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I made the Grand Canyon in my back yard....help

H

hotrod46

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16
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us-ohio
Here's the deal.

I'm a long-time flight simmer who has downloaded and installed addons for years. I've mastered that process. Now, for the first time, I've set out to create my own scenery....in particular, a neighbor's landing strip and some of the surrounding scenery.

So I downloaded/installed ADE...clicked new airport...punched in the coordinates (from Google Earth) and altitude (which I got from FSX by crashing my Cessna nose first into the ground where the landing strip would be...I know there has to be a better way). Then I made a polygon around the runway and parking area and selected Airport Background and Flatten Mask Class Map Exclude Autogen (following the tutorial...which isn't much help...I have no idea what all those other options mean). So that all worked out...the autogen was cleared...the runway was on the ground..etc.

But the problem I'm having now is with the scenery.

I want to create the woods, ditches, and fields within a couple mile square of the airport. How in the world do I do this properly?

I'll tell you what I've done.

I simply drew more polygons and filled them in with landclass (grass) and water (for the ditch)...and then expected them to cut out the autogen and go over the FSX land. Which worked (kinda...I only got water to show up when I selected Default Non-Perrenial)....but the grass and the ditch are at sea level...instead of 718 ft. above sea level. Therefore, I have a Grand Canyon where I put this stuff. How do I get rid of this? Or maybe, what is the best way to create the surrounding scenery using ADE. Thanks!
 
I think maybe I figured it out through trial and error. Tell me if I got this right.

In order to create the scenery around the airport, I need to first create an airport background...selecting Flatten Exclude Autogen. Then, using that background as a canvas, draw my polygons on top of it...inserting whatever particular landclass I desire.
 
hotrod46 said:
I think maybe I figured it out through trial and error. Tell me if I got this right.

In order to create the scenery around the airport, I need to first create an airport background...selecting Flatten Exclude Autogen. Then, using that background as a canvas, draw my polygons on top of it...inserting whatever particular landclass I desire.
Click to expand...

That is a pretty good method. This creates a flat area for the airport. Having said that landclass polygons do not have any altitude information themselves and should follow the terrain.

What does need altitude is the water so if you created a water polygon without some underlying altitude data then it will revert to sea level. In the current version of ADE it is not possible to set altitude directly on the water poly (this will be possible in the next release) so you do need to place the water polygon on an airport background.


Hope that helps
 
Hey, thanks for the reply.

I have a couple fields drawn up and they look fine...and one woods. Now I'm trying to populate the woods with a nice amount of trees. But all the trees I've added from the object library have their leaves...none of those trees change with the seasons?

What is the fastest way to fill in a wooded area with trees? This is an important part of the scenery because the landing strip is located within a cluster of woods...which makes landing exciting.
 
Which library do the trees come from?

To create wooded areas you need a tools that will fill areas. I think Whisplacer has this facility and Library Object Manager certainly does. Be aware though that if you add a lot of objects frame rates will suffer.
 
scruffyduck said:
Which library do the trees come from?

To create wooded areas you need a tools that will fill areas. I think Whisplacer has this facility and Library Object Manager certainly does. Be aware though that if you add a lot of objects frame rates will suffer.
Click to expand...

I just noticed that there are two vegetation libraries...

vegetation and vegetationfsxrtm.

I was just looking in all libraries under vegetation...not sure which ones came from which libraries. I did put in a tree with the suffix "wi"...for winter I suppose. This gave me a winter tree but it didn't change to a summer tree when I switched seasons.

Anyway, I'm downloading Whisplacer. Can that program modify ADE projects?
 
Anyway, I'm downloading Whisplacer. Can that program modify ADE projects?
Click to expand...

No. It is a program to create scenery files containing scenery objects. As such you will need to create a separate bgl file that contains your scenery such as trees
 
scruffyduck said:
No. It is a program to create scenery files containing scenery objects. As such you will need to create a separate bgl file that contains your scenery such as trees
Click to expand...

Whisplacer is a nice program for putting in the scenery objects...thanks for the advice.

But like you said, I'll need to save it as a seperate bgl.

Right now, I have two bgl files for the airport in the AddonScenery/scenery folder. The airport one and a CVX one...whatever CVX means.

I opened the airport bgl with Whisplacer and it only showed the two trees I'd put in using ADE. So I went back into ADE and put in a tree on every corner of the woods...to use as guides (I don't know how to do the whole background image thing...if that's the way it should be done.) Then I went back into Whisplacer, drew a bunch of lines, and put in a bunch of trees on those lines. But then...how do I save that file? Where? What do I call it?
 
Also, does anyone know of a program that can be used to create new landclasses to add to ADE and FSX? I want to put in some fields, but now with the landclass options in ADE (which provides cropland textures with trees, houses, etc in addition to crops), I can't just stick in a corn field, or soybean field, etc.

How would I go about doing that...if it is possible?
 
More questions...

Again, how do I make the trees added with ADE change with the seasons?

Also...what do all the abbreviations on the tree files mean? Like...26M_SP, 13M_HW, etc.
 
SP means spring and HW means hard winter. I do not know how to make library object trees change with the seasons. I am not sure it is possible. Maybe someone else will be able to give a definitive answer
 
scruffyduck said:
SP means spring and HW means hard winter. I do not know how to make library object trees change with the seasons. I am not sure it is possible
Click to expand...

That's what I figured...with the abbreviations.

I guess I'll just make them all summer trees.

Do you know what the difference is between the two vegetation libraries...vegetation.bgl and vegetation_fsxrtm.bgl?
 
hotrod46 said:
That's what I figured...with the abbreviations.

I guess I'll just make them all summer trees.

Do you know what the difference is between the two vegetation libraries is...vegetation.bgl and vegetation_fsxrtm.bgl?
Click to expand...

nope - you would need to try them.
 
scruffyduck said:
nope - you would need to try them.
Click to expand...

Tried them both...the ones from the fsxrtm library are more 3D like.

I got the trees to change with the seasons. I just deleted the airport background that excluded autogen that was underneath the forest landclass...now I have the default autogen trees...which change with the seasons.
 
Well done hotrod46 :)

nice to see you trying different things,
This is how we all learn by experimenting

hope it works out ok

Ray
 
glottis said:
Well done hotrod46 :)

nice to see you trying different things,
This is how we all learn by experimenting

hope it works out ok

Ray
Click to expand...

Thanks man.

Now I'm back to the "can't see the water problem."

I drew the ditch on top of an airport background (Flatten Excude Autogen)...problem is...I can't see the water in the ditch. There is no Grand Canyon problem like before, but no water...any ideas?
 
hotrod46 said:
Thanks man.

Now I'm back to the "can't see the water problem."

I drew the ditch on top of an airport background (Flatten Excude Autogen)...problem is...I can't see the water in the ditch. There is no Grand Canyon problem like before, but no water...any ideas?
Click to expand...

Ahh...figured it out. To create water, use an apron.

My project is really starting to take shape now...thanks for all your help.
 
Hey guys,

I've been working on my little airstrip off and on since I last posted...but not much because I've gotten it to the point where I can fly in and out of it. Still plenty of tweaking left to do though.

But a new problem has developed. FSX encountered a fatal error, so I uninstalled it. Then, I reinstalled it on its own reformatted (64kb allocation size) partition...its runs noticably better. I stuck my ADE-created airstip bgl into the addon scenery, but as when I selected it in free flight, FSX crashed. I could not select any of the surrounding airports without FSX crashing. As soon as I turned off Addon Scenery, everything worked fine (I just can't use my airstrip).

I tried uninstalling and reinstalled ADE, recompliling the bgl, etc...nothing has worked.

Any advice?
 
Can you post the bgl file please? also send me the ADE project filed zipped up
 
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