FSX Making a landable mountain using ADE for FSX

[tgibson]

I know it’s not ideal, but you can put your aircraft where the water needs to go in FS, and then see the Red Cross in ADE to be able to place it.

 

[GaryGB]

The problem is, there are certain areas I want to place some water polys, but without being able to place the ADE project over the 'map' image, it's hard to 'guess' where I'm putting it, those certain areas need to correspond to the colors in the 'alien' overlay of the MAP image.

If the "Alien" custom PR LC was not made with SBuilderX' tile downloader feature, it can still be loaded into SBuilderX' workspace as a background via Add Map > From Disk using the Calibrate feature and Geo-referencing info from the original INF for the PR LC BGL.

I know it’s not ideal, but you can put your aircraft where the water needs to go in FS, and then see the Red Cross in ADE to be able to place it.

Tom makes a good point about linking ADE to the FSX aircraft, since ADE works so well as a "Design Editor" for airports and surrounding scenery.


The sheer size of Geographic coverage extent for this project makes it impractical to make / swap between many background images for use in ADE.

And because of sheer size of Geographic coverage extent for this project, the same is true in SBuilderX if one were to make many BMPs for BGLs.

But without a requirement to make BMPs for BGLs, the continuously scroll-able / pan-able background image from a tile-server or from disk, makes SBuilderX a good choice for placing CVX vectors and scenery library objects.


Alternatively, Google Earth Desktop Edition with FSX_KML might prove useful as well.

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/forums/fsx-kml.81/



Unfortunately, if one wished to port a copy of the work done in other scenery applications like SBuilderX or FSX_KML back into ADE, there is no known 'direct import' mechanism, so one might need to innovate a workflow which utilizes an intermediary "bogus" Airport.

After imported to ADE, Aprons could be converted to CVX Vector polygons, and Taxiway Paths or other 'Link' type objects containing lines of vertices could be converted to CVX Vector lines of various types. That would involve some sophisticated scripting or macros in a XML editor to modify source code from SBuilderX or FSX_KML for CVX Vectors, and output airport XML code that ADE would import.

GaryGB

 

[Tomt478]

The one way I do it now is to take the original 'map' file created by SbuilderX and overlay my 'alien' texture over it, then save the file with the overlay into the tools/work folder under the same filename (making a backup of the original of course) , then when I load up the SbuilderX project, the map shows up with the texture in place, I use this texture as a guide as to where I want to place things. To keep from placing objects or LC in places I don't want them IE: Roads and such, I as Tom suggested, just fly over the roads or wherever I don't want to put things, pause the sim and match the image with the SBX image and start placing my objects avoiding the area where my 'aircraft' is now sitting in the sim. I then just compile my BGL in SBX and ad it to the folder of the area I am working in. I use SBX to place the LC or WC and use Blendmasking or Watermasking ,which ever is relevant, to allow my added things to display. So far this process works pretty good.

BTW: Everything seems to be working and running smoothly now that the overheating problem was fixed. It's a good thing that NVIDIA includes a good overheat protection in all of their GPUs. If they overheat, they throttle things back to prevent damage. Oh, and they also replaced the thermal paste on my CPU as it too was running just at its threshold heat level. Just a little info for others that might read this, it is recomended that fans be cleaned on a regular basis and once every year have the thermal paste replaced on your CPU. This will prevent a lot of problems such as the ones I was having that had no explanation. It's amazing what ignoring just something you don't think about on a regular basis can do to a system. I mean who sits down at their computer and thinks, "should I open my machine and check the fans before I turn it on?" before actually turning it on?

OH, and you were right about one thing, it is posible to get CVX LC to display over PR LC, but...........it may or may not show, I found that it works about 10% of the time, one time you may start the sim and it works, but the next time you start the sim, it may or may not show. So I compromised and just starting making little 'holes' in my PR LC using blendmasking, and then placing my LC in those 'holes' leaving the surrounding PR LC to display around the LC, still looks decent and I'm perfectly fine with doing that. I even found a way to change the color of water by using a blendmask (not watermask) to allow just enough of the underlying water to show thorugh the PR using a dark/grey blendmask over the water. Things are a lot easier now that the computer is actually working as it should. Still wish I could figure out the mountain road thing though. But, I will work on that later, not really in a hurry for that.

 

[GaryGB]

Still wish I could figure out the mountain road thing though. But, I will work on that later, not really in a hurry for that.

Now that your project has been edited into a state more compatible with FSX rendering via modern FSX SDK compatible methods, I can proceed.

I was just flying over the SW section of the island area in FSX a few minutes ago to survey the lay of the land.

With the CVX Vector AB flattens out of the mix over this part of the island, we may have better results with a precise render at Altitude(s).

I shall soon look into porting a new copy of the island CVX vectors into Sketchup to run more tests at this new set of Geographic coordinates.

GaryGB

 

[Tomt478]

I cleaned things up a lot,I removed as many of the flattens as I could, there are some as I said that have to be there, mainly under the 'villages' and such where the land isn't flat to prevent buildings and objects from appearing inside mountains. There just wasn't any other way to fix that without using flattens to flatten out the area. It doesn't seem to affect anything else though that I can tell. The entire 'ranch' are is filled with hills and mountains. It would be nice if I could just use some of the natural mountains to build on, but that presents itself with other unforseen problems, so I don't even want to go there.

Now I have a question reguarding SBX, how do you remove RX(road) vectors from your project and replace them with new ones. I had to go in and straighten up some of my roads and remove all of the road vectors to begin replacing them with new ones because some of my vectors were showing up on the sides of mountains because they weren't properly aligned. So I need to completely replace all of the current vectors in my Sbuilder Project so the new ones will show up instead of the old ones. I could just go in and manualy delete all of the vectors, but because there are so many, it would take forever to do. Also, is there a way that I can keep my 'parking' spots without having physical roads connecting them to the network? I am working on just removing all of the physical roads and replacing them with Vector Roads in Sbuilder. Those roads follow the contour of the land better than the physical roads and show up fine when driving on them. I just can't get ADE to complile parking spots without them being connected in some way either with a taxi-link that is connected to a physical road. If anything, is there a way to 'hide' the physical roads so they don't get compiled as visible roads. I do need to replace my vectors though in Sbuilder, but can't figure out how the heck to remove all the old ones without having to start a whole new project which I don't want to do.

Oh and yeah, the island is much better now, although it's not much of an island now that I removed some of the water, I completely re-did that area to accomodate the new PR Scenery that was added to the area. It is much more stable now with shorelines and poly verteces now lined up. I will zip you a new set of files to work with. I've added some more PR LC areas since I sent you that file. I still can't zip all of the images together, but I can do as before and just zip each area separately. Putting them all in one zip, just gets too large because the 'map' files are quite large. I'm actually working on trying to use TIF files for my maps instead of BMPs because with TIF the files are much smaller in size and can be adjusted when saving. I've got some documentation from another site that explains how to get TIF files to work properly with the "map" files instead of those bulky BMPs. It would be nice if FSX would let you use JPG, those are really small files.

 

[Tomt478]

BTW:Now that I have all my scenery and stuff working, do you need any of the images? Or do you just need the BGL? Since all of them are working properly, I don't really see any need to have any of the actual images or the INF files. Maybe the only thing you might need are the 'map' files that are created by SBX along with the TXT file for each map.

Really, you don't need Sbuilder to load up any of the maps to work on anything unless you're planning on editing anything in the map areas, which there is no need to do so. The maps just won't show up when you load the SBX project file. They will show in the ADE project when you load it into the sim because those are contained in the BGLs. That will save a lot of time if I don't have to zip up all those images.

 

[Tomt478]

BGL Files for KWR1

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These are all of the BGL files for each area. Each one is in their own folder in their own ZIP file, this is how I have them stored on my backup drive.

KWR1 ADE Files

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These are the KWR1 Project files (Updated) with all of the 'fixes' included. I also included the CVX_PROJECT file which has my ROAD and POLY vectors in it. It's needed or none of my land polys will show up correctly.

SbuilderX Project Files

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

And these are my SbuilderX project files (Not including the 'map BMPs).

That should be enough for you to load up the project in FSX and to load up the project in SBUILDER minus the maps which you shouldn't need anyway since only I will deal with working on those myself because most of them have been modified for use in this project only and contain rather large custom land texture. Too large to zip and upload. These things are in excess of 300,000+kb each. If I recall, that's over 300MB each. You just can't compress them down small enough to upload.

 

[GaryGB]

Hi Tom:

I have downloaded the files linked above, and will take a look at them tonight.

GaryGB

 

[GaryGB]

I cleaned things up a lot,I removed as many of the flattens as I could, there are some as I said that have to be there, mainly under the 'villages' and such where the land isn't flat to prevent buildings and objects from appearing inside mountains. There just wasn't any other way to fix that without using flattens to flatten out the area. It doesn't seem to affect anything else though that I can tell.

Please set a Yellow PushPin Placemark in Google Earth for each 'village', save a KML for each, ZIP and link them, so I can test these.

The entire 'ranch' area is filled with hills and mountains. It would be nice if I could just use some of the natural mountains to build on, but that presents itself with other unforeseen problems, so I don't even want to go there.

What are the "other unforeseen problems" you refer to ?


Without flattens, the scenery appears use-able as is; but even the default 30 Meter terrain mesh is "blunted" / 'eroded' by default terrain tile LC.

FSX' default sand texture displayed on local terrain tiles does more than drape a texture; it causes a "blunted" / 'eroded' appearance on mesh.


I will have to analyze this in the default FSX files and LC Lookup files to see what the details actually are in its Terrain.Cfg definition, and find a swap.

FYI: That is the notorious texture which caused the widespread "desertification" of FSX at RTM.

Now I have a question regarding SBX, how do you remove RDX (Road) vectors from your project and replace them with new ones. I had to go in and straighten up some of my roads and remove all of the road vectors to begin replacing them with new ones because some of my vectors were showing up on the sides of mountains because they weren't properly aligned. So I need to completely replace all of the current vectors in my SBuilder Project so the new ones will show up instead of the old ones. I could just go in and manually delete all of the vectors, but because there are so many, it would take forever to do.

Also, is there a way that I can keep my 'parking' spots without having physical roads connecting them to the network? I am working on just removing all of the physical roads and replacing them with Vector Roads in SBuilder. Those roads follow the contour of the land better than the physical roads and show up fine when driving on them. I just can't get ADE to compile parking spots without them being connected in some way either with a taxi-link that is connected to a physical road. If anything, is there a way to 'hide' the physical roads so they don't get compiled as visible roads. I do need to replace my vectors though in SBuilder, but can't figure out how the heck to remove all the old ones without having to start a whole new project which I don't want to do.

Please explain your use of the term "Physical Roads"; do you mean the airport Taxiway Path / Vehicle Paths with 'Tarmac' surfaces ?


BTW: You may not need to do all that extensive hard work in the manner described; I would pause CVX Road editing labor ASAP, if not sooner.

In ADE there is a way to export a *.CSV (Comma Separated Values aka 'Comma-delimited Sequential Values', ASCII data interchange file format) containing certain airport object infrastructure data sets, to be imported / converted / exported by Sketchup and/or other applications to ESRI *.SHP ...for import to SBuilderX

I have previously tested this, but must refresh my memory on steps involved; in the mean time, I recommend leaving Taxiway Paths in the *.AD4

Oh and yeah, the island is much better now, although it's not much of an island now that I removed some of the water, I completely re-did that area to accommodate the new PR Scenery that was added to the area. It is much more stable now with shorelines and poly vertices now lined up. I will zip you a new set of files to work with. I've added some more PR LC areas since I sent you that file.

I see improvement in CVX vector geometry alignment; but it is still unstable (misalignment / object size ?), and causes FSX crashes on my system.

I still can't zip all of the images together, but I can do as before and just zip each area separately. Putting them all in one zip, just gets too large because the 'map' files are quite large. I'm actually working on trying to use TIF files for my maps instead of BMPs because with TIF the files are much smaller in size and can be adjusted when saving. I've got some documentation from another site that explains how to get TIF files to work properly with the "map" files instead of those bulky BMPs. It would be nice if FSX would let you use JPG, those are really small files.

BTW: Now that I have all my scenery and stuff working, do you need any of the images?

Or do you just need the BGL? Since all of them are working properly, I don't really see any need to have any of the actual images or the INF files. Maybe the only thing you might need are the 'map' files that are created by SBX along with the TXT file for each map.

Really, you don't need SBuilder to load up any of the maps to work on anything unless you're planning on editing anything in the map areas, which there is no need to do so. The maps just won't show up when you load the SBX project file. They will show in the ADE project when you load it into the sim because those are contained in the BGLs. That will save a lot of time if I don't have to zip up all those images.

[ Link Omitted in Quote]
These are all of the BGL files for each area. Each one is in their own folder in their own ZIP file, this is how I have them stored on my backup drive.

[ Link Omitted in Quote]
These are the KWR1 Project files (Updated) with all of the 'fixes' included. I also included the CVX_PROJECT file which has my ROAD and POLY vectors in it. It's needed or none of my land polys will show up correctly.

[ Link Omitted in Quote]
And these are my SBuilderX project files (Not including the 'map BMPs).

That should be enough for you to load up the project in FSX and to load up the project in SBuilderX minus the maps which you shouldn't need anyway since only I will deal with working on those myself because most of them have been modified for use in this project only and contain rather large custom land texture. Too large to zip and upload. These things are in excess of 300,000+kb each. If I recall, that's over 300MB each. You just can't compress them down small enough to upload.

Currently I do not need to see the INF / source files for custom PR LC; BGLs are sufficient for now, until any PR masking issues may arise.


IMHO, you do not want to use LZW compression on TIFFs or PNGs, as it doubles or even triples SDK Resample compile times.

BGL Compression is going to reduce visual quality perceptibly, and your lower resolution source images already are less sharp.

However, if pressed for space / load time to display in FSX, 97% BGL compression is imperceptible on visual quality, but reduces size more than 3%.


JPG is allowed as a source in MSFS and in Sketchup; however there are always perceptible distortions unless first converted to TIF or PNG.


We can discuss further the method to create a 7-Zip multi-part "ZIP" with each part limited to no more than 200MB (MediaFire's size limit) ...later.

GaryGB

 

[tgibson]

I assume ADE does not let you have parking spots not attached to the taxiway system because that can sometimes lead to a crash of the Sim in certain cases.

 

[Tomt478]

I'm not going to fool with the roads right now. 'Physical Roads' refer to the roads that ADE produces using the 'Vehicle' link. the only reason I wanted to use the vector roads is that they follow the curveture of the ground without carving caverns in the landscape. I sometimes get crashes on my end too, I just marked it up as a compatibility issue with win11. What missalignments and object sizes need fixing and I will see what I can do to fix them. If you're talking about the library object sizes, I did increase the scale on some of them on purpose. I did that because when I created the objects they were too small, I'm trying to fix that with the models. I used pre-made models I downloaded elsewhere and did some mods on them to make them work in FSX, they were originally for MSFS and didn't work correctly as they were, so I had to use Sketchup to kind of fix a few issues, but in doing so, they kinda lost their scale, probably something I did when I modified them. Still working on that problem. I have the same problem with a couple of others too.

 

[GaryGB]

I assume ADE does not let you have parking spots not attached to the taxiway system because that can sometimes lead to a crash of the Sim in certain cases.

Indeed, ADE is very good at alerting end users of issues with requirements of proper AFD infrastructure, and the "Fault Finder" feature is brilliant.

GaryGB

 

[GaryGB]

I'm not going to fool with the roads right now.

Good, that will give me an opportunity to refresh my memory on steps to process existing ADE Taxiway Path geometry data export and conversion.

'Physical Roads' refer to the roads that ADE produces using the 'Vehicle' link.

The only reason I wanted to use the vector roads is that they follow the curvature of the ground without carving caverns in the landscape. I sometimes get crashes on my end too, I just marked it up as a compatibility issue with win11.

Good, then I understood you correctly; (IIUC, these are sub-types of "TaxiwayPath" in FSX SDK terminology):

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/microsoft-esp/cc526978(v=msdn.10)#taxiwaypath


NOTE: FSX BGLComp SDK further lists these under the sub-tpe of a 'Vehicle Path' for airport Ground Traffic which is distinct from Freeway Traffic

(Tell me) ...What mis-alignments and object sizes need fixing and I will see what I can do to fix them.

If you're talking about the library object sizes, I did increase the scale on some of them on purpose. I did that because when I created the objects they were too small, I'm trying to fix that with the models. I used pre-made models I downloaded elsewhere and did some mods on them to make them work in FSX, they were originally for MSFS and didn't work correctly as they were, so I had to use Sketchup to kind of fix a few issues, but in doing so, they kinda lost their scale, probably something I did when I modified them. Still working on that problem. I have the same problem with a couple of others too.

The mis-alignments are at vertices / poly-line edges of CVX vector objects, which must be overlapped precisely, without reliance on "snap" distance.


ACES' Adrian Woods (Torgo3000) told FS Developer insiders, FSX SP2 / Acceleration "snap" distance required them to "Weld" vertices on 3D models.


Just as in 3D objects there is a "snap" distance in which Windows Direct-X "DirectDraw" internally 'forgives' geometry and commits to forming a (sur-)Face, CVX Vectors have a comparable (although IIUC, larger) "snap" distance in which Windows Direct-X internally 'forgives' geometry and commits to forming a joined Poly-line and/or Polygon as a valid object.

ADE shows these "gaps" graphically in its workspace if one zooms in 'adequately'; in SBuilderX these "gaps" are harder to see in spite of Zoom level.

And yet the graphics engine Jon uses for display of geometry in ADE is AFAIK, 'more forgiving' than that in the FSX run time rendering engine.

ADE is also exuberant in its willingness to put things on a new drawing layer as long as that drawing layer is within FSX' allowable layer number array.


Neither ADE or SBuilderX have a "snap" to vertex for ensuring end users ability to see a precise overlap of CVX vector vertices.

SBuilderX has a LOD-21 TMF Quad Grid vertex alignment "snap", but can not ensure precise overlap of CVX vector point / line / poly edge vertices.


Sketchup has a greater Zoom ability (Nanometer level), and a 'inference' tool-tip popup to report vertex point type, position, and overlap status.


Most of your CVX vector geometry apparently is within the CVX Vector "snap" distance and FSX SDK TMFViewer / FSX itself is willing to render them.

However, AFAIK, they may overwork the Direct-X sub-system underlying FSX' rendering engine, and work the GPU very hard (...causing crashes ?).


I am referring to the (few ?) remaining CVX vector objects that either exceed- or 'push-the-limits' of- the allowable Direct-X' "snap" distance.


When I review the Sketchup workflow to process the Taxiway Path / Vehicle Path geometry *.CSV exports from ADE, I'll ID some mis-alignments.

GaryGB

 

[Tomt478]

I'll take a look at the area, but if you can specify the mis-alignments, it will make it easier for me to fix and save some time. I will still take a look at the area though, probably some I missed.

 

[Tomt478]

The roads are not that important right now. I just want to fix them for later when I upgrade my GPU to allow me to use TRAFFIC vectors on my main roads. Right now, using live traffic really kills my FPS with this old GPU, it just can't handle it.

 

[GaryGB]

I'll take a look at the area, but if you can specify the mis-alignments, it will make it easier for me to fix and save some time. I will still take a look at the area though, probably some I missed.

Simple: Zoom way-the-hell in ...like, to the max... and you will see mis-alignments where nearly every Poly-line and Polygon is adjacent to another.

Vertices and shapes of poly-lines and polygons all should align precisely, so that there is a "surface" with no overlaps or gaps.

An exception would be when one must make road widths level on slopes to define their paired vertex Altitudes on polygon object length axes.


It is 'asking for trouble' to have vertices "in the vicinity", but not actually overlapped where adjacent objects abut / overlap one another.


Part of the reason some projects have issues with CVX vectors is the vertex counts and alignments of objects must be matched exactly.

This was why the "Holes" feature in SBuilderX often failed when end users did not understand that 'Hole' Parent/Child vertex counts must match.

The way to do that is to draw a polygon and set vertex coordinate sequences in alternating clockwise - counterclockwise "winding" directions.


But... the vertices must match as to count on each edge, and be aligned precisely with each other on the outer / inner objects defining the "Hole".

The roads are not that important right now. I just want to fix them for later when I upgrade my GPU to allow me to use TRAFFIC vectors on my main roads. Right now, using live traffic really kills my FPS with this old GPU, it just can't handle it.

Again, we need to be cautious with terminology here.

Are you referring to SDK SHP2VEC compiled CVX Vector Freeway Traffic on CVX Vector Roads ?

If so, this must not be confused with BGLComp compiled airport Taxiway Path - Vehicle Ground Traffic with Tarmac "roadway look-alike" objects.

And, "Live Traffic" refers to airport AI Traffic which IIRC, technically includes both aircraft and Vehicle Ground Traffic (fuel, baggage, security etc.)


That "Live Traffic" as airport AI Traffic, must be distinguished from SDK SHP2VEC compiled CVX Vector Freeway Traffic on CVX Vector Roads.


If you plan to eventually use airport AI Traffic, that may make it important to still retain airport Taxiway Path - Vehicle Ground Traffic.

You would need to decide at this time, whether you will- or will not- use airport AI Traffic with this ADE project code base in the future.

GaryGB

 

[Tomt478]

KWR1_ADEX_TT_ALT_OBJ_updated

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

Here is an updated ADE project, I went through and straightened up most all of the verteces and cleaned up the polys that were overlapping, things should be pretty well aligned. I went ahead and cleaned up most of the same things in other areas of the project as well. It's starting to look more organized now. There are still a few things that need to be worked on, but your eyes tend to get a bit blurry after staring at all those lines for a long time, I had to take a break. The project is so big it takes a long time to get everything looking decent. As stated earlier, there are some flattens still in the project, but these are needed to flatten out the land for areas that have been developed as towns or villages. The flattens prevent things from getting embedded into the sides of hills or even being placed on the sides of hills. I have to flatten an area in order to 'develope' the area, but these flattens don't seem to mess with anything as long as they are aligned with the LC on top of them. It's taking a long time, but this project is getting itself together nicely. Once it's done, I can start working on some missions from other places to this 'new land'. I've already got a few missions in mind that should be fun and intersting. The biggest problem is with all of the custom objects and things, if I were to distribute it to anyone, I'd have to include all of those custom things including the PR Scenery. But once I get things placed into their own directories, that won't be too much of a problem. The PR is included in the BGLs so those aren't a problem, it's all those custom objects like people and custom buildings that would need to be included. But, once I do get this thing together good, I would like to distribute it to others with the missions to let others see what can be done with a little (lot) of work and immagination. Although I've had some problems and setbacks, I'm still enjoying doing all of this stuff and I'm learning a lot in the process.

 

[Tomt478]

Again, we need to be cautious with terminology here.

Are you referring to SDK SHP2VEC compiled CVX Vector Freeway Traffic on CVX Vector Roads ?

If so, this must not be confused with BGLComp compiled airport Taxiway Path - Vehicle Ground Traffic with Tarmac "roadway look-alike" objects.

And, "Live Traffic" refers to airport AI Traffic which IIRC, technically includes both aircraft and Vehicle Ground Traffic (fuel, baggage, security etc.)


That "Live Traffic" as airport AI Traffic, must be distinguished from SDK SHP2VEC compiled CVX Vector Freeway Traffic on CVX Vector Roads.


If you plan to eventually use airport AI Traffic, that may make it important to still retain airport Taxiway Path - Vehicle Ground Traffic.

You would need to decide at this time, whether you will- or will not- use airport AI Traffic with this ADE project code base in the future.

GaryGB

Actualy I will be using custom AI airport traffic, but I have a 3rd party program for that. The 'traffic' I was referring to is AI Road Traffic created with Sbuilder using vectors. It works because I tried it once, but my GPU just bogs down too much with it, especially if the slider for freeway traffic is set too high, I really only want to use maybe a medium ammount of traffic, but even that kills my FPS right now, the GPU just won't handle it. I am going to have to keep all of the roads and taxiways as they are because the AI Airport Traffic program won't work correctly without them. So I will just bear with the 'carving' that CVX Roads casue, it really doesn't present that much of a problem except it is one of those "issues' I mentioned earlier about utilizing the natural hills as mountains, without going through and taking note of all the different terrain altitudes, it really isn't feesible to add CVX Vector Roads. It would require me to add a background poly under every road and adjust the verteces to match the alt. of every spot on every road, way too much work and trouble for something that really don't affect the use or operation of the project. I will just continue to place my roads as i always have and leave it at that. But yes, I will be using AI traffic in the future, just not right now. I plan on using a modified version of Area 51 (that I downloaded) as the main 'port' or 'base' of operations for most of the missions. Also I have added a special aircraft for use with the project. It can fly at speeds up to Mach 5. I'm doing a lot of the 'little things' on the side when I'm not working on the project itself. Is there a really good tutorial anywhere that you could link me to for learning to use Sketchup? I want to edit my aircraft, mainly the name of the aircraft and the colors, and I want to add a couple of weapons to it as well, but my understanding of how ot use Sketchup is limitted to making simple objects such as boxes and squares,etcc.

 

[GaryGB]

[Link Omitted From Quote]

Here is an updated ADE project, I went through and straightened up most all of the vertices and cleaned up the polys that were overlapping, things should be pretty well aligned. I went ahead and cleaned up most of the same things in other areas of the project as well. It's starting to look more organized now. There are still a few things that need to be worked on, but your eyes tend to get a bit blurry after staring at all those lines for a long time, I had to take a break. The project is so big it takes a long time to get everything looking decent.

I appreciate the challenges this entails, but there continue to be vast numbers of mis-alignments with CVX vectors which IMHO, should be fixed.

These can easily be seen and manually aligned in ADE just by zooming in adequately.

The gaps and poly-line / polygon mis-alignments are immediately visible to me even when objects edges / vertices are not "highlighted" / selected.

I do not intend to offend you with this question, but after pointing this out repeatedly, I must ask:

* Do you have significant visual impairments ?

* Do you have significant impairments of ADE workspace display quality on your computer monitor ?

If you work at a high resolution, you may not see what I see.

FYI: I work at 1440 x 900 in nearly all applications for ease of use and graphics performance with MSFS SDK GUI; small details and text are larger.

As stated earlier, there are some flattens still in the project, but these are needed to flatten out the land for areas that have been developed as towns or villages. The flattens prevent things from getting embedded into the sides of hills or even being placed on the sides of hills. I have to flatten an area in order to 'develop' the area, but these flattens don't seem to mess with anything as long as they are aligned with the LC on top of them.

Please link to a ZIP identifying the whereabouts- and scenery BGLs- of these villages, as requested (2 times) previously.

Please set a Yellow PushPin Placemark in Google Earth for each 'village', save a KML for each, ZIP and link them, so I can test these.

It's taking a long time, but this project is getting itself together nicely. Once it's done, I can start working on some missions from other places to this 'new land'. I've already got a few missions in mind that should be fun and interesting. The biggest problem is with all of the custom objects and things, if I were to distribute it to anyone, I'd have to include all of those custom things including the PR Scenery. But once I get things placed into their own directories, that won't be too much of a problem. The PR is included in the BGLs so those aren't a problem, it's all those custom objects like people and custom buildings that would need to be included. But, once I do get this thing together good, I would like to distribute it to others with the missions to let others see what can be done with a little (lot) of work and imagination. Although I've had some problems and setbacks, I'm still enjoying doing all of this stuff and I'm learning a lot in the process.

Yes, your project is shaping up more with each passing week, and work session.

Actually I will be using custom AI airport traffic, but I have a 3rd party program for that.

But yes, I will be using AI traffic in the future, just not right now. I plan on using a modified version of Area 51 (that I downloaded) as the main 'port' or 'base' of operations for most of the missions. Also I have added a special aircraft for use with the project. It can fly at speeds up to Mach 5. I'm doing a lot of the 'little things' on the side when I'm not working on the project itself.

OK, then you better keep backups of your projects, as that works via BGLComp compiled airport XML rather than SHP2VEC compiled CVX vectors.

The 'traffic' I was referring to is AI Road Traffic created with SBuilder using vectors.

It works because I tried it once, but my GPU just bogs down too much with it, especially if the slider for freeway traffic is set too high, I really only want to use maybe a medium amount of traffic, but even that kills my FPS right now, the GPU just won't handle it. I am going to have to keep all of the roads and taxiways as they are because the AI Airport Traffic program won't work correctly without them. So I will just bear with the 'carving' that CVX Roads cause, it really doesn't present that much of a problem except it is one of those "issues' I mentioned earlier about utilizing the natural hills as mountains, without going through and taking note of all the different terrain altitudes, it really isn't feasible to add CVX Vector Roads. It would require me to add a background poly under every road and adjust the vertices to match the alt. of every spot on every road, way too much work and trouble for something that really don't affect the use or operation of the project. I will just continue to place my roads as i always have and leave it at that.

It is best to NOT use the term "AI" with CVX vector Freeway Traffic, as it confuses readers as to whether AI Traffic is involved.

Is there a really good tutorial anywhere that you could link me to for learning to use Sketchup?

I want to edit my aircraft, mainly the name of the aircraft and the colors, and I want to add a couple of weapons to it as well, but my understanding of how to use Sketchup is limited to making simple objects such as boxes and squares,etc.

I do not recall any tutorials on using Sketchup to edit aircraft, but in theory it can be done; Google is your friend on that particular inquiry.

Using Sketchup for FS Scenery objects is a more familiar subject for me, though.

GaryGB

 

[Tomt478]

I do have some sight impairment so even zooming in on spots can be challenging. I do my best to line up the verteces as best I can a a 'human'. I have a pretty decent monitor and run it at 1920x1080 res. It's a DELL 32' curved monitor with 50hz and 60hz refresh rate. As per professional suggestions, I run it at the 50hz rate which reduces 'flicker' that can cause eye strain. I also keep the brightness and contrast settings low enough to prevent blurrying. I am aware that some of the alignments may not be 'perfect' but as I tell my better half day after day, "I'm a God made Human being, not a man-made robot. I'm not perfect and cannot perform perfect acts. I can only do the best I can do." I've cleaned up the verteces and overlaps to the "best of my ability" it's probably the cause of some of my 'minor' problems for sure. But what can a mere 'human' do?

As for the AI traffic, the instructions do recommend making a backup of ALL ADE project files before continuing because as you said it makes changes to critical files that are used for the airport data. I haven't begun to mess around with it yet.