On the first start a Welcome to RF Studio window appears with three choices:
Open the demo and the guide – opens a small demo project near Saint-Denis (Réunion) and starts the guide. The demo uses the Laminar default scenery from your X-Plane installation (read only). If your installation does not have tile -21+055, a small synthetic tile is used – do not try that one in X-Plane.
Guide only – the guide without the demo.
Not now – you find the guide any time in Help (F1) under Beginner guide.
The welcome window has its own CZ / EN switch (the language is remembered). On the first start the language follows the Windows language. The welcome window stops appearing only after you choose one of its buttons; a click beside the window or Esc only hides it until the next start.
The guide has six steps: Choose X-Plane → Open a tile → Insert a hill (DEM) → Flatten or edit terrain → Add an orthophoto → Try it in X-Plane. In the demo steps it shows paths to prepared files (a DEM with a 120 m hill, an orthophoto with a 100 m grid) with a Copy path button. The DEM, terrain and orthophoto steps have a Fill in the form button: it switches the Terrain & water mode on and puts the demo values straight into the editor form – the demo DEM and the project window into the Insert detailed DEM section, the Flatten tool, the demo orthophoto into the Orthophoto section. It works only in the open demo project; you run Preview and Write yourself. The guide can be hidden and resumed.
Settings
Open Settings with the gear on the right of the top bar. The sections come in this order: X-Plane installations, Jazyk / Language, RF Studio data, Working folder (outputs and cache), Scenery folders (read-only), Base map, OSM import from the internet (Overpass), Place search (Nominatim), Editor – draft autosave, RenderFarm folder (Tvorba) (optional, collapsed), Advanced paths, Precomputes and Performance.
The Studio only reads the folders you set here; it writes only into its data folder, its working folder and where you save a file yourself (e.g. a WED export or a problem report). The exception is the X-Plane installation: scenery_packs.ini in the X-Plane scenery view and the test and screenshots in the Test in X-Plane tab (always after your confirmation), see the FAQ.
The settings file stores only the values you changed. Default values (e.g. the DSF list = Custom Scenery of the active X-Plane installation) are worked out at every start, so they follow your installation. Unsaved edits in fields carry the unsaved label. When the settings file is damaged, the Studio uses the default values and says so at the top of Settings and in a bar across the app; before the next save it backs up the original file (studio_settings.json.poskozene).
Some changes (X-Plane installations, advanced paths) take effect only after a restart. The Restart RF Studio button next to such a change closes and reopens the window; with an unsaved project, configs being edited or running jobs it asks first (the same as when closing the window).
X-Plane installations
The Studio finds X-Plane by itself: in the x-plane_install_12.txt (and x-plane_install_11.txt) files that X-Plane writes into %LOCALAPPDATA%; it offers only folders with Resources\default scenery. The In use now line shows the installation the Studio is working with right now. When it finds none, Select the X-Plane 12 folder appears at the top with the installations section right below it.
Add the installation to the list: click it in the Detected installations: line (the + button with the folder), or type the folder that contains X-Plane.exe and Resources\default scenery into the field and click Add. The Studio checks that the folder exists and adds it to the list; when it has no Resources\default scenery, it warns that it is probably not an X-Plane 12 installation (the folder is added anyway – undo a mistake with Remove).
The first folder in the list is active (the active label) for the Library, X-Plane scenery and previews. Make active moves another installation to the first place, Remove takes it off the list.
Every change of the list is saved at once – there is no Save button here.
The change takes effect after restarting RF Studio – click Restart RF Studio. Until the restart the Studio warns that the saved first folder differs from the one in use.
Language
Czech / English – in Settings (Jazyk / Language), with the CZ / EN switch in the top bar or in the welcome window. The manual, help and app texts switch immediately. The choice is remembered by the app window (the webview profile in the data folder), not by the settings file; until you choose a language, the Windows language is used.
RF Studio data
Shows the data folder (settings, config copies, edits, logs, the default working folder) and how it was determined (installer, environment variable, portable start…). Open folder opens it in Explorer. The data folder is moved elsewhere by a new installation over the old one with a different data folder – the installer offers to move the data (see Updates). If it lies in OneDrive, the Studio warns. When the data folder was not available at start and the Studio runs with a fallback folder (see When the app does not start), or the rfstudio_data.json pointer is damaged, this section and a bar at the top of the app say so; a damaged pointer is fixed by installing over the current version.
Working folder (outputs and cache)
The only place where the Studio writes large data: your outputs (new DSF versions, editor exports, orthophotos, patches) and the cache (precomputes, check results, map tiles). Ideally a disk with tens of GB free. The section shows how many DSF versions and editor exports the folder holds; Open the outputs folder opens it in Explorer.
The Limit (50 GB by default) applies only to map tiles – when it is exceeded, the oldest are removed. Your outputs are never deleted by the limit. The line under the limit shows the total size, how much of it are map tiles and how much DSF terrain windows (the dsf_okna folder with its own limit of 5 GB – the least recently used are removed and computed again on the next opening, see Performance of the Studio itself). DSFs unpacked from 7z (dsf_7z, 4 GB) and the base map and Overpass caches have their own limits too.
Changing the folder does not move its content: the existing DSF versions, exports, orthophotos and the bin stay in the old folder and you no longer see them in History and the DSF list (setting the original path back shows them again). The Studio therefore asks for confirmation first, with the number of versions and exports in the old folder. Set the folder preferably right at the start; to free disk space see The disk is filling up.
Scenery folders (read-only)
Orthophoto – folders with orthophoto packages offered as map and editor backgrounds. One path per line.
Other DSFs (scenery packages) – where to look for DSFs for the DSF view. The default (automatic) is Custom Scenery of the active X-Plane installation; Restore default returns to it. Ortho4XP packages belong here too. If an older version stored the list empty by mistake (first start without X-Plane), the Studio replaces it with the default and tells you; save an intentionally empty list again.
OSM shapefiles per tile – folders with OpenStreetMap shapefiles split by tile (<block>\<tile>_<LAYER>.shp) for OSM import, Water from OSM and beaches in the editor (RenderFarm is not required for this). Empty = automatically Tvorba\Input-OSM (RenderFarm).
Base map
Map tiles for choosing the tile of a new project, for the OSM toggle in the editor 3D view and for the OSM base map layer in the Map. The Studio core downloads them, not the window: identifying the application, with at most two connections at a time and into a cache (osm_tiles in the working folder), nothing in bulk or in advance. A tile already in the cache is not downloaded again (kept for at least 7 days).
Default OpenStreetMap / Own provider – own provider = an https://… URL with the placeholders {z}, {x} and {y} (e.g. https://server/{z}/{x}/{y}.png?key=…); an API key may be part of the URL – a problem report contains only the server name, the placeholders and the file extension of the URL, the other parts of the path and the parameter values are replaced by ***. The Studio refuses local and private addresses; letters with diacritics in the URL are converted to a form the server understands.
Offline – cache only – nothing is downloaded; only tiles already in the cache are shown.
Base map cache limit (2 GB by default) – least recently used tiles are removed automatically; Empty the base map cache deletes all of them.
The Application identification when downloading line shows how the Studio introduces itself to the provider (RF Studio name, version and contact). The provider sees your IP address and the map areas shown. The Studio does not use a proxy server – where the internet is reachable only through a proxy, tiles are not downloaded; then turn on Offline – cache only.
OSM import from the internet
The Overpass API server the editor downloads OpenStreetMap data from for the OSM import – only after clicking Download from the internet… and confirming. The default is the public overpass-api.de; enter another server with its full URL (https://…/api/interpreter). The Studio refuses local and private addresses, credentials and parameters in the URL. Downloaded data (blocks of up to 0.05°) stay in a cache (overpass in the working folder, limit 1 GB, the oldest are removed); Clear the Overpass cache empties it.
Place search
The Nominatim server (OpenStreetMap) the editor searches place names on for Go to a place – only after Enter in the field, at most one query per second, only the typed text is sent (with the Studio identification; the server sees your IP address). Coordinates and X-Plane airports are searched offline. The default is the public nominatim.openstreetmap.org; enter another server with its URL (https://…/search), local and private addresses, credentials and parameters are refused. In the base map Offline mode the internet is not used.
Editor – draft autosave
Save a project draft (on by default) and Save interval (60 s by default, 15–3600 s): while a project has unsaved changes, the editor keeps saving the work in progress to workspace\editor\_koncepty and after a crash or closing without saving it offers to restore it when the project is opened. The change applies at once. See Project draft.
RenderFarm folder (Tvorba)
Optional, the section is collapsed. Only for users of the RenderFarm generator. Automatic uses the default folder (or the RFS_TVORBA variable), Disable turns RenderFarm off. Without this folder the Configs and Rasters views are hidden in the top bar (a RenderFarm not set chip leading to Settings is shown instead), the Map shows only DSFs from X-Plane and Custom Scenery (Map) and Operations hides the Run cockpit and Config check tabs (Test in X-Plane is then the default tab) – the rest of the Studio works the same.
Advanced paths
They are usually found automatically. Set them by hand only when they live elsewhere:
RenderFarm sources, Run checkpoints folder, Python for RenderFarm scripts – RenderFarm only.
DSFTool.exe (optional) – the Laminar Research tool that converts DSF to text. The Studio does not need it for writing. When it is set, the "also via DSFTool" option appears: the written DSF is converted to text and compared with the source (an independent check). This takes long on large DSFs.
Changes to advanced paths take effect after a restart (DSFTool immediately). The Studio looks for WorldEditor (WED) in C:\Program Files\WorldEditor (and Program Files (x86)); if you have it elsewhere, set the Windows environment variable RFS_WED_EXE to the path of WorldEditor.exe. The Studio does not start WED, it only shows in the Export for WED whether it found it.
Precomputes
Heavy jobs (map precomputes, the defect detector over a whole tile, writing large DSFs) start only on a button and wait while RenderFarm runs or while free memory is below Minimum free RAM (3 GB by default). Slope scale only affects the terrain prediction in the Map (RenderFarm).
Performance
True density limit (40,000 by default, a whole number of 10,000–300,000 trees per forest; the Studio does not save a decimal number or a value out of range and says why): with True density on in the editor all trees of forests and grass near the camera are drawn as in X-Plane, at most this many per forest – that is why dense forest and grass have a circle smaller than 300 m (see Performance of the Studio itself). More trees = dense forest and grass drawn in full in a larger circle around the camera, but slower drawing; choose less on a weaker graphics card. A change applies at once, also in an open editor (near forests are placed again), without a restart.
Scene tree limit (250,000 by default, 20,000–2,000,000 trees): how many forest and grass trees the editor draws in the whole scene outside the true-density circle (with True density off, all of them). The limit is split among forests by distance – forests further from the camera are thinned more (their trees are smaller on the screen); within 300 m of the camera there is no thinning by distance. The trees 1 : N label in the 3D view still shows the actual thinning. Before, the limit was only per forest (about 12 thousand trees), so Mauritius with a LOD of 2.5 km had over 1.5 million trees in the scene. More = denser forests in the distance, but slower drawing. Applies at once.
Object triangle budget (for weak graphics, off by default): off = like X-Plane, all objects up to the LOD distance are drawn as models. On = models only for the nearest objects while their triangles fit into the budget (100,000–50,000,000, 3,000,000 when turned on); objects further away are drawn as beyond the LOD – project and Existing scenery objects are points, composite autogen and facade objects are not drawn. The budget applies to all objects in 3D (project, Existing scenery, composite autogen and facades) and is recomputed after a camera move and after objects are inserted, deleted or loaded. Useful when the 3D view stutters in a dense city on a weak graphics card. Applies at once.
Closing the window
When you close the window with an unsaved editor project, configs being edited or running jobs, the Studio first asks whether to really close. The window has a minimum size of 1180 × 700 px; the top bar and the editor bar wrap on narrower screens.
Checklist after installation
Settings › X-Plane installations shows your installation as active.
The Library view shows the lib/… tree with objects (the first indexing may take a while).
The DSF view lists DSFs of your Custom Scenery packages on the left (or a message that there are none).
Editor › New project shows a map and, after clicking a tile, offers base DSFs (including the Laminar default scenery).
Based on the RF Studio manual (F1 › Manual, version 0.11.2-beta). Post your questions and experience in this thread.
Welcome and the guide
On the first start a Welcome to RF Studio window appears with three choices:
The welcome window has its own CZ / EN switch (the language is remembered). On the first start the language follows the Windows language. The welcome window stops appearing only after you choose one of its buttons; a click beside the window or Esc only hides it until the next start.
The guide has six steps: Choose X-Plane → Open a tile → Insert a hill (DEM) → Flatten or edit terrain → Add an orthophoto → Try it in X-Plane. In the demo steps it shows paths to prepared files (a DEM with a 120 m hill, an orthophoto with a 100 m grid) with a Copy path button. The DEM, terrain and orthophoto steps have a Fill in the form button: it switches the Terrain & water mode on and puts the demo values straight into the editor form – the demo DEM and the project window into the Insert detailed DEM section, the Flatten tool, the demo orthophoto into the Orthophoto section. It works only in the open demo project; you run Preview and Write yourself. The guide can be hidden and resumed.
Settings
Open Settings with the gear on the right of the top bar. The sections come in this order: X-Plane installations, Jazyk / Language, RF Studio data, Working folder (outputs and cache), Scenery folders (read-only), Base map, OSM import from the internet (Overpass), Place search (Nominatim), Editor – draft autosave, RenderFarm folder (Tvorba) (optional, collapsed), Advanced paths, Precomputes and Performance.
The Studio only reads the folders you set here; it writes only into its data folder, its working folder and where you save a file yourself (e.g. a WED export or a problem report). The exception is the X-Plane installation:
scenery_packs.iniin the X-Plane scenery view and the test and screenshots in the Test in X-Plane tab (always after your confirmation), see the FAQ.The settings file stores only the values you changed. Default values (e.g. the DSF list =
Custom Sceneryof the active X-Plane installation) are worked out at every start, so they follow your installation. Unsaved edits in fields carry the unsaved label. When the settings file is damaged, the Studio uses the default values and says so at the top of Settings and in a bar across the app; before the next save it backs up the original file (studio_settings.json.poskozene).Some changes (X-Plane installations, advanced paths) take effect only after a restart. The Restart RF Studio button next to such a change closes and reopens the window; with an unsaved project, configs being edited or running jobs it asks first (the same as when closing the window).
X-Plane installations
The Studio finds X-Plane by itself: in the
x-plane_install_12.txt(andx-plane_install_11.txt) files that X-Plane writes into%LOCALAPPDATA%; it offers only folders withResources\default scenery. The In use now line shows the installation the Studio is working with right now. When it finds none, Select the X-Plane 12 folder appears at the top with the installations section right below it.X-Plane.exeandResources\default sceneryinto the field and click Add. The Studio checks that the folder exists and adds it to the list; when it has noResources\default scenery, it warns that it is probably not an X-Plane 12 installation (the folder is added anyway – undo a mistake with Remove).Language
Czech / English – in Settings (Jazyk / Language), with the CZ / EN switch in the top bar or in the welcome window. The manual, help and app texts switch immediately. The choice is remembered by the app window (the
webviewprofile in the data folder), not by the settings file; until you choose a language, the Windows language is used.RF Studio data
Shows the data folder (settings, config copies, edits, logs, the default working folder) and how it was determined (installer, environment variable, portable start…). Open folder opens it in Explorer. The data folder is moved elsewhere by a new installation over the old one with a different data folder – the installer offers to move the data (see Updates). If it lies in OneDrive, the Studio warns. When the data folder was not available at start and the Studio runs with a fallback folder (see When the app does not start), or the
rfstudio_data.jsonpointer is damaged, this section and a bar at the top of the app say so; a damaged pointer is fixed by installing over the current version.Working folder (outputs and cache)
The only place where the Studio writes large data: your outputs (new DSF versions, editor exports, orthophotos, patches) and the cache (precomputes, check results, map tiles). Ideally a disk with tens of GB free. The section shows how many DSF versions and editor exports the folder holds; Open the outputs folder opens it in Explorer.
dsf_oknafolder with its own limit of 5 GB – the least recently used are removed and computed again on the next opening, see Performance of the Studio itself). DSFs unpacked from 7z (dsf_7z, 4 GB) and the base map and Overpass caches have their own limits too.Scenery folders (read-only)
Custom Sceneryof the active X-Plane installation; Restore default returns to it. Ortho4XP packages belong here too. If an older version stored the list empty by mistake (first start without X-Plane), the Studio replaces it with the default and tells you; save an intentionally empty list again.<block>\<tile>_<LAYER>.shp) for OSM import, Water from OSM and beaches in the editor (RenderFarm is not required for this). Empty = automaticallyTvorba\Input-OSM(RenderFarm).Base map
Map tiles for choosing the tile of a new project, for the OSM toggle in the editor 3D view and for the OSM base map layer in the Map. The Studio core downloads them, not the window: identifying the application, with at most two connections at a time and into a cache (
osm_tilesin the working folder), nothing in bulk or in advance. A tile already in the cache is not downloaded again (kept for at least 7 days).https://…URL with the placeholders{z},{x}and{y}(e.g.https://server/{z}/{x}/{y}.png?key=…); an API key may be part of the URL – a problem report contains only the server name, the placeholders and the file extension of the URL, the other parts of the path and the parameter values are replaced by***. The Studio refuses local and private addresses; letters with diacritics in the URL are converted to a form the server understands.OSM import from the internet
The Overpass API server the editor downloads OpenStreetMap data from for the OSM import – only after clicking Download from the internet… and confirming. The default is the public
overpass-api.de; enter another server with its full URL (https://…/api/interpreter). The Studio refuses local and private addresses, credentials and parameters in the URL. Downloaded data (blocks of up to 0.05°) stay in a cache (overpassin the working folder, limit 1 GB, the oldest are removed); Clear the Overpass cache empties it.Place search
The Nominatim server (OpenStreetMap) the editor searches place names on for Go to a place – only after Enter in the field, at most one query per second, only the typed text is sent (with the Studio identification; the server sees your IP address). Coordinates and X-Plane airports are searched offline. The default is the public
nominatim.openstreetmap.org; enter another server with its URL (https://…/search), local and private addresses, credentials and parameters are refused. In the base map Offline mode the internet is not used.Editor – draft autosave
Save a project draft (on by default) and Save interval (60 s by default, 15–3600 s): while a project has unsaved changes, the editor keeps saving the work in progress to
workspace\editor\_konceptyand after a crash or closing without saving it offers to restore it when the project is opened. The change applies at once. See Project draft.RenderFarm folder (Tvorba)
Optional, the section is collapsed. Only for users of the RenderFarm generator. Automatic uses the default folder (or the
RFS_TVORBAvariable), Disable turns RenderFarm off. Without this folder the Configs and Rasters views are hidden in the top bar (a RenderFarm not set chip leading to Settings is shown instead), the Map shows only DSFs from X-Plane and Custom Scenery (Map) and Operations hides the Run cockpit and Config check tabs (Test in X-Plane is then the default tab) – the rest of the Studio works the same.Advanced paths
They are usually found automatically. Set them by hand only when they live elsewhere:
Changes to advanced paths take effect after a restart (DSFTool immediately). The Studio looks for WorldEditor (WED) in
C:\Program Files\WorldEditor(andProgram Files (x86)); if you have it elsewhere, set the Windows environment variableRFS_WED_EXEto the path ofWorldEditor.exe. The Studio does not start WED, it only shows in the Export for WED whether it found it.Precomputes
Heavy jobs (map precomputes, the defect detector over a whole tile, writing large DSFs) start only on a button and wait while RenderFarm runs or while free memory is below Minimum free RAM (3 GB by default). Slope scale only affects the terrain prediction in the Map (RenderFarm).
Performance
True density limit (40,000 by default, a whole number of 10,000–300,000 trees per forest; the Studio does not save a decimal number or a value out of range and says why): with True density on in the editor all trees of forests and grass near the camera are drawn as in X-Plane, at most this many per forest – that is why dense forest and grass have a circle smaller than 300 m (see Performance of the Studio itself). More trees = dense forest and grass drawn in full in a larger circle around the camera, but slower drawing; choose less on a weaker graphics card. A change applies at once, also in an open editor (near forests are placed again), without a restart.
Scene tree limit (250,000 by default, 20,000–2,000,000 trees): how many forest and grass trees the editor draws in the whole scene outside the true-density circle (with True density off, all of them). The limit is split among forests by distance – forests further from the camera are thinned more (their trees are smaller on the screen); within 300 m of the camera there is no thinning by distance. The trees 1 : N label in the 3D view still shows the actual thinning. Before, the limit was only per forest (about 12 thousand trees), so Mauritius with a LOD of 2.5 km had over 1.5 million trees in the scene. More = denser forests in the distance, but slower drawing. Applies at once.
Object triangle budget (for weak graphics, off by default): off = like X-Plane, all objects up to the LOD distance are drawn as models. On = models only for the nearest objects while their triangles fit into the budget (100,000–50,000,000, 3,000,000 when turned on); objects further away are drawn as beyond the LOD – project and Existing scenery objects are points, composite autogen and facade objects are not drawn. The budget applies to all objects in 3D (project, Existing scenery, composite autogen and facades) and is recomputed after a camera move and after objects are inserted, deleted or loaded. Useful when the 3D view stutters in a dense city on a weak graphics card. Applies at once.
Closing the window
When you close the window with an unsaved editor project, configs being edited or running jobs, the Studio first asks whether to really close. The window has a minimum size of 1180 × 700 px; the top bar and the editor bar wrap on narrower screens.
Checklist after installation
lib/…tree with objects (the first indexing may take a while).Based on the RF Studio manual (F1 › Manual, version 0.11.2-beta). Post your questions and experience in this thread.