AFCAD Help

[Joseph29 225]

I have Flight Ontario's Toronto scenery, it includes Toronto City Airport (CYTZ). I also have Roger Wensley's updated CYTZ scenery that adds the new terminal to the airport.

 

The AFCAD for the updated scenery needs some work. Most of the Dash 8's are parking in the general aviation area instead of the terminal. I tried fixing the AFCAD with ADE and the original AFCAD and the terminal disappeared when I did.

 

All I am trying to do is change the size of the parking spots and add airline codes to the spots so that the Dash 8's park at the terminal. How do I do that without deleting the terminal??

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Modifying parking spots in the AFD file should not affect any of the 3D models at the airport, so I am somewhat perplexed. Have you done anything else that might have resulted in the disappearance of the terminal building?

[Joseph29 225]

No. All I tried to do was re-size the parking spots and added airline codes. I am rather a novice at using ADE so maybe I was doing it wrong?

 

The scenery is toronto_city_cytz_to2.zip here in the library.

[pschlute 37]

Open the afcad in ade, edit your parking spots and save it. Then select compile airport. Important...make sure the destination folder for the compile is not the scenery folder of the airport, but say your desktop. Then rename the new afcad to the same as the original, cut and paste the original somewhere safe, and drop the new afcad into the scenery folder of the airport.

 

This method has worked for me in the past when confronted by the same problem

[vector 7]

As long as you make a copy of your original Afcad file first there is absolutely no reason why you cannot compile it directly to your Addon scenery folder.  You definitely do not need to save it to your desktop and cut and paste it to its correct destination afterwards.  I have modified probably a couple of hundred airports, if not more, this way to add static aircraft and make other improvements with absolutely no problems at all.

 

Dijvid

[Joseph29 225]

Thanks guys. I will try again tonight when I get home. I was to tired last night to try and get this AFCAD fixed.

[Dave Morgan 68]

Hi.

 

If the parking code is not specified in the aircraft.cfg then the planes probably won't park where you want them to.

 

Also, if the parking type in aircraft.cfg is set to ramp and your preferred spots are gates then the planes will go somewhere else.

 

Third, if making both of those attributes correspond doesn't do the job then perhaps your GA spots are listed as gates.

 

If that's not the case, you can alter the radius of the spots so that Dash-8s fit in the preferred spots but not in the GA spots. I guess that's what you've tried.

 

As far as the disappearing terminals go, and without downlaoding and examining the airport, I'll come out with a plain 'I dunno', except to say there may be an exclude buried somewhere that's affecting things. Are the terminal buildings part of the afcad or separate scenery files? Did your modified file go back into the same folder and did it have the same name as the original? (I can't remember off the top of my head whether or not ADE uses the original filename by default or replaces it with its own convention like 'CYTZ_ADE_J29.bgl' or similar).

 

I generally use the desktop or a temporary folder thereon as working space myself and only transfer my new version to the scenery layer when I'm happy with it and have renamed the original from say 'CYXR.bgl' to 'CYXR.replaced', but each to his own. As long as you're methodical and still have the original download it hardly matters...

 

Best regards,

D

[ronzie 21]

With ADE you should be using the file/open direct from bgl to bring in all of the elements of the afcad type filer you need to modify. See if that terminal is in there. If so, modify it and first save the file as an airport project in case you need further editing. Use the checker tool. Now, if OK, rename the original file extension from .bgl to .bgh. Compile the new file in the project to the folder where the original .bgl resided.

 

Be aware of any cautions/warning when saving the project file and when compiling the project file.

 

If the terminal does not show when you open the original .bgl file in ADE then see if there are any warnings and if not it is probably in another .bgl file in that folder.

 

FYI: ADE has an option that outputs objects to separate .bgl files instead of all-in-one.

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Ah, yes. That is probably what has happened. I suspect that those model files are included in the AFD file. They will probably be (if it is anything like FSX and P3D) displayed as black squares (as an unknown model type), and then when the AFD file is compiled, those "black square objects" will be removed.

[ronzie 21]

Black squares might be excluded areas. White areas are missing textures as I recall.

 

ADE will show excludes included in the .bgl file.

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Black squares are unknown models in ADE.

[Joseph29 225]

Thanks guys. I did what ronzie said and fixed the parking. The terminal was part of the AFCAD.

 

I miss using the original AFCAD when I could make quick changes like re-sizing parking spots and not have to worry about messing up the scenery.

[A32xx 129]

 

 

I miss using the original AFCAD when I could make quick changes like re-sizing parking spots and not have to worry about messing up the scenery.

 

I have AFX from Flight1 which is the "payware version" of AFCAD with additional features and no issues. I also use ADE occasionally, and AFCAD 2.21 (they both have their uses!) but I personally prefer AFX for general adjustments because it is quick and simple.