Airport plateau problem

[xplanery 250]

I am currently making Malta scenery, and created mesh from SRTM data. However, my problem is that default airport is on higher altitude than correct mesh, and runways & taxiways & their surroundings are bit higher than rest of the terrain. I edited airport altitude in Airport Design Editor, but it just sunk to the ground. Then I tried to flatten that ground by creating simple polygon with Sbuilder X, choosing flatten one and making its altitude same with corrected runway altitudes. However, only part of that terrain seems to be flattened, most of it doesn't.

 

I would highly appreciate it if someone could help me to find right way to do this...

[Art_P 6]

Assuming this is for FSX, you can create the airport background-flatten in ADE, and even slope the flatten(s) except under runways, taxiways and aprons.

[meshman 109]

This is the same problem as described over at FS Developer? If you do not exclude the existing Airport Background (flatten) poly, nothing is going to go in and override it. It's a simple 15 second task in SBuilderX.

 

Most of the steps in FSX require that you remove what is already there (excludions) before trying to add in a replacement.

[xplanery 250]

Ok, so this is what I did now: I first created big flatten poly around the airport and set its altitude as 64 meters. Then I created Exclude all airport boundaries poly over it. Now most of the area is fine, airport is at correct altitude, but for some reason there is still some amount of terrain over runway. I am also making photoscenery, thats why that colored ground.

 

So this is what it looks now:

 

Another half of the airport is fine, only this area has that terrain over runway.

[meshman 109]

Ok, so this is what I did now: I first created big flatten poly around the airport and set its altitude as 64 meters. Then I created Exclude all airport boundaries poly over it. Now most of the area is fine, airport is at correct altitude, but for some reason there is still some amount of terrain over runway. I am also making photoscenery, thats why that colored ground.

 

I'm going to ramble on a bit, so be forewarned!

 

I don't offer a lot of help these days because most every question has been asked and answered at some point since FSX's release. A little searching goes a long ways in my book. But if I do answer or try to help the information is short and sweet, as I'm a poor typist and I'm not trying for a step by step detailed explanation.

 

I went into FSX and added the same mesh you added, changed the airport, etc. Mine looks fine, though it needs a whole lot more work to be acceptable.

 

People get advice and then go and do something different. And I can only take what you have written as for what you did. Read again what the guidance was, even with my typo error that is too late to correct. Notice any difference from what you did compared to the guidance given? Here is what I offered and what I did inside FSX;

 

1. Exclude the existing airport flatten.

2. Add back a new flatten.

 

Here is what you say you did;

1. Add a new flatten

2. Exclude the Airport Background.

 

Let's look at this as computer code, shall we? I want to get a result by multiplying a variable by another number, so I write it like this;

 

x = 5

answer = x * 5 (answer would equal 5*5 or 25)

 

Makes sense, doesn't it? It's logical, at least to me.

 

Here's how you've written it;

answer = x * 5

x = 5 (answer would equal nothing, because x was not defined before using it)

 

What's that got to do with FSX scenery work? I'm using an educated guess here, as the Microsoft programmer never outlined things best I recall. But you are telling FSX to add an airport flatten, THEN telling it to exclude the airport background. What airport background are you asking FSX to exclude, the one just added or the prior? I cannot say with 100% certainty that the Shp2Vec compiler that handles these things works this way, but I believe that it wants things done in a logical procedural process. Which is exclude first, then add back. Just as I mentioned above.

 

Since I'm banging away at the keyboard... You want to change the airport's altitude from 300' to 210' to match the mesh. OK, it certainly fits in better by doing that. There are also five approaches tied into this airport that will be need to be reviewed, as you've just changed an important element for them. Good luck deciphering all that XML goodness...

 

If you follow what is outlined above you should see much better end results. The default airport area is way off from the real world. The default airport is way off from the real world. As you get the ground correct, be it at 300' or 210', things will look funny such as autogen sitting on aprons. Get the airport designed to match the real world and things should start to come together.

[xplanery 250]

I am not exactly sure about which flatten polygon option should I choose and what to do in airport design editor and what in Sbuilder, I don't really understand what to do with all this... So far only time I have managed to remove that ground one time by adding polygon which excluded all terrain items, but for some reason it created huge square to the sea so it was worth nothing.

[Art_P 6]

I am not exactly sure about which flatten polygon option should I choose and what to do in airport design editor and what in Sbuilder, I don't really understand what to do with all this.

 

SBuilderX is a great application, and you will need it for your photo-scenery. I do airport backgrounds/flattens entirely with ADE as follows:

 

1. Observe the default airport background in FSX, slew to a location within this background where the new flatten will not occur, usually at it's edge. Connect ADE with FSX and see the aircraft location.

2. Select the Add Polygon tool in ADE, and draw a small polygon (triangle) at the aircraft location. In the properties dialog box, select Exclude General and Airport Backgrounds.

3. Again select the Add Polygon tool and draw a polygon defining the airport area to be flattened. In the properties dialog box, select Airport Background and the desired tag.

4. Compile airport. The resulting .bgl files will need to have priority over any addon mesh in the scenery library.

[scott967 62]

I assume you have the sdk installed. In the terrain portion is the utility "TmfViewer". create a shortcut to this program so you can run it easily. When you have problems like this, loading the default and your addon terrain scenery files can help you identify problems. You can also turn on a "grid", which I recommend using the QMID 12 grid scale. Both SBuilderX and ADEX provide the indexes needed to load the correct default cvx (terrain) file.

 

scott s.

.

[xplanery 250]

Ok so now I created that small triangle polygon at aircrafts location, side of this airport flatten and did select Exclude General and Airport Backgrounds. Then I made that Airport Background flatten, made sure that it covers whole area and set its altitude to 64 meters and also changed airport altitude from options to 64 meters. Now it seems that most of airport background is exluded and flattened, however then this another side still has background showing and this terrain over it...

 

Any idea why is that?

 

 

[Art_P 6]

Looking at your picture, it appears that a large rectangular area has been lowered in elevation and some portions remain at the previous elevation. I'm not sure I understand why you want this entire area lowered and flattened, but that is beyond your question.

 

Sometimes the default airport background is not just one polygon, and it is sometimes necessary to create multiple exclusions to remove the entire background. Repeat the procedure for each of the areas that remain.

[xplanery 250]

Thank you all for help very much, got it working now finally by excluding also rest of those airport background parts. :)

 

Yeah I am going to make flattened area much more accurate for final scenery, just needed to learn how exactly to do it.