• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Clarity around "Getting Started"

S

Southport Guy

Messages
14
Country
canada
As I start to learn about opening airports I have a question or two:

When I open a stock airport, and then want to start to play with it for the purposes of editing/saving and then loading it for my own use, is that what you mean when you say "Make sure you save it to a new folder somewhere else" ?

Will opening a stock airport be the best starting point for editing/upgrading an existing airport?
 
If you were to live up to your user name and work on Portage la Prairie Southport Airport (CYPG); then the best option is to open the stock CYPG airport in ADE, which would enable ADE (and yourself) a chance to remove the default airport components and replace them with your own.
 
Hi and welcome

When I open a stock airport, and then want to start to play with it for the purposes of editing/saving and then loading it for my own use, is that what you mean when you say "Make sure you save it to a new folder somewhere else" ?
Click to expand...

I am not quite sure I understand that. This is what you would do:
  • Open a stock airport: File > Open Stock Airport
  • Save the project file: File > Save Airport
That should allow you to create an ADE project file. This can't be understood by FS and you can save it somewhere convenient to you. A lot of folks keep their project files in a specific folder. That folder should not be in the FS folder structure. Although if it was it would not affect FS. What you should not do it to compile (File > Compile) the airport so that is over writes the stock airport file. This is pretty hard to do. Or have I missed the point completely?


Will opening a stock airport be the best starting point for editing/upgrading an existing airport?
Click to expand...

Yes - that is THE way to do it.
 
scruffyduck said:
Hi and welcome



I am not quite sure I understand that. This is what you would do:
  • Open a stock airport: File > Open Stock Airport
  • Save the project file: File > Save Airport
That should allow you to create an ADE project file. This can't be understood by FS and you can save it somewhere convenient to you. A lot of folks keep their project files in a specific folder. That folder should not be in the FS folder structure. Although if it was it would not affect FS. What you should not do it to compile (File > Compile) the airport so that is over writes the stock airport file. This is pretty hard to do. Or have I missed the point completely?




Yes - that is THE way to do it.
Click to expand...
OK. I'm an autocad and sketchup user. Very proficient at both. I have lots of existing geometry of my airport, such as runways taxiways roads etc. Can I import that into ADE?
 
Short and long answer is no. ADE understands how to read the airport geometry from stock bgl files. It also has its own 'cad' engine to enable it to draw that geometry. There are currently no converters or importers that would take a third party cad file into ADE. As for 3D models ADE can import and use mdl files but not sketchup files directly
 
scruffyduck said:
Short and long answer is no. ADE understands how to read the airport geometry from stock bgl files. It also has its own 'cad' engine to enable it to draw that geometry. There are currently no converters or importers that would take a third party cad file into ADE. As for 3D models ADE can import and use mdl files but not sketchup files directly
Click to expand...
I can import cad into sketchup and then import sketcup into ADE as a way of tracing the accurate airport geometry. Sound doable?
 
Does the airport you're working on not have a suitable Google Satellite or Bing Maps Aerial view?
 
No that would not work since ADE wont display the content of the sketchup model. However ADE supports the use of background images to allow users to accurately place things. This can be an airport diagram or a photo image. you could of course convert your cad to an image and use that. However the best way for an existing airport is probably either a published airport diagram of a satellite image.

Cross posted
 
scruffyduck said:
No that would not work since ADE wont display the content of the sketchup model. However ADE supports the use of background images to allow users to accurately place things. This can be an airport diagram or a photo image. you could of course convert your cad to an image and use that. However the best way for an existing airport is probably either a published airport diagram of a satellite image.

Cross posted
Click to expand...
I have high res aerial images but they are insane. 7 mosaic tiles at about 500MB each. Gotta come up with a way to import them cuz they're probably too big for ADE.
 
ADE will probably not accept images that size and they are probably far too detailed for the accuracy that can be achieved in FS anyway ;)
 
You can always scale the images down and convert them to a simpler format like jpg. They won't end up larger than any other airport's images.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top