s objects to the group templae file” (In the example the name of group is “FW190 Group 3”).

 Note : Your heading and location  at the time you created the group is going to be used later on as a reference when the group is placed. If you want to place a group of  3 FW190 with the same heading as the original planes, you heading will have to be 0 when you press the “Add Group to File Button”.

 

 

This action creates a file named Layout_Tool_Group.CFG in the main CFS scenery folder with the following content.

[group.000]
name=FW190 Group 3
objects=3
object.000=FW190A
extra.000=0x000A0000, 00070, 0x9797FC57, 0x8A930060, 0x11D14AC5, 0xA028DC7B
location.000=0, 0, -141.537537, -67.306656, 223.45
object.001=FW190A
extra.001=0x000A0000, 00070, 0x9797FC57, 0x8A930060, 0x11D14AC5, 0xA028DC7B
location.001=0, 0, -140.813126, -118.558411, 226.61
object.002=FW190A
extra.002=0x000A0000, 00070, 0x9797FC57, 0x8A930060, 0x11D14AC5, 0xA028DC7B
location.002=0, 0, -95.521484, -113.776886, 224.50

Even if you delete you scenery file this information will be available in your next projects.

To add a new formation of 3 FW190 to the Interlaken runway you only have to place yourself at the desired location, select the Group Button again, and in the Group Dialog Window press the Add Group to File Button.

And there you have it , 6 FW190A at Interlaken.

 

 

CREATING NEW TYPES OF BUILDINGS

 The CFS scenery library comes with a great number of predefined buildings (selectable from the main Editor List box as an object type. Example : BR_APT0 object) . However, it you are feeling really creative you can create your own ( using the existing textures ). Just press the BUILDINGS… Button.

 

 

 

Next version of this tutorial will hopefully have details on the various options available on the Generic Buildings Window. Next is a picture of one of my first experiments with it, not what you would expect to see at Interlaken.

 

 

CREATING NEW TYPES OF RUNWAYS

Just like for buildings, you have predefined runways that you can use (Objects: AirFld1, AirFld2, AirFld3, and AirFld4).But if you want to create your own runways press the RUNWAYS… Button.

Beware that in my system this option always crashed CFS with the following message

COMBATFS caused an invalid page fault in module BGL_EDIT.DLL at 023f:206a75d0.

When I re-entered the editor the runway was in place.

  

 Available Types are: Dirt, Cement, Asphalt and Grass.

 Note : With this option the bitmaps used are different from the default Runways and in my opinion don’t look as good.

 

 

Example of a Cement runway placed at Interlaken.

SCENERY EDITOR OPTIONS

The OPTIONS… Button of the scenery editor lets you control various aspects of the module and are self-explaining.

 

  

SCENERY GURU STUFF- WRITING THE BGL SOURCE CODE

The  “Write Source” Button in the scenery editor creates an ASM file containing the source code for the created (or edited) scenery file. This file is placed on the main CFS scenery folder.

  

TODO

-          Include a detailed explanation of the options available in the Generic Buildings window.

-          Explain the use of the Set All Radii (unknow at the time of writing ).

-          Included links to other scenery tutorials for the advanced users.

 

THANKS TO

EURO_BRIT1

EURO_CPTManx

For commenting on this document

 

Shadow_of_Sin

By making sure that everyone knew about the autofollow option in CFS.

 

 

DISCLAIMER  

The author will  not accept any responsibility for damage caused by the use of the information contained in this document, unexpected site effects or  incorrect statements in the text.