Hey John,
Simple answer is, no. Unfortunately, it's not like the scenery between FS9 and FSX that can work (mostly) with just a few changes.
That being said, I
have worked on converting/improving some CFS2 scenery for use in my Platinum Wings project. Nothing "official" just yet, just something I put together to see if it was possible.
First, I changed all the "bgl" files that were buildings to "mdl" files in MCX. I then made a library using Arno's Library Creator program (MCX cousin). I then used the CFS2 ".lay" file to get the offsets of the buildings from the original CFS2 scenery, then just jockeyed the main lat/lon used for the reference point until I got things close enough to where they were supposed to be.
The ".lay" file is the "layout" file that is used by CFS2 to place objects in the scenery. It's not like the files used in other types of scenery, and it's not the GSL file that places the exploding objects. The "layout" file is used to specifically place objects in the scenery. Nothing else. Many landmarks, for example, are placed using this method. The Venice and England landmarks scenery, for example, has one if I'm not mistaken.
In the case of the airport, it can be used to place objects using the ARP as a reference and then measuring an offset in meters.
It's not a necessary file, however, so not all scenery has it. Especially if the scenery is not using "bgl" type objects or buildings. At least that's my understanding as I've been putting things together, anyway.
The airport I worked on using this conversion method is the Cees Donker Amsterdam Schipol for CFS2 over at SOH. Again, it's not something that will be part of Platinum Wings until I know things were done properly and, of course, I can get permissions from Cees to redistribute it once complete. No permissions; no distro.
The main reason for the conversion of lat/lon from CFS2 to FS9 deals with the lat/lon system between CFS2 and FS9. They're not the same, so even if you were to get the lat/lon from one for use in the other, you would have still have to update the numbers to get the scenery to fit/work in the other.
Once you have the offsets and the reference lat/lon from the ".lay" file from CFS2 worked out (LOT's of xml and trial and error), you can do the rest by importing the file as an object placement xml file into ADE9X for AFCAD merging, and you can also use the "new" lat/lon reference for SBuilder9 in order to do the terrain around the airport so that everything fits nicely together.
Again, the Schipol screenshots in my Flickr page for Platinum Wings shows how this looks like when using this method I just described.
Another thing that has to be taken into account is the "photo"-type scenery in CFS2. Unlike most FS9 scenery (not all), CFS2 scenery has an airport background that is done with an alpha channel on a planar surface (ground polygon). This, in turn, is based on a texture with a "blending" effect so that the underlying terrain can show through where it needs to. This is done, for example, in almost all the add-on scenery for CFS2 that I've been able to find -- mainly in dealing with areas like the Pacific where there isn't too much of a change in the scenery from season to season.
If you wanted to use the background file in FS9 as a ground poly as well, you probably could. I don't see why not. I've just never tried since they were basically ground polygons with a single season and only 512 x 512 in size.
I would also have to use ADE9X to make a ground poly with the texture added, and in order to do that, I would have to add the texture to the ADE texture "cfg" file so that it could be used as a background/groundpoly for the airport.
Again, you would have to get the new lat/lon since the CFS2 information would not be good enough for use in FS9, but it would at least get you within a few hundred meters or so.
I hope I haven't made your head spin with all this!
Especially since I'm still learning some of this as things move forward with the Platinum Wings project. I'm almost done putting together a PDF with instructions on how to set up a copy of FS9 as Platinum Wings. Currently on page 42 right now, within Section 8 of the thing. And that's just the installation and set up. I haven't even started documenting and organizing the self-made SDK for creating generic airfields, adding NDB's, etc, etc.
And I thought the HFDF manual was tough!
Jorge
Miami, FL
PS: Sorry I can't help with regards to CFS3 since I've never installed it in recent years, though I did get a CD copy many years ago as a gift. Just don't know where it's tucked away at.
Especially since I'm still learning some of this as things move forward with the Platinum Wings project. I'm almost done putting together a PDF with instructions on how to set up a copy of FS9 as Platinum Wings. Currently on page 42 right now, within Section 8 of the thing. And that's just the installation and set up. I haven't even started documenting and organizing the self-made SDK for creating generic airfields, adding NDB's, etc, etc.
