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Viewport background troubles

O

osu_av8or

Messages
5
I just got back into scenery design after an extremely long hiatus (and several versions of MSFS). At the moment, I've got my aerial image in place thanks to SBuilderX and figured out the high detail ground polygon thing thanks to Bill Womack's tutorial and mdlconverter (Thanks, Arno!).

Here's where I hit a snag. I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that it would be easiest to create all of the runways, taxiways and aprons in one GMAX file complete with markings and use Arno's ground polygon wizard. This would ensure that everything is accurately placed and sized relative to one another. I've tried to place my airport image on a plane in GMAX to use as a backdrop to trace taxiways, but the resolution is rendering horribly in the perspective view, and I would really need it in the top down view anyway. Next, I tried to place it in the viewport background of the top down view, but I can't figure out how to scale it properly. The background image remains the same regardless of zooming.

Can anyone offer a helpful suggestion? I'm pulling out what's left of my hair.

Thanks.
 
Your first attempt is probably the best option -- this is a fairly common method to overcome some of the issues with the Viewport background.
You do need to check your display options to make sure that you are seeing the best rendering of your textures.
You can certainly use this method in top-down view, provided you change it from Wireframe view.
I normally create a background image in a separate GMAX file, drop it slightly below ground level, then Xref it in the working scene. This makes sure it is always there in top-down view, but doesn't get in the way.
 
Thanks for the reply. I'm trying again. I figured out how to make the texture appear in the top down view, but I'm still having troubles with the resolution. I've scoured all the menus I can think of, and my google-fu appears to be weak tonight.

Also, how do you cross reference a file as you mentioned? That sounds helpful.
 
Not directly related, but something to bear in mind is to think carefully about making airport files with a lot of objects exported as a single model. If you do this, and at some time in the future are navigating around the airport in haze, you'll get far parts of the airport very visible because the model's reference point is closer to the viewpoint and is clearer of haze where it is. Put another way, if you've seen airports with the far end much more clear than the surroundings just beyond it, it might be that the sim is calculating how much haze to apply to the far fence and is using an object reference point that is much closer to the viewpoint to calculate it. It can look very odd.

Combining stuff so that another program can do something with it is one thing, but in-sim it is generally better to group only objects that are physically close in reality (if at all), at least then they get a similar haze treatment in-sim. You may already know this, but I like many others discovered it through trial-and-error.
 
Viewport options

Use:

Customise | Preferences | Viewports (tab) | Configure Driver (Radio Button)
 

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