I have one or two airports (my version of LSGG for instance) at which, when you taxi along the apron and taxiways, dust/dirt is kicked up by the wheels from the concrete, as per fx_tchdrt.fx. Only on the runways is it OK.

 

Anyone know how to stop this from happening at individual airports, without disabling the fx file? The AFCAD does show concrete in the areas where this happens, so I am not sure why the problem occurs.

 

Thanks,

 

Martin

 

Hi Martin,

 

The dust being kicked up is not caused by your airport's (Afcad) apron or taxiway surfaces but by some kind of effects error involving your aircraft, possibly even it's contact points.

The "fx_tchdrt" effect should only be called for via one of the lines in the [Effects] section of your aircraft's aircraft.cfg file and nowhere else within that file. Check your aircraft.cfg file for any possible other entries which call for fx_tchdrt, especially in the [Lights] section. Also check for duplicate sections.

 

Did you possibly replace your aircraft's panel by another, because some replacement panels have a hidden gauge which, under different conditions, call for one or more light effects in the aircraft.cfg [Lights] section. Such (differently named) light effects can be programmed to produce different effects instead of lights, e.g. dust, prop wash, smoke, etc.

 

Does your problem also appear with other aircraft ? Which aircraft is causing your problem and from where did you download it ?

 

Regards

Hans

Thanks for the reply Hans - but all aircraft that I have tried kick up dirt on the tarmac at LSGG, including the default Cessna. It doesn't happen when I move airports in those planes, so despite what you say, I think it is the airport that has the problem...

If I remember right, that is an afcad issue. Something to do with elevation. Memory is a little foggy, been a while.

Hi Martin.

 

At work again so I can't experiment but I think Joe is on the right track:

 

I believe dirt from the tyres is related to the taxi-link, not the apron polygon so it may be that you have a sand or gravel or dirt taxi-link crossing your concrete apron polygons.

 

Using ADE you can use a list function to call up a dialogue box showing all taxi-links. Sort by surface type, select all the incorrect taxilinks and edit them in one batch.

 

Best regards,

Dave

Thanks Dave - I thought that that was going to be the solution, but the links are already all marked 'Concrete' under 'surface', so back to square one!

Also check the width of the taxiways. If they have apron under them they could be too narrow.

OK, by trial and error I found the problem is with one of the airport bgl files. When I remove it, the dirt effect stops. I also lose (some rather ugly "r8" type) concrete, so that taxiways now run over grass. There are also some scenery objects, unfortunately, in the same bgl. I have extracted the scenery objects and made a new bgl of them, so that should be OK. And I will simply fill in the grass spaces where there should be concrete using AFCAD2 to make some new polygons.

 

Never a dull moment! Thanks for the ideas...

I should have known it wouldn't be that simple!! Removing the bgl file removes all the taxiways and aprons, so that most of the airport is on grass. The default scenery isn't there because there is a particularly 'vicious' exclude file in the folder. If you remove that, you get the taxiway and aprons back, but all the FS9 default buildings come back as well. I tried making my own exclude, but no luck because it turns out that the FS9 default buildings at LSGG are contained in the file OB9EURW1.BGL. I suppose that excludes don't work on that file?

 

Looks like I'll have to put up with the dirt* and poor ground textures. If FSDT have a sale, I'll get their Geneva scenery instaed perhaps... :mad:

 

* .. well, I can just disable the fx file for the duration of course|!