SimHeaven X-World Pro

XEarthLayer steps aside for X-World Pro on the continents it covers, and checks your scenery order on every start.

SimHeaven X-World Pro is a commercial set of overlay packages for X-Plane 12: bridges, buildings, forests, roads and more, sold per continent or as a world bundle. XEarthLayer also ships overlays, so on a continent where both are active they draw over each other. This page describes how XEarthLayer steps aside for X-World Pro.

What XEarthLayer does with X-World Pro

• It detects X-World Pro by reading scenery_packs.ini in your Custom Scenery folder. Folders you copied there and folders you symlinked there are treated the same.
• It works out which continents have at least one enabled, existing X-World Pro layer.
• It leaves its own overlays out of the consolidated yzXEL_overlay/ folder for those continents. When the whole planet is active, it leaves out every overlay.
• It checks the order of scenery_packs.ini and the state of your X-World Pro installation on every start, and tells you what it finds.

XEarthLayer never edits scenery_packs.ini, X-World Pro’s files, or anything inside X-Plane. It only advises. Overlay packages stay installed, so turning the feature off restores them with no download.

Turning it on

Nothing changes until packages.xworld_pro is true. It defaults to false.

xearthlayer setup has a step, “Third-party Scenery” (Step 6), that looks for X-World Pro and asks “Give X-World Pro priority over XEarthLayer overlays?”.

• Answer yes and it saves true and prints three messages: how to install X-World Pro for use with ortho scenery, a note on video memory and frame rate, and what XEarthLayer does on each start.
• Answer no and it saves false with a short note that XEarthLayer overlays may then draw over X-World Pro, followed by the same video memory note, which applies either way.
• If no X-World Pro is found, it says so and saves false.

Or set it directly:

xearthlayer config set packages.xworld_pro true

With the setting off and X-World Pro installed, xearthlayer run prints a one-line hint suggesting one of the two ways above, and otherwise behaves as before.

xearthlayer packages install, update and remove follow the same rule. When they rebuild the consolidated overlay folder they leave out the continents X-World Pro covers, and say which regions were left out, so a package command no longer puts them back until the next run.

packages.disable_overlays = true still turns every XEarthLayer overlay off, whatever xworld_pro says. The two settings combine: disable_overlays is all continents, xworld_pro is only the ones X-World Pro covers. Use xworld_pro when you want XEarthLayer overlays to remain on continents that X-World Pro does not cover.

For the rest of the settings, see the configuration reference. Package commands are covered in package management.

Region codes and continents

A package’s region code has the form <CONTINENT>-<REGION>-<SUBREGIONS>. The first segment, ignoring case, decides which X-World Pro continent covers it:

Packages with no continent keep their overlays, unless the whole planet is active, which turns off every overlay. Folders named Antarctica count as Australia-Oceania, as in the X-World Pro manual. A continent is active when at least one of its layers is enabled in scenery_packs.ini and its folder exists (or its symlink resolves).

The checks on every start

With packages.xworld_pro = true, xearthlayer run runs three preflight checks after it has found your Custom Scenery folder.

xworld-pro-detect

This check records what it found, for example which continents are active and where XEarthLayer overlays are off, in the log at INFO level. The dashboard’s Status pane shows the active continents too.

It prints a warning only when something needs your attention: the setting is on but nothing is found, no continent is enabled, or scenery_packs.ini cannot be read. In each of those cases it changes nothing.

xworld-pro-order

This check requires that every enabled XEarthLayer entry (zzXEL_ortho, and yzXEL_overlay when present) comes after every enabled X-World Pro layer in scenery_packs.ini. The library’s position is not checked.

If the order is wrong, it shows the file, the topmost enabled XEarthLayer entry and the lowest enabled X-World Pro layer with their line numbers, and how to fix it, then waits for a key:

• s (or Escape): XEarthLayer exits. Move XEarthLayer’s entries below every X-World Pro line as the “Scenery_packs.ini” section of the X-World Pro manual describes, then start again.
• c: XEarthLayer starts, and the problem stays in the log and as a startup warning on the dashboard. The answer is remembered: XEarthLayer does not ask again until scenery_packs.ini changes, and any change to it, by you or by X-Plane adding new scenery, asks again.

It asks only when it can be both seen and answered, which means both standard input and standard error are a terminal. Otherwise (a script, a service, output redirected to a file) it continues with the warning and remembers nothing.

xworld-pro-setup

This check only warns. It reports:

• a library.txt that differs from library - ortho.txt, so the library is not the ortho version;
• a _O4XP-Mesh / _XP12-Mesh pair, on an active continent, where the _O4XP-Mesh entry is not enabled or the _XP12-Mesh entry is not disabled. This works for every layer and continent by the naming convention, not only Europe’s bridges;
• missing install links: the library’s mod/<season>/*.for files expected under Resources/default scenery/1200 forests/<season>/, and mod/Boats_1.dds expected under Resources/default scenery/sim objects/ships/;
• broken entries: an enabled line whose folder is missing or whose symlink dangles.

Installing X-World Pro for ortho scenery

Follow the X-World Pro manual. The points that matter alongside XEarthLayer:

1. In scenery_packs.ini, the manual’s order: airports, regional scenery, global airports, X-World Pro packages, libraries, photo overlays, orthos last. XEarthLayer’s entries (yzXEL_overlay, zzXEL_ortho) must come after every X-World Pro layer.
2. Use the ortho library: replace library.txt in the X-World Pro library folder with the contents of library - ortho.txt. It removes the farmland, meadow and grass polygons that would otherwise cover the imagery.
3. For any layer that ships two mesh versions, enable the _O4XP-Mesh one and disable its _XP12-Mesh twin. XEarthLayer packages use Ortho4XP meshes. In X-World Pro 1.1 only Europe’s bridges have the pair.
4. After an X-Plane update, run the library’s install script (install_XWP_Linux_Mac.sh) again in the X-World Pro library folder inside Custom Scenery. It links forest and boat files into X-Plane’s Resources, and updates can remove those links.

Performance