User documentation

Description

In X-Plane 10 the way all sceneries are organized had changed to the previous versions. The order how the sceneries are loaded is stored in the file scenery_packs.ini. Usually everything works fine without conflicts, but the more different kind of sceneries are installed the order in that file has to be changed.

Specially with better OpenStreeMap data there are more automatic generated sceneries, which can cause more and more conflicts. To take care about the correct order the xpstart has been developed.

xpstart analyses all your sceneries and groups them. After that it updates the scenery_packs.ini file. Everything works automatically.

Installation

• Make sure that python is installed. How to install Python.
• Copy the xpstart.py file and the xpstart folder into your x-plane folder. If your operating system is Linux or Mac, make sure that the xpstart directory is writeable.
• Ready

Usage

• When you install a new scenery, you copy the scenery into your custom scenery folder
• Then run the xpstart.py script. The first run of xpstart can take some time (up to 10 minutes), because all your installed sceneries has to been analysed. But the analysed data is saved, so all following runs will take just some seconds.
• Start or restart x-plane
• Ready

Comming features

• In future xpstart can be used to start x-plane. xpstart takes care about the sceneries, updated the scenery_packs.ini file and starts afterwards x-plane. That feature is not part of the first demo version.

Scenery developer documentation

Power to the scenery developer

Inside x-plane the scenery developer were never able to define, when his scenery should be loaded. Until XP9 it was always the alphabetic order of the folder names. That was a good way until the scenery was renamed. With XP 10 there is no such possibility any more. Therefore xpstart gives the scenery developer the possibility to define, which kind of scenery it is and when it should be loaded.

During the support process it is not necessary to describe, how the user should deal with the scenery_packs.ini file. Just recommend to install xpstart and the conflicts should be gone.

How to support xpstart?

The xpstart algorithm is able to find a default layer for your scenery. But to make sure that xpstart uses the correct layer you can define the layer inside of your scenery. For that you need to add a simple text file with the name scenery.txt to your scenery folder. Same place where you put the library.txt. Inside the scenery.txt file you can define the layer with the command LAYERGROUP.

Layers

Following layers are supported by xpstart at the moment:

• Library: A library is part of the custom scenery folder. It just has objects inside, which can be used by other sceneries. These is the only group where it doesn't matter when it is loaded.
• Ground mesh: Defines the ground mesh of the x-plane world. If there would be a custom scenery just with a mesh inside it should be loaded with that group.
• Phototextures: The photot sceneries e.g. from simheaven.com, are sceneries just with textures inside.
• OSM scenery: Automatic generated sceneries mostly from OpenStreetMap.
• Default scenery: The x-plane default sceneries.
• Exclusion: Exclusion sceneries just have exclusions inside. Thesese sceneries are necessary, when a custom scenery don't have any exclusions. That there are no problems it is the easiest way to make a scenery just with exclusions inside.
• Airport pack: Custom sceneries for sceneries with more than one airport.
• Airport: Custom sceneries for airports.
• new add-ons: Sceneries were it was not possible to find a layer automaticaly

Examples

The scenery for an airport would be the layer custom. Therefore the content of the scenery.txt file would be:
LAYERGROUP custom

An automatic generated scenery with the tool osm2xp would be the layer autogen.
LAYERGROUP autogen