Scenery Package Organization


 * 1-10-06  Initial Draft
 * 2-6-10   Revised for Wiki

Overview of the Scenery Package Components
X-Plane scenery is organized into packages. A scenery package is a folder that contains files in a specific layout.

Scenery packages are made up of four kinds of files:
 * Scenery Tile Files (DSF)
 * Artwork Files (OBJ, PNG, etc.)
 * An Airport Data File (apt.dat)
 * A Library Manifest (library.txt)

A scenery package may contain any of these types of files, but none of these types are required per se.

Generally a folder from the layouts shown may be omitted if it is empty.

A custom scenery package can have any name you choose.

Tile Files
The X-Plane world is divided into tiles. Each tile is bounded on each side by a latitude and longitude line. Tiles are named by their southwest corner. Tiles in the northern hemisphere that are east of the prime meridian have two positive numbers, and tiles in the southern hemisphere and west of the prime meridian have two negative numbers, and so on. For example:
 * +46+011.dsf - 11 east to 12 east, 46 north to 47 north.
 * +42-072.dsf - 73 west to 72 west, 42 north to 43 north.
 * -10+000.dsf - the prime meridian to 1 east, 10 south to 9 south

Tile files come in two formats:
 * DSF (Distribution Scenery Format) files are supported by X-Plane 8 and 9; they are the preferred format for scenery.
 * ENV (ENVironment) files are supported by X-Plane 7 and X-Plane 8; they are supported in X-Plane 8 and 9 only for backward compatibility and should not be used in new scenery creation.

Tile files are organized into folders that are organized by 10-degree latitude and longitude lines. Each folder has at most 100 tile files, but does not need to contain all 100 files. The scenery package does not have to have every tile folder. Some examples:


 * +46+011.dsf goes in the +40+010 folder.
 * +42-072.dsf goes in the +40-080 folder.
 * -10+000.dsf goes in the -10+000 folder.

Scenery can be for the planet Earth or Mars; tile files for Earth go in the Earth nav data folder; tiles files for Mars go in the Mars nav data folder. The full package might look like this:
 * My Great Scenery
 * Earth nav data
 * +40-080
 * +42-072.dsf
 * +42-071.dsf
 * +40+010
 * +46+011.dsf