[The MooseMeister]

Thanks to the great tool FS2Xplane there is an immense file repository for additional X-Plane scenery. It is a pretty easy process that can nevertheless take a lot of time depending on the level of detail you want to add by yourself to the existing scenery.

Here is what you need:

• FS2XPlane in the version for your OS - you can get it from Marginal's website (he is the author)
• OverlayEditor in a version for your OS - you can get that too from Marginal's website (he is the author)
• WED in a version for your OS (optional) - you can get that form the X-Plane Scenery Tools website by Ben Supnik

Of course you need to have a full X-Plane installation (basically the demo will also work) on your computer ready to go.

Here is a pretty basic and general recipe how to convert MSFS scenery to X-Plane, enhance it and post it:

1. search x-plane.org if the scenery does not already exist. If not:
2. find an appropriate MSFS scenery. How?
   
   • google (e.g. "ENVA scenery")
   • search in large FS file libraries such as avsim.com
   • check large listing sites such this for FS2002, FS 2004 or FSX. These lists are nicely organized by country and updated regularly with new stuff.
   Once you downloaded the file (often a ZIP archive) expand it. You are looking for basically two folders inside, "scenery" and "texture", if you have those, you are set for the next steps. If they are not there at the top level, they might be hidden in some sub-folders. Find them as you need their path later on to start FS2XPlane. If you cannot find them, you might be out of luck. Sometimes (not very often, though), MSFS sceneries are distributed having regular installers, in that case the expanded archive might show some .exe files. If you are running Windows (either directly or by using Parallels for Mac OS X, you can run the installer. Often it will require some fixed paths in your (virtual) Windows set-up. It the running is successful, the installer will often mention where it installed the embedded scenery. Navigate to that folder resp. copy the folder from the Parallels VM to the Mac desktop.
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   Often there is some documentation, screenshots etc. included that can be helpful in the next steps.
3. identify the original author(s) and kindly ask them for permission to post the conversion later
   
   • I assume that you want to distribute the converted scenery later on to x-plane.org, so now it would be good time to ask for that permission. You should find the email address in documents etc. included with the original MSFS scenery. Remember that the original authors spent countless hours in modelling, research etc, so this is really the least you should do. Tell him what you want to do, explain that the conversion will be freeware as the original and that full credit will be given to the original author. If you found an old MSFS scenery, than maybe the email address is outdated - so if you do not get a reply in a reasonable amount of time (let's say two weeks), you are in moral dilemma. It could be that the original author moved on and the scenery is basically orphaned. Or maybe the author is just too busy with other stuff in this life except flight sim. Anyway, I would NOT post a scenery without permission by the original author(s).
4. convert it to X-Plane using FS2Xplane
   
   • you have downloaded FS2XPlane? Good, run it then. If you have any detailed questions, check out this FS2Xplane thread here in the forums.
   • It this is the first run, it will also create some handy folders that could fool MSFS scenery installers that you have a full FS2004 etc. installation on your computer. So if you had some problems extracting the scenery above, you might want to try again now.
   • the operation is pretty straightforward:
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     • select the location of your downloaded MSFS scenery, this is the folder that contains the "scenery" and "texture" sub-folders
     • select your Custom Scenery folder from the X-Plane installation
     • select png (XP8 and above) or dds (XP9 only)
     • press the Convert button
   • the program will run for while (if has a large scenery to convert, a long while) and then upon finish display some sort of status message. Read through it. the worst that can happen is "No data found" - then you have a problem. More common are warnings, that some FS-built-in objects could not be converted etc.
   • Congratulations! You now have a new scenery inside the Custom Scenery folder named exactly as the original MSFS scenery folder. The messages generated during the conversion as well as other top-level files in that original folder are also duplicated. If you just wanted a quick & dirty conversion to populate your favorite airport with buildings etc. you are done! So you can start X-Plane now and navigate for the new airport. However, most likely you will see two sets of runways, taxiways and / or wrongly positioned buildings etc. This is basically because the geographical data between X-Plane and MSFS did not match exactly. So I would recommend to continue with the next step:
5. clear up the scenery using OverlayEditor
   
   • I am not going into details how OverlayEditor (OE) works. There is complete and long forum topic here.
   • So start OE and open your just converted scenery. A complete rendering of the airport will appear on the screen and you can zoom, rotate, ...
   • If you have two sets of runways / taxiways etc.: go to the Finder / Explorer, navigate to your scenery, go into the "Earth nav data" folder and remove / rename the file "apt.dat". Reload the scenery and you will see the original standard X-Plane runways etc. Good for now.
   • often MSFS scenery also contains ground textures. Some you might want to keep (parking places, grass, etc.), some like apron, taxiways, markings, runway and taxiway lighting you should delete in OE.
   • once you are done cleaning-up these things, you have two options:
   • 1: if you are satisfied with the standard X-Plane layout of the airport, you just have to move / align the objects from the scenery to the proper locations. So select all and move, rotate etc. them until their position seems right. Save the file. Start X-Plane and have a look around. If you like you can now add additional obejects from OpenSceneryX (see below).
   • 2: if you want to add taxiways, lights and other ground stuff, you need to do this in WED (see below).
6. enhance the scenery using OverlayEditor and OpenSceneryX (optional)
   
   • OpenSceneryX is a great and compatible way to enhance the appereance of the airport with custom made objects form talented modellers. I won't go into details here, you can instead have a look at the thread here in the forum.
   • Once you have run the installer and it has done its work, you can start up OE again, open your converted scenery and add more objects from the opensceneryx tab that now will be available from the drop-down menu to the right.
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   • add stuff as you like but not exaggerate since two many objects will result in a framerate drop in X-Plane, so one in a while take the enhanced scenery to a test drive in X-Plane and see if there any slowdowns if which case you should some of your objects (those couple of dozens 747s waiting on the apron might have been too many).
   • if you want to distribute the enhanced scenery, be sure to follow the instructions on the OpenSceneryX website since you have to download the developer pack and copy some files / folders inside your new scenery folder. The instructions are simple and clear, so this is not a problem.
7. making a custom airport layout using WED
   
   • now things get interesting. Again I won't go into details how WED works and what steps are required to get good charts / photos of airport layouts since there is a whole thread here at the forum that explains those things. Also the documentation included in WED is very good and helpful and should answer most of your questions.
   • There is another useful thread where authors announce that they are working on WED layouts for specific airports, so you might want to browse through is and see if anyone else is working on the same location as you are about to.
   • Finally, Robin Peel, the guardian and collector of all X-Plane airport data has written detailed instructions how to start with a new airport.
8. post it to the .org
   
   • before doing so, take the scenery to a final test drive. Start X-Plane, go to your airport, quit X-Plane. Why? Have a look at the log.txt file in the root folder of your X-Plane installation. Open the file and scroll down to lines starting with "DSF load time" or "ENV load time" - if you see any warnings / errors related to your scenery (i.e. the file name mentioned), you have some problems. Do not post the scenery until no more warnings / errors after running X-Plane. Sometimes it is rather esoteric to find the cause for some specific error message (a post to the forum about this is always helpful), sometimes it is obvious (e.g. a missing texture file).
   • OK, no more errors. Then make some nice screenshots within X-Plane, put the complete scenery folder inside a ZIP archive or similar (be sure to omit non essential files first, such as additional screenshots, Photoshop data, downloaded charts that cannot be redistributed etc. You can also use the XPublish tool from Marginal's website or some generic ZIP program (I use BetterZIP for the Mac).

I probably forgot some stuff and added a lot of shortcuts, but I guess this might answer some questions of aspiring scenery converters. Besides, there are always interesting forum topics here to check out to get more information about specific questions.

Have fun,
Martin /The MooseMeister/