FSX UK Farmstrips Scenery (All Parts)

Part 1, 2 & 3 of Farmstrips In FSX

Some of you may already have tried to run the three volumes of fs9 Farm Strips in FSX. The results will have been variable!
Already it can be seen that MS's claims that FSX would be backwards compatible with earlier versions were wildly overoptimistic. By chance much of the Farm Strips scenery works in FSX. Some objects however have textures that FSX just does not pick up. Many of the static aircraft appear as black blocks.

This download is not a version specifically designed for FSX, instead it is a workaround that removes most of the initial problems and produces a collection of farm strips that go some way to filling the vacuum left by the incompatibillity of some of the commercial sceneries.

The original scenery was designed with the VFR GM scenery in view. I've no reason to assume it won't work in conjunction with the second generation photoscenery now available; in fact their improved resolution should enhance the strips. There would be little point in using the farm scenery without one of the photoscenery addons in use.

The sceneries for FS9 emerged, as they were completed, in three volume form. I've taken this opportunity to simplify matters and in FSX they will be present as just one scenery, UK_FARMS_ALL_GW. The GW is tacked onto the end simply because, to my great pleasure, there are at least two other designers starting to produce unflattened farmstrip scenery.

When used in FS9, for reasons I still don't understand, textures needed to be installed in different locations on different user systems. For this reason carrying out an upgrade for use in FSX would be fraught with pitfalls. For that reason I recommend that the upgrade be installed from new, and modified, downloads. I'm also now assuming that all the farms can be run as a single volume of scenery.

Because of the size of the combined scenery, I've had to split it into three separate downloads and this is reflected in these installation instructions.

INSTALLATION

PART 1 DOWNLOAD

UK Farms for FSX;Part 1. You will have unzipped this download file into a temporary folder. From the unzipped file will have emerged a folder entitled STAT OBS SCENERY.

1. Go to your FSX Root folder, then into its Addon Scenery folder. Check whethether that folder contains a folder entitled Static Objects Library and that this, in turn, contains a Scenery and a Texture folder. If it doesn't, then create those folders.

2. Inside the unzipped download STAT OBS SCENERY folder is another called SCENERY. Copy the contents of this folder across to your FSX, Addon Scenery, Static Objects Library's SCENERY folder.

Thats the end of the action for the PART 1 Download.

PART 2 DOWNLOAD

1.UK Farms for FSX;Part 2. When unzipped you will see it contains two folders. One is labelled STAT OBS TEXTURE, inside which is a folder named TEXTURE. Open this folder and copy its contents across into your FSX, Addon Scenery, Static Objects Library's TEXTURE folder.

2. The second folder is labelled GG Textures. This folder contains the excellent tree textures designed by Gerrish Gray and made available as freeware to both freeware designers and sceenery users. Copy the contents of this folder into your FSX, Addon Scenery, Static Objects Library's TEXTURE folder.

3.Unfortunately MS have chosen to change the names of many of their texture files, in moving from FS9 to FSX. We therefore need to utilise some of the tree textures from FS9. To do this open your FS9 root folder, then open its TEXTURE folder. Identify all the files starting with tree. There are 54 of these files. Copy all 54 files across into the same Texture folder into which you have just placed the downloaded texture files; your Static Objects Library's TEXTURE folder.

That's the end of the action for the Part 2 download.

PART 3 DOWNLOAD

1. UK Farms for FSX;Part 3. When unzipped you will see it contains one folder;labelled UK_FARMS_ALL_GW.

2. Just move the entire UK_FARMS_ALL_GW folder and place it in your FSX's Addon Scenery folder.

ENABLING THE SCENERY

With all the bits in place it remains only to enable the scenery; well, two sceneries, Static Objects Library and UK_FARMS_ALL_GW (I'm assuming you already have either VFR GM or one of the new FSX specific photosceneries installed and enabled).

To do this, first boot up FSX; the location doesn't matter.
Next press your keyboard's Esc key, then press the End Flight button, then WAIT. It takes FSX some time to get to the next page. When it does appear press the Settings button, in the left hand side list of options. Then press the Scenery Library button on the right side of the next screen. Scroll down the list of Scenery Areas to check whether you have STATIC OBJECTS LIBRARY present and ticked as enabled. If it isn't there then press the Add Area button and direct the installer to its folder. With that present and ticked, it's time to press the Add Area button again and direct it to the UK_FARMS_ALL_GW folder.

That's all.

THE EFFECT OF MESH

Whilst more spectacular views of the ground are provided by the recent GenerationX's mesh, I and others have noticed that it can be less attractive when on the ground.

In quite a few of the farmstrips there are transverse runway troughs and ridges that would, were they to be present in real life, prevent anything but a helicopter from using the strips.I tried various settings but eventually had to revert to disabling the various GenX meshes and activating the VFR GM versions, used when the strips were first designed for FS9. That done and the bumps were acceptable and the troughs absent. So, when flying between farm strips it might be safer to have the VFR GM mesh enabled and the GenX meshes disabled.

On my system I've now set up so that I can use either mesh set, depending on the type of flying. If about to fly over Snowdonia or the Lakes, then I prefer to use the more spectacular GenX mesh and take off from somewhere known not to be affected by its troughs. What I've done is create a desktop shortcut to the folder in which FSX has chosen to hide the Scenery.cfg file. Inside that I've created two folders; FARMS and GENERAL. In the FARMS folder I store a version of Scenery.cfg in which the active mesh is the VFR GM version. In the General folder is a version with the GenX mesh active. Before flying I open the relevant folder and copy its Scenery.cfg version into out into the FSX folder, overwriting the previously active version. In this way I can choose which mesh to use without having to follow the messy alternative of doing it via Settings and Scenery Library.

All I have to remember is that after adding any new third party scenery I have to copy that version into its own folder and modify the .cfg file in the other one.
It sounds more complicated than it is.

KNOWN ISSUES

There are three known issues.
In the case of Bagby, Sealand and Stretton there were considerably more untextured objects than in the rest of the farm strips. I didn't have alternative FSX versions available, when doing this workaround. I'll deal with both issues in a future patch.

Perhaps because of FSX's reaction to FS9 Tree textures, some trees, seen from the ground, have pointy tops. Strangely the fault doesn't apply to all tree textures.

Unfortunately FSX doesn't extract the information from the FS9 type of AFCAD, to enable it to display the names of the strips in the World GoTo menu system. I'd intended to get round this problem by including my collection of Saved Situations; one for each strip. Unfortunately FSX is again uncooperative! Saving a situation now icludes details of more of the saver's system settings. In Beta testing this resulted in the testers' Yoke and Keyboard settings being changed to those used on my own system. That would not be acceptable to users of the scenery.

The alternative is to locate each field by flying to it and saving the situation for future use. To make this easier refer to the locations of nearby features, set out in the enclosed List of Strips.

BONUS

When FSX was launched I already had a further 8 farm strips completed but not issued. I've included them in this download. They are

Alder Hall, 5 miles W of Leicester, complete with large factory. NDB frequency 887.6 (FADH)
Ashley's Field, 4.5 miles NNW of Skegness. NDB frequency 887.5 (FASF)
Branscombe, South Devon, NDB frequency 889.5 (FBCM)
Garston Farm, 1 mile NNW of Colerne NDB frequency 890.0 (FGNF)
Keyston, 10 miles WNW of Huntingdon NDB frequency 889.6 (FKSN)
Manor Farm, Collingbourne, 9 miles NW of Andover. NDB frequency 889.9 (FMNC)
Manor Farm, Compton Chamberlayne, 6 miles W of Salisbury NDB frequency 889.8 (FMNF)
Wing Farm, 3.5 miles SSW of Warminster NDB frequency 889.7 (FWNG)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For the use of the RWY12 Object Placer programme, also the many third party Library Objects used in this scenery, I am indebted to a number of very generous designers, including:
Seev Kahn and Israel Roth, Ted Andrews, Dennis Waggoner, Bill Leaming, Lars Hoyer, Len Hickman, Stephen Legg, Todd Lucas. Also to Lee Swordy, who’s excellent AFCAD programme was used for the inclusion of the optional NDBs. To Getmapping PLC, for permission to use their photographic scenery, to help locate and establish the positions of landing strips and objects. I hope you enjoy using these farm strips in the new FSX but please bear in mind that they are a conversion, necessitating a few compromises. Future farm strips will be designed with FSX compatibillity as the objective.

Gerry Winskill

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