It might be a help to print out this page as it is very important that ADD-ON FS sceneries are correctly installed for FSImp to work properly.
ADD-ON FS sceneries are a group of files which describe models and a set of bitmap image files to be applied to the models.
Such sceneries can add/or replace small or large areas.
The files are usually placed together in a zip archive.
There are a few basic types of ADD-ON FS sceneries.
There are many sources of ADD-ON FS sceneries.
Sceneries can be merged on top of each other and many can be combined together by FSImp to cover 1x1 degree tiles.
FSImp can interpret ADD-ON FS sceneries for a wide range of FS versions. This plugin can
mix and match ADD-ON FS sceneries for different FS versions even if you only have one version of FS or no version of FS at all.
Most commercial, and some freeware ADD-ONs come with an installer. Run the installer and follow the instructions.
The installer usually asks for your main FS folder, places scenery files in a new folder and also updates the scenery.cfg file automatically.
Some installers insist on finding a version of FS by using the windows registry or have no manual override for the
destination folder. The installation may fail if you do not have the required FS version.
Sometimes the scenery will be properly installed but the installer may fail to add an
area description to the scenery.cfg file. In this case, simply add a description manually
or use the FSImp sceneries dialog to perform this operation (see below).
There is a toolkit available at www.visualflight.co.uk/fs2004toolkit
It contains two small applications, FS2002_IS_HERE and FS2004_IS_HERE.
These allow you to set up the window registry entries that installers use when locating the main FS folder.
If you visit this web page, please read the instructions carefully before dowloading
and using the toolkit, especially if you already have some versions of FS.
If a new ADD-ON FS scenery has no installer then follow the instructions in the readme file that accompanies the ADD-ON.
If you have FS then you may know how to do this. If you do not have FS then it can be a little bit tricky.
There are two steps:
1. Unzip the new ADD-ON FS scenery into the correct place
Your FS main SCENERY folder looks something like
C:\Program Files\X-System 670\Resources\FSImp\nofs\scenery
or
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenery
Each ADD-ON should be in a NEW SUBFOLDER of this FS main SCENERY folder.
Use the path information in the ADD-ON ZIP files. Basically, ADD-ONs have some README files and a pair of folders SCENERY and TEXTURE.
All these should be unzipped into a NEW SUBFOLDER of the FS main SCENERY folder.
In some cases an ADD-ON may contain no folder information at all. In these cases, you will have to create the SCENERY and TEXTURE subfolders of the new subfolder yourself. Then copy all BGL files go into the SCENERY subfolder and all other files go into the TEXTURE subfolder.
For example an ADD-ON for Springfield2k2 might produce the following folders
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenery\Springfield2k2
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenery\Springfield2k2\scenery
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenery\Springfield2k2\texture
BGL files may look like
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenery\Springfield2k2\scenery\Moes.bgl
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenery\Springfield2k2\scenery\Skool.bgl
BMP PAT 0AV ?AF files may look like
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenery\Springfield2k2\texture\Bart.BMP
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenery\Springfield2k2\texture\Skool.BMP
2. Add an area description for each new ADD-ON FS scenery to the file to scenery.cfg
You can use the sceneries dialog to perform this operation.
Alternatively you can add area descriptions by manually editing the scenery.cfg file as follows ...
Example contents after a few ADD-ONs ...
[Area.067] Title=sample eidw Local=scenery\cty_eidw Active=TRUE Layer=67 [Area.068] Title=sample kslc Local=scenery\cty_kslc Active=TRUE Layer=68 [Area.069] Title=description of Springfield2k2 Local=SCENERY\Springfield2k2 Active=TRUE Layer=69 [Area.070] Title=description of Yosemite with a full path Local=c:\somewhere\else\Yosemite Active=TRUE Layer=70 [Area.071] FSImp=TRUE Title=description of southfork, hidden from FS Local=SCENERY\southfork Active=FALSE Layer=71 [Area.072] FSImp=FALSE Title=description of bedrock, hidden from FSImp Local=SCENERY\bedrock Active=TRUE Layer=72
Note that the scenery.cfg syntax is faily strict. Each area MUST start with [Area.xxx] and MUST then have ALL three lines Local= Active= Layer= in any order. Exclude= if present, may now appear. Other lines are ignored. Spaces/TABs are allowed at the start of each line. All Local= lines are realive to the FS main path path. You may also specify the full path on Local= lines.
Within areas, FSImp interprets the lines FSImp=TRUE or FSImp=FALSE
to override the Active= line for the area. If used, then it must appear before the
Active= line for the area. This might be useful when you want to
have sceneries available to FSImp but not for FS and vice versa.
For example, to hide ADD-ONs sceneries from FS, which allows you to add newer format FS2004 or FS2002
sceneries to an FS2000 scenery.cfg, then use
[Area.069] Title=description of Springfield2k2 Local=SCENERY\Springfield2k2 FSImp=TRUE Active=FALSE Layer=69
[Area.069] Title=description of Springfield2k2 Local=SCENERY\Springfield2k2 FSImp=FALSE Active=TRUE Layer=69
Some ADD-ONs rely on shared FS textures from third parties (VOD NOVA AFD etc).
These are available for download from many internet sites (See links). The files should be unzipped
into the FS main TEXTURE folder, for example
C:\Program Files\X-System 670\Resources\FSImp\nofs\texture
or
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\texture
FSImp plugin for X-Plane