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Airfield in a Hill
- Thread starter solid
- Start date
Make a sloped polygon and TAG it with Airfielld 1 or Airfield 2. Sloped polygons can have a little "bumpiness" in them, they don't have to a plane, like a default airport.
I'd suggest getting elevation data from top to bottom and calculate the numbers out as to where you need to add vertices and at what height.
I'd suggest getting elevation data from top to bottom and calculate the numbers out as to where you need to add vertices and at what height.
Meshman could you elaborate? I'm trying myself to make a sloped runway, actualy a bi-sloped runway - 259m/272m/266m hights from one end to the other. http://www.panoramio.com/photos/original/1546267.jpg
I think we are talking SBuilderX in this thread. There are 2 entries, LC_Airfield1 and LC_Airfield2 but to my knowledge those are only 2 grass landclass texture (one darker than the other). I haven't found anything special about them in terms of flattening or hardening. Are those the Airfield tags you are reffering to?
I'm not aware there is any option for a hard poly or a hard flatten poly within SBuilderX. It would be a nice option tough, I would put in a whish list
Would there be some sort of coding one could tamper the xml file with to make hard any chosen poly, slopped, flattened or not?
HugoA
I think we are talking SBuilderX in this thread. There are 2 entries, LC_Airfield1 and LC_Airfield2 but to my knowledge those are only 2 grass landclass texture (one darker than the other). I haven't found anything special about them in terms of flattening or hardening. Are those the Airfield tags you are reffering to?
I'm not aware there is any option for a hard poly or a hard flatten poly within SBuilderX. It would be a nice option tough, I would put in a whish list
Would there be some sort of coding one could tamper the xml file with to make hard any chosen poly, slopped, flattened or not?
HugoA
I'm not aware there is any option for a hard poly or a hard flatten poly within SBuilderX. It would be a nice option tough, I would put in a whish list
Simple response is any polygon is a hard surface, if it's placed upon terrain within the sim. And conversely, any texture can be applied, but the LC_Airfields are the ones to consider. But you could utilize dirt, sand, ice. While they may or may not apply a realistic response, they're still useable.
The concept of sloping polygons doesn't need to be one dimesionable, as in top to bottom. They can slope from side to side. They can bow in the middle, as in the dimensions you've stated. But I wouldn't necessarily approach it as a simplistic 6 point poly and not suggesting that is what you're doing. Good planning will effect the proper results and not being afraid to use many points.
After looking at the linked picture, bear in mind a SDK constructed airport must be flat or level. Any consideration for using sloped polygons in SBX has to be used beyond the boundaries of the SDK based airport structure.
And I missed Solid's question, TAGging a poly in SBX is just right-clicking and applying a parameter to the poly, or line, whichever is being made.
HolgerSandmann
Resource contributor
- Messages
- 392
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Hi there,
if you need/want to actively shape the terrain rather than just use the existing mesh and place a terrain-hugging land class poly on it then you need to place flatten polys, like AB_Flatten or any of the variants that exclude autogen etc. With these polys you can give each point its own elevation (right-click on a point and select Properties). To check whether a specific poly type allows for flattening click on the "Info" button in SBuilderX's poly properties window and look whether the line "FlattenMode=slope" exists.
As mentioned above it's better to use several simple shapes (rectangles or triangles) rather than multi-point polys.
Also, any poly that influences the terrain mesh is in turn influenced by the mesh resolution slider. Thus, you need to consider up front which mesh res to use for your project and also mention that in your documentation.
Cheers, Holger
if you need/want to actively shape the terrain rather than just use the existing mesh and place a terrain-hugging land class poly on it then you need to place flatten polys, like AB_Flatten or any of the variants that exclude autogen etc. With these polys you can give each point its own elevation (right-click on a point and select Properties). To check whether a specific poly type allows for flattening click on the "Info" button in SBuilderX's poly properties window and look whether the line "FlattenMode=slope" exists.
As mentioned above it's better to use several simple shapes (rectangles or triangles) rather than multi-point polys.
Also, any poly that influences the terrain mesh is in turn influenced by the mesh resolution slider. Thus, you need to consider up front which mesh res to use for your project and also mention that in your documentation.
Cheers, Holger
Thanks guys for the replies.
Meshman you are right any poly is a hard surface (except for hydros I guess).
I didn't express myself correctly. What I had in mind was having polys that behave as concrete or asphalt surfaces. That is, a surface on which an a/c can roll smouthly without spewing shouts of dust an gravel around the wheels.
In object design one can assign attributes to top surfaces. Hence, if one wants to make an elevated hard landing platform for helos, he would attach to the top surface a second surface to which he would assign some codings like this: " platform_CONCRETE_0 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <FSMakeMdlData version="9.0"> <Platform name="platform_CONCRETE_0" surfaceType="CONCRETE" > </Platform> </FSMakeMdlData>"
If the platform is made long enough then one ends up with a 'smouth dust free runway'
"Any consideration for using sloped polygons in SBX has to be used beyond the boundaries of the SDK based airport structure."
I'm aware of this and the fact that no AI traffic could be programmed for this airport. Something I can live with.
Holger. After cleaning up the area using SBX and ADE I brought it down to the mesh level, the one produced by G. Gauthier for Quebec, a 38 m which is real close to reality of the area. Using many SBX AB_Flatten polys, adjusting heights of individual points, I shaped the runway's lenght and the terminal area to be representative of the actual terrain.
With SBX's hability to get satellite images I got a Google's aerial photo of the area that I trimmed to fit the immediate surroundings of the airport.
You can have an idea of it here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/Hugo13656/St-GeoAerialPhoto.jpg - Some serious image editing and seasonal pampering still to work out here!
and here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/Hugo13656/St-GeoApproach.jpg
and here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/Hugo13656/St-GeoApproach2.jpg
If I could manage a way to give concerned flatten (or any) polys concrete attributes, it would be of great help for my project.
So let me reformulate my question:
Would there be some sort of coding one could tamper the xml/asm/.x files with to give concrete/asphalt attributes to any chosen poly, slopped, flattened or not?
I'm aware that much of this flattening/texturing job could be made using GMax but this approach is way out of reach for me at the present time.
An other approach I'm tempering with presently is to, as mentionned above, using FSDS 3.1, make a multi-sections (~60 of them) 5000'L/80'W/.5'D box and lay it out to follow the rway's curvature and then harden it as stated. It does work but it has some unpleasant "collateral" effects I'd prefer to avoid. Beside it's not that easy to adjust properly to the varying ground level though not unfeasable.
That's where things stands for the moment. All constructive comments are appreciated.
HugoA
Meshman you are right any poly is a hard surface (except for hydros I guess
).I didn't express myself correctly. What I had in mind was having polys that behave as concrete or asphalt surfaces. That is, a surface on which an a/c can roll smouthly without spewing shouts of dust an gravel around the wheels.
In object design one can assign attributes to top surfaces. Hence, if one wants to make an elevated hard landing platform for helos, he would attach to the top surface a second surface to which he would assign some codings like this: " platform_CONCRETE_0 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <FSMakeMdlData version="9.0"> <Platform name="platform_CONCRETE_0" surfaceType="CONCRETE" > </Platform> </FSMakeMdlData>"
If the platform is made long enough then one ends up with a 'smouth dust free runway'
"Any consideration for using sloped polygons in SBX has to be used beyond the boundaries of the SDK based airport structure."
I'm aware of this and the fact that no AI traffic could be programmed for this airport. Something I can live with.
Holger. After cleaning up the area using SBX and ADE I brought it down to the mesh level, the one produced by G. Gauthier for Quebec, a 38 m which is real close to reality of the area. Using many SBX AB_Flatten polys, adjusting heights of individual points, I shaped the runway's lenght and the terminal area to be representative of the actual terrain.
With SBX's hability to get satellite images I got a Google's aerial photo of the area that I trimmed to fit the immediate surroundings of the airport.
You can have an idea of it here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/Hugo13656/St-GeoAerialPhoto.jpg - Some serious image editing and seasonal pampering still to work out here!
and here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/Hugo13656/St-GeoApproach.jpg
and here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/Hugo13656/St-GeoApproach2.jpg
If I could manage a way to give concerned flatten (or any) polys concrete attributes, it would be of great help for my project.
So let me reformulate my question:
Would there be some sort of coding one could tamper the xml/asm/.x files with to give concrete/asphalt attributes to any chosen poly, slopped, flattened or not?
I'm aware that much of this flattening/texturing job could be made using GMax but this approach is way out of reach for me at the present time.
An other approach I'm tempering with presently is to, as mentionned above, using FSDS 3.1, make a multi-sections (~60 of them) 5000'L/80'W/.5'D box and lay it out to follow the rway's curvature and then harden it as stated. It does work but it has some unpleasant "collateral" effects I'd prefer to avoid. Beside it's not that easy to adjust properly to the varying ground level though not unfeasable.
That's where things stands for the moment. All constructive comments are appreciated.
HugoA