Why does this happen?

R

rich12545

Charter Member
I've been installing some freeware airports the last few days. Sometimes there are texture files that are directed to the main texture folder instead of the particular scenery texture folder.

So I'm wondering why.

And what would happen if I put them in the scenery texture folder?

It's a curiosity.
 
I'll be the first of a swarm of replies. Basically I sort all addon airports individually, creating and naming a folder if none is provided, with each containing subfolders scenery and texture. This way if there is a problem it is isolated to that airport folder and you can prioritize them which is often necessary to make them show properly. All airport specific bgls go into scenery and all bmps go into texture. That said, there are some sceneries that go further and have to override anything that will conflict so sometimes certain files need to go elsewhere as directed by the author in part because of some internal FS prioritizing. Then there are the general repositories Addon Scenery/scenery and Addon Scenery/texture for all those NovaGold, Len's Sceneries, rwy12, and all those others. Theoretically every texture and scenery file can be plopped into those two and things should work, but you're done for if a glitch crops up because you'll never find it. So that's my down and dirty and now I'll sit back and wait for the gentle corrections because I'm sure I left a few things out :icon_lol:
 
Heh, if I installed every airport individually, I'd have 900 entries (maybe a slight exaggeration). But you're right about keeping them separate as much as possible.

I am now doing a complete reinstall because things got too screwed up by carrying everything over the last couple years and just adding to it without paying much attention. I'm still combining sceneries but am being very careful to keep things separated as much as possible.

I keep things like Nova in my main texture folder (maybe they should go in addon scenery\texture?) and objects like Len's in a Library folder.

A nice post but I read it a couple of times and didn't see my question answered.
 
Let me be more specific with my question.

I downloaded a whole bunch of airports by John Loney. In his sceneries, the ones that have textures, they usually have a texture folder to go along with the scenery folder and they both go in the main scenery folder that goes in addon scenery.

However, in a few of his sceneries, he specifies some texture files (mainly for signs and stuff like that) go in the main texture (the one in the root directory) folder. Other scenery designers do the same thing. Why?

My understanding is the scenery will find and read the texture file regardless of whether it's in the texture folder within the scenery folder or the main texture folder. Right?

Why not just put ALL the texture files for a scenery in the texture folder that goes with the scenery? Why make it more complicated?

And what would happen if I put those 'main texture' bmp files in the texture folder with the scenery?
 
Rambled a bit, sorry. But you're right about the game looking for textures based on what the scenery bgl files ask for I think wherever they are. It could be a small change in how easy that happens depending on where they are that makes some authors say what they do. I keep all basic library files, like Loneys and rwy12 kinds of things in the Addon Scenery/scenery and /texture folders and the game always finds them. I don't see why you couldn't do what you said- put ALL the texture files for a scenery in the texture folder that goes with the scenery. The downside may only be file duplication which eats up HD space.
 
I think most of that really goes back to saving HD space and to a small extent loading times for the FS engine. Because we humans tend to be creatures of habit if a certain way of doing things has worked in the past we tend to stick with that way until and sometimes even beyond finding a better way.

Stefan
 
Sorry, what I meant was to put all the texture files in the texture folder that goes with the scenery instead of and not in additional to the main texture folder.

John Loney, in a few airports, had a scenery and texture folder for the main scenery folder PLUS some texture files for the main texture folder.

Why couldn't ALL those texture files go in the scenery texture folder and none in the main texture folder?

Why couldn't I put the texture files meant for the main texture folder in the scenery texture folder instead?
 
Yeah, what you said????? Just kidding, I see no reason for the splitting either. And thanks for the HU, I'd never heard of Flight Ontario.
 
aeromed202 said:
...... I'd never heard of Flight Ontario.
Click to expand...

You've got a real treat in store then, there is some truly magnificent stuff on their site. If you have Ultimate Terrain the result is pretty spectacular.

I think Aeromed and Sunny summed it up, at least as far as my limited understanding goes; a lot of what we do (and that is a generic 'we', meaning a lot of flightsimmers) are habits formed from the days when our PCs were a lot less powerful and HD sizes were smaller - Mr Loney has been involved in this hobby a long time, since God was a baby, so he may just be doing what he has always done, or he may have good reason. Some of still makes sense (900 copies of the Nova textures would be a touch excessive), some of it less so; I was speaking to somebody the other day about repaints for aircraft, and he said how he still gets people asking for DXT3 copies of textures rather than 32 bit, even though most people's rigs can now cope easily with the higher quality textures.
 
I guess that's it. I've done basically the same for a long time, put all the scenery from a developer in a single folder. Typically he'll use the same textures so it cuts way down on the number of entries and on disk space. I do this with four of what I consider the top people, good quality and a lot of them. Sidney Schwartz, Roger Wensley and John Loney. In no particular order and sorry I didn't mention all their partners. Then there's Toni Agramont. He's in a class all by himself.
 
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