VOBL Bengaluru Scenery is Flat

[fatherdane]

Hello - can you help me please? I have just installed VOBL Bengaluru scenery for P3Dv5.2 - installation was without any problem and everything seemed fine until I entered P3D and chose Parking Stand 23 and I saw the scenery was flat - no buildings at all. What can I do to make the scenery work, please?

[horst18519]

Are you sure you're at the correct (new) airport VOBL?

[fatherdane]

Hello - yes, it is the version 1.3 and from Simmarket: FSDG-LITE-BANGALORE_FSX_P3D. And the picture is accurate, I am parked at parking stand 23 and facing what should be buildings in front and the main terminal to the left. I am running three external screens (using view group) at 4K resolution and while I have not experienced any issues with other sceneries, this one is not working as it should. The installation went exactly right, there were no issues so I don't understand why this happened. So, if there is anything you can do to help, it would be greatly appreciated. By the way, this is the only VOBL scenery available for P3D that I am aware of - or is there another?

[horst18519]

Can you please post a screenshot from above so I can tell you're at the right airport?

[fatherdane]

Here is the screenshot of VOBL from above - I hope this helps to find a resolution
Many thanks
Father Dane

[horst18519]

Thanks. The scenery seems to be installed correctly since that is the airport ground from our scenery.
Did you try to download and install the scenery again?

[fatherdane]

Yes, I installed and uninstalled it three times. Nothing worked. Currently it is not installed and I have only the default P3D airport - nowhere near as good, but I need to make a flight (VOBL to VRMM) tomorrow for my YouTube video channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/FatherDane) and I can't record it using the present scenery as that would not look good at all. If it helps, the computer it is running on is running full UHD (4K) and I have all the graphics maxed out. I have no issues at all with another other scenery that I currently have installed, only VOBL. It was working a few weeks ago when I had the same computer running it at a lower (HD) resolution, but since I performed a full and clean installation using P3D 5.2 (I was using 5.0) the scenery won't display correctly. Now I have four other FSDG sceneries which are not yet installed, but I am now wondering if there will be any issues with them. So, whatever you can do to help me resolve this would be really appreciated. And I'm sure that viewers to the YouTube channel will be more suitably impressed if the scenery worked. As an aside, I do credit the scenery designers in the video I make so this is an advertising opportunity for FSDG.
With Respects
Father Dane

[fatherdane]

PS: Here is an earlier flight to VOBL where the scenery worked https://youtu.be/IBfVLJDDS9s

[horst18519]

There should be no differences depending on your graphics settings. The only thing I could imagine would be some other addon that for some reason includes an exclude call for that airport / area. Can you please make sure our scenery is listed at the top of the scenery library? I know some developers (like ORBX) like to edit other developers' xml files to sort them below their own sceneries. That can cause issues.

[fatherdane]

I have tried it at the top, and at the bottom of the few sceneries I have installed. I don't use ORBX and the only sceneries I have installed apart from VRMM (which I need for tomorrow's filming) are a number of UK2000 sceneries. When I had it installed in the older system (P3Dv5.0) I had 221 sceneries installed and it worked perfectly fine then as you will see from the video link I provided where at the ending I perform a landing at VOBL. I use P3D Add-on Organiser to organise the sceneries so I can control its location quite easily. I even tried moving the FSDG airport alt, entry up to just below the last pay-ware scenery just in case, but nothing has worked. Currently it has been removed in preparation for tomorrow's filming where I shall have to use the P3D default scenery rather than the rather nice FSDG one. If you can think of anything or have a possible fix to make it work then please let me know. Here is a screenshot of the UK2000 sceneries I have installed - the VRMM Male scenery is the only one above these and there are only the default P3D sceneries below. Each of the UK2000 sceneries work properly as does the VRMM Male scenery. Perhaps it may suggest something to you?

[horst18519]

How many bgl files are in the \FSDG-LITE-Bangalore\FSDG-LITE-Bangalore\scenery folder? Should be 12.

[fatherdane]

I just reinstalled the scenery and can see 12 BGL files in the ...\Documents\Prepar3D v5 Add-ons\FSDG-LITE-Bangalore\FSDG-LITE-Bangalore\scenery folder

[fatherdane]

I just made an interesting discovery: the Bengaluru VOBL scenery now works. Let me explain what I did in case it makes sense to you. I had been using P3Dv5.0 at HD 1080 resolution without any issue. When my computer developed problems, I replaced it and after performing a full clean installation using P3Dv5.2 and at UHD 4K resolution that I discovered the flat scenery of VOBL. Now, I had been entering P3D and starting at EGNX as my default airport, and then choosing to change the scenery through the P3D menu once it had started. In each and every time, the VOBL scenery was flat as the photograph shows. After you asked me to verify the number of BGL files, I reinstalled the scenery, and reported accordingly. But this time instead of uninstalling it, I decided to use it and start my video recording parked at stand 67 which points away from the terminal buildings and would avoid having to look at the flat scenery because nothing else was affected. This way I could still use all the other features: the airport vehicles were perfectly fine for example, as were the runways and the surrounding terrain. So, I entered P3D and used the menu to select VOBL and after parking stand 67 I SAVED the scenario to make it my default (this was the change). Then yesterday when I entered P3D and simply went straight into VOBL as it was saved as the default, but this time I noticed that all the buildings were now showing as NORMAL.

So, using the menu to select the VOBL airport from another default scenario resulted in flat scenery for me, but entering a default scenario where VOBL had previously been saved, the scenery was normal. How this happens I have no idea but perhaps it may make more sense to you as the designer. Perhaps this is a bug in P3D 5.2? I don't know, but I am very happy that I was able to make a video showing VOBL in all it's grand detail. The video has been posted to YouTube this afternoon and you can see it at https://youtu.be/y5hkEaI4F_c I also give full credit to FSDG for the creation of the scenery and have promoted it to those who view it. So, my problem has been solved.

As an aside, I have a hardware cockpit and I use two computers to run it. Each uses P3D and I have to duplicate all the sceneries in order that it works correctly. The computer that acts as the server, and runs the cockpit hardware did not have any problems with the scenery. That computer runs at a far lower resolution than the client computer, which is dedicated to the external views and had 4K resolution. It was only on the client (4K) computer that the issue manifested itself.

I hope this explanation helps you with your diagnosis so you can assist anyone else faced with a similar situation. If you are working on a VOBL upgrade, I would be very interested to know about it. And if I can assist you in any way, please let me know.

Best wishes
Father Dane

[horst18519]

Thanks. I'm glad it works now.
I have not come across that problem yet, no other user of this or any of our other sceneries reported similar issues yet. We'll keep this in the back of our heads, though. Interesting find.