Part 1 of my answer to Allen Peteson question.
Hello Allen,
Urs suggestion is one of the two ways you can go. Urs proposes to buy a program called "Instant Scenary". I think buying software is the way to go if you want quick results.
I am following the other way and that is the "do it yourself" way. I am a type who likes to investigate how FSX (or FS9 before that or P3D after that) is working and how to get things done, like the two tents at YWAV, Wave Hill. And I like to keep my installations clean and enjoy it as it is.
To be more specific about the two tents. What did I do. Well, I have a freeware program called ModelConverterX. Among many other things it helps you to look into a so called BGL file. In this case the "generic.bgl" file which can be found in the folder "FSX/Scenery/Global/scenery/. Generic.bgl contains 53 objects and a series of tensts can be found starting at position 28.
But how do I get these tents into FSX? That is done by referencing a object in a small script written in XML. This reference is called a GUID, defined as the unique identifier within the collection of all FSX objects in the world.
In YWAV I selected the following two tents:
generic.bgl / gen_tent_dome_10
guid=5160e5c1-b080-4f5f-b494-f2fab794a26e
and
generic.bgl / gen_tent_dome_4
guid=9eb3407f-8e47-46a4-a70f-a2df28dea9c4
You can find the objectname and GUID in the "Object Information" window of ModelConverterX which is accessed by a button with the same name.
Underneath the XML script I used based on examples I found on the Internet.
===================================================================
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<FSData version="9.0">
<!-- 7-3-2020 created by LB -->
<!-- Small tents at YWAV -->
<!-- GAAR_2020 -->
<!-- object library: generic.bgl -->
<!-- gen_tent_dome_10 -->
<!-- heading "0" is heading "180" in P3D -->
<SceneryObject
lat="-17.397866"
lon="131.118395"
alt="0.0"
pitch="0"
bank="0"
heading="223"
altitudeIsAgl="TRUE"
imageComplexity="SPARSE">
<LibraryObject name="
{5160e5c1-b080-4f5f-b494-f2fab794a26e}" scale="1.0" />
</SceneryObject>
<!-- object library: generic.bgl -->
<!-- gen_tent_dome_4 -->
<!-- heading "0" is heading "180" in P3D -->
<SceneryObject
lat="-17.397918"
lon="131.118438"
alt="0.0"
pitch="0"
bank="0"
heading="235"
altitudeIsAgl="TRUE"
imageComplexity="SPARSE">
<LibraryObject name=
"{9eb3407f-8e47-46a4-a70f-a2df28dea9c4}" scale="1.0" />
</SceneryObject>
</FSData>
========================================================================
You can edit XML files with Notepad, but I use the freeware program Notepad++ to do this editing. It helps better to keep the script well structured and without typo's.
The next important thing is the lat lon, latitude and longitude. I extended my overhead panel with two extra gauges: a "lat gauge" and a "lon gauge". They show the same lat lon you see in red in the upper left corner of your FSX window when pressing SHIFT-Z, but more precise.
I positioned my DC3 in slew mode to the location where I wanted the tents and wrote down the lat lon's. Notice that a north lattitude is positive and a south lattitude is negative. And that a East longitude is positive and a west longitude is negative. The lat lon's in the XML script are the exact values shown in my overhead panel.
I will finish my answer tomorrow, but give me a first reaction if the direction this answer is going is what you are looking for.
Kind regards, Luuk