Sink through problem

[MarkkuS]

Hi!
I have created scenery for a local airfield with Sbuilder and AFCAD2. I’m also using a 76m mesh and Ultimate Terrain. In the development computer there are no problems, but when I move the scenery to another computer with only the default FS 2004, the aircraft sinks through the texture in some places.

I have raised the airfield altitude from 7 meter to 10 meter. I have also created a small AFCAD-file stored in “Scenery\World\scenery” set to 10 meter. Around the airfield I have a flatten set to 10 meter. Near the airfield is a canal, which a created with a watermask and on the edges of canal is a landmask. Both of these are set to altitude -9999 meter. The reason for the landmask is to mask away the watermask, set by Ulitimate Terrain, which is incorrect. From the landmask and over the whole field is a VTP grass polygon, in layer 12.

The area where the aircraft sinks through is situated between the airfield and the canal. In the attached image, the area is marked with “ERROR”. The amount of sink varies, but is a few meters on some places. There are also no shadows of the aircraft in the problem area.

The default altitude for the whole area is 7 meters.

What can be the cause of the problems?

regards

 

[arno]

Hi,

Is it sinking through the mesh terrain itself or is it sinking through some polygons you put on top?

 

[MarkkuS]

Hi!

Is it sinking through the mesh terrain itself or is it sinking through some polygons you put on top?

The aircraft sinks through the polygon to the default mesh altitude. It looks like the sinking is only in places where it's a landclass mask (set to -9999m).

 

[Fern]

Aircraft sinking

Hi, MarkkuS

If I understand the problem you described, I had this problem a couple of times before. Here is what happened to me:

Mofifying airports is easy if you are not doing much to the elevation of the terrain under the runway. For me, every time I tried, AFCAD could modify the airport, even automatically created "flats" for the terrain where I placed new taxiways, but it could not change the original elevation of the runway when I tried, even though it was telling me that the new runway was at the elevation I told it to go.

The result is that when I changed the mesh of an airport area and edited the runway elevation to match, or when I created flats in the area to change the terrain altitude, the plane still wanted to roll on a surface that sits at the elevation of the original stock runway.

The only solution I found to this problem (and it was the same solution found by the gentleman who fixed one of the islands in the Caribbean) was to change the elevation of the original stock runway, by editing the APxxxxx.bgl native file. I don't think AFCAD can change the original runway elevation. (But I have been wrong before)

Fern

 

[MarkkuS]

Hi!

Hi, MarkkuS
The only solution I found to this problem (and it was the same solution found by the gentleman who fixed one of the islands in the Caribbean) was to change the elevation of the original stock runway, by editing the APxxxxx.bgl native file. I don't think AFCAD can change the original runway elevation. (But I have been wrong before)
Fern

Thanks for your answer. In my first message I told I'm using a "small" AFCAD-file. It looks like this:

<FSData version="9.0"
xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance'
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd">

<Airport ident="ESQO"
region=""
country="Sweden"
state=""
city="Arboga"
name="Arboga"
lat="N59 23.30000"
lon="E015 55.24999"
alt="10.00M"
magvar="358.00">
</Airport>
</FSData>


By compiling this and installing the bgl-file in Scenery\World\scenery it should fix problems with the airport altitude. So it does, but maybe there are other problems with this approach.

 

[Fern]

ESQO Elevation

Hi, Markku

I think your problem is right there.

The elevation of your AFCAD file tells it to be 10 metres, but the original elevation of ESQO, which is contained in the file AP952100.bgl, is 7.01 metres. It is my experience that the AFCAD will not be able to modify that elevation, no matter what number you enter for "alt". Your new AFCAD airport will still be at 7.01 metres. (Note that I say "it is my experience" rather than "it is").

The only way I found that actually changes the elevation of the runway is to edit the AP952100.bgl and change that number to 10 metres, to equal your "new" AFCAD ESQO airport.

(Runway elevation is not the only thing that AFCAD doesn't seem to be able change. AFCAD seems incapable of moving an airport too-large a distance. If you open a stock airport with AFCAD, move runway, taxiways, etc. too many kilometres, then install the modified airport bgl as scenery, BOTH airports will appear - on the map, on the GPS and in the FS, and with the same name.)

Of course editing native FS files is always undesirable, and particularly bad if you want to distribute your scenery to other users, as they may be reluctant to play with the original files. But if we are careful enough it is not too dangerous, unless there is a modification already made to that file, especially if the modification was done by self-installing scenery.

I am attaching a zip file containing an edited AP952100NEW.XML file and the respective AP952100NEW.bgl file, both marked "NEW". I assume NO responsibility for their use, but you can see in the XML file what the modification is and you can try the new bgl and see if it works (save the old one and rename this one from "AP952100NEW.bgl" to "AP952100.bgl". The original AP file is in \Flight Simulator9\Scenery\Eurw\Scenery.

Please let us know.

Fern

 

[MarkkuS]

Hi!
Thanks for your response and the file. I shall look at it.