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Compiling Your Airport to a BGL File
After you have finished creating or modifying an airport you will want to create a BGL file that
the simulator can read and display. FSX Planner provides many options, all aimed at providing you
with very fine control over what goes into your BGL file, as well as options to help you debug
your airport.
Installing the SDK
The SDK is installed off of the first DVD of the simulator installation DVDs. Note, that it is only
included on the Deluxe edition. After inserting the DVD into your drive, you will need to cancel the
installation process, and then right click on your DVD drive icon and choose Explore. Once the window
is displayed for the DVD, open the SDK window and run the setup file located in there.
Once you have finished the SDK installation, you will need tomake sure you have the latest update
to the SDK. At the time of this writing the latest update is Service Pack 1A, or SP1A. This can
be downloaded from www.fsinsider.com.
After downloading and installing the update you will be ready to compile your airport into a BGL file.
What is a BGL File and Where Should It Be Placed?
A BGL file is a compiled airport or scenery file that conforms to the format specified by Microsoft
for use with their flight simulator. Your airport will need at least one BGL file. More complex
airports may choose to use multiple BGL files. This choice is left up to the end user.
You should never modify an original BGL file from Microsoft or any other source. Instead you
should create a new BGL file that contains the changes you would like and place it in the
appropriate folder. The appropriate folder varies depending on how you want the scenery to
be displayed in the Scenery settings dialog within the simulator.
The default location for a custom BGL file is within the Scenery sub-folder of the Addon Scenery
folder, found within your main flight simulator installation directory. Using this Addon Scenery
folder will ensure that your airport is automatically added to the simulator's scenery at a higher
level than the default scenery.
However, it may be better to create a brand new folder within your flight simulator installation
folder that will contain your airport, allowing you to easily keep all your airports together,
and prevent them from mixing with airports from other sources. An additional advantage to this
method is that you can turn individual custom airports on and off eaily from within the simulator.
As an example we could create a folder called zBlueDesignStudios, and create another folder within
that for each airport. If we have created a modified version of Danbury Munipal Airport, we could
create a subfolder called Danbury. The name of this folder is how the airport will be displayed within
the Scenery dialog of the simulator. You then create a Scenery sub-folder and a Texture sub-folder
within the Danbury folder and place the Danbury airport BGL file within the Scenery folder. Note that
the Texture folder is only needed if you have custom textures associated with your airport. This folder
layout will make my airport show up as Danbury in the Scenery dialog of the simulator.
Creating a BGL file
FSX Planner uses Microsoft's bglcomp.exe application to compile, or create, a bgl file from your
airport. Using bglcomp.exe ensures that the BGl files conform exactly to Microsoft's specifications.
You will need to have installed the SDK in order to have access to bglcomp.exe.
Selecting Compile -> Compile To BGL File will display the Compile Dialog. This dialog displays the
basic compile options. The Destination Folder is where the BGL file will be placed once it has been
compile. By default this is the Addon Scenery folder within your flight simulator installation folder.
You may change this folder to any on that suites your needs.
Vista users please note that depending on your security settings FSX Planner may not be able to write
to a folder located within the Program Files folder. If this is the case, then you will have to choose
a folder that has less restcitions on it, such as your documents folder.
The Use scenery & texture subfolders option is a checkbox that specifies whether of not FSX Planner
should create two additional folders within the destination folder, one called scenery and one called
textures. If this option is used, then the compiled BGL file will be copied into the scenery subfolder.
The BGL File Name text field allows you to enter what the name of the compiled BGL file should be.
By default this is the name of the aiport followed by its ICAO code.
The next text field displays the full path to the folder that contains your bglcomp.exe file.
If you need to change the location, simply click the Browse button and then select the appropriate
location. If this location is set incorrectly FSX Planner will alert you to the fact that it can't
find the bglcomp.exe file when you attempt to compile your airport.
When you are ready to compile your airport click the Compile button at the bottom of the dialog.
The compiler will run and any output generated will be displayed in the text area. The text from
the compiler is very detailed and reading it will provide you with most of the clues necessary
to fix the problem. If there are errors, it is suggested that you run both the error checking
options and the clean up options included within FSX Planner. These checks will remove, or alert
ou to, a lot of common errors.
Specifying What is Included in Your BGL File
When creating a BGL file for your airport you need to make sure that your new or modified parts
of the airport are being included in the BGL file, and that the original parts of the airport are
flaged to be removed. Note that the original parts of an airport are never actually removed or
alterned in any way. Instead, certain flags or exclusion rectangles are used to notify the simulator
that it should ignore certain information from the default airport. By default FSX Planner includes
all aspects of your new airport in the BGL file and turns on all the delete flags. This results in
all of your modifications being included in the sim.
You can customize what is written into the BGL file using the Prepare Options dialog. The Prepare
Options dialog can be displayed by selecting Compile -> Prepare Options, or by clicking the Set
Prepare Options button in the Compile dialog. There are two tabs in this dialog. The Write Options
tab allows you to specify what aspects of your airport should be written. The easiest option is to
turn on all the options. However, if you are only working on certain aspects of your airport, then
you don't need to write out every part of the airport, as that produces a BGL file that contains
more information than is necessary.
For example, if you only modified the taxiways and aprons, then you would only have to turn on the
options for writing aprons, runways and taxiway data. There are certain aspects of an airport that
depend on others in order to compile correctly. If you modify starting locations, then you will have
to include runways in the BGL file as the starting locations reference runways, even if you did not
change the runways.
Specifying What is Excluded from the Default Airport
Working in conjunction with the parts of the airport that are included in your BGL file are the flags
specifying what parts of the original default airport should not be included. To avoid getting duplicate
objects in your airport you need to specify a delete flag for any type of object you are including
in your BGL file.
Most objects are excluded entirely from the airport when using the delete flags. However, runways,
starting points and frequencies can be individually deleted if desired. To specify an individual one
of these to remove select the appropriate tab, and uncheck the Delete All checkbox. This will allow
you to select specific runways, start points or frequencies to be deleted.
The specific delete flags are more advanced, and unless you have a very good reason for deleting just
one runway, start point or frequency, it is better to remove them globally or not at all.
Exclusion Rectangles (for Taxiways Signs, Scenery, etc)
You will have noticed in the preceeding sections that delete flags did not exist for all aspects of
an airport. This is where Exclusion Rectangles come in to play. An exclusion rectangle is needed to
delete beacon objects, effect objects, extrusion bridges, generic buildings, library objects, taxiway
signs, triggers and windsocks.
To create an exclusion rectangle, select the exclusion rectangle tool from the toolbar and click and
drag to create a rectangle. This rectangle has the ability to delete everything that is included
within its area. You can specify what an exclusion rectangle excludes by ticking the appropriate
checkboxes in the properties display.
As you can easily have multiple exclusion rectangles, you can specify that certain exclusion rectangles
are drawn as a border only by ticking the Display Border Only checkbox. This will allow you to place
exclusion rectangles on top of each other and still select the ones on the bottom.
Excluding Taxiway Signs.
Not that in order to exclude taxiway signs you must draw an exclusion rectangle that covers the master
taxiway sign. As the master taxiway sign is usually not known it is good practice to create an exclusion
rectangle that covers all taxiway signs for the airport. This exclusion rectangle should then be set to
exclude only taxiway signs. If you do not do this you will end up with duplicate taxiway signs in your
airport. Of course you only need to do this if you are modifying taxiway signs. If you are not modifying
taxiway signs, then make sure the Write Taxiway Signs checkbox in the Write Options tab of the Prepare
Options dialog is not checked. For more information please see the taxiway sign tutorial.
Making Sure Your Modified Airport is Displayed in the Simulator
In order to have your new airpoirt visible in the simulator, you need to make sure you have selected it
in the Scenery dialog, and that it has a higher priority than the dfeault scenery. If you have placed
it in the Addon Scenery folder then it should automatially be included and be placed above any of the
default scenery.
If you want to have a specific name for your scenery, such as the name of the airport, then you will need
to create a separate folder as described above. This folder will need to be added to the list of active
scenery and placed above the default scenery levels.
We hope that this tutorial has explained how to compile your airport to a bgl file using FSX Planner.
FSX Planner contains many more features, and we hope that you are able to explore and benefit from them.
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