Runways feature in Feature Discovery: Airports

[Claviateur 789]

I watched again the Feature Discovery video about Airports and I noticed 2 things:

1- Someone pointed out here already that Asobo will use Charts for runway slopes and I finally heard the dev mentioning it in the video. I had missed this detail completely when I initially watched the video.

2- When I paused the video, I noticed this feature (in the screenshot below)

Sorry I could be late on things you already noticed...

[tpete61 225]

What is your point???

Everything we have seen is pre-release so wouldn't make much of what you are trying to infer.

 

[Shack95 2,658]

21 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

2- When I paused the video, I noticed this feature (in the screenshot below)

Nice catch. I can‘t remember having seen or read about this. Could that be the option to make undulating runways?

[Claviateur 789]

5 minutes ago, Shack95 said:

Nice catch. I can‘t remember having seen or read about this. Could that be the option to make undulating runways?

Me too I missed this detail initially. Who knows, perhaps this option is related to the way the slopes are managed through specific parameters.

In this case, as far as the dev mentioned, from Charts numbers they enter the runways tips elevations. Yet if the charts values are only used, runways will be rather inclined but not necessarily with variable elevations.

This could perhaps explain why we see straight runways in screenshots and not following the terrain. 

I could be wrong but the concept of sloping runways means runways follow the terrain variation underneath like the other sim at the expense of rough terrains if the mesh data is low res.

Of course the Charts values establish the elevation of one tip or another only as we used to have in FSX, resulting in pulling the land or water underneath and that is not related to the terrain variations.

I presume and hope, the FSX water and land pulling effect is not the same here.

[polosim 837]

This feature is already  implemented in other simulators, with varied results, some good and others not good at all.

[Claviateur 789]

3 minutes ago, polosim said:

This feature is already  implemented in other simulators, with varied results, some good and others not good at all.

Yes this is exactly what I am referring to...

[Thomasso 224]

2 hours ago, Claviateur said:

I could be wrong but the concept of sloping runways means runways follow the terrain variation underneath like the other sim at the expense of rough terrains if the mesh data is low res.

You could always do an interpolation in case the mesh data is low res. Rough terrains on runways are unacceptable.

[Claviateur 789]

46 minutes ago, Thomasso said:

You could always do an interpolation in case the mesh data is low res. Rough terrains on runways are unacceptable.

Yes most probably, but I can't wait to see how all this is managed in airports where terrain elevation changes considerably from one corner of the airport to another. And how they manage to adapt the terrain transition around the airfield without pulling or pushing land and water.

[Thomasso 224]

6 minutes ago, Claviateur said:

Yes most probably, but I can't wait to see how all this is managed in airports where terrain elevation changes considerably from one corner of the airport to another. And how they manage to adapt the terrain transition around the airfield without pulling or pushing land and water.

That will be interesting indeed. But the shots from Courchevel clearly show that now it's possible, so if not by default, 3rd party devs can go crazy 🙂

[Claviateur 789]

1 minute ago, Thomasso said:

That will be interesting indeed. But the shots from Courchevel clearly show that now it's possible, so if not by default, 3rd party devs can go crazy 🙂

Yes, this is another thing I am curious about. Did they create Courchevel using their casual and usual airport creation methods as demonstrated in the Episode Video, or did they create it using a custom process.

[Thomasso 224]

Just now, Claviateur said:

Yes, this is another thing I am curious about. Did they create Courchevel using their casual and usual airport creation methods as demonstrated in the Episode Video, or did they create it using a custom process.

Never thought about that. I'd say it's 50/50. Seems to good to be the casual one to me.

[Tuskin38 6,435]

There is another airport they've shown where the taxiway does conform with the terrain, though I can't remember where it is.

 

Edit:

Tumlingatar Airport in Nepal, though looking at real life images/videos, it's exaggerated in the sim, probably because of an inaccurate terrain mesh. Although, look at the airport in the Maps app, it doesn't look that steep.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Tuskin38

[Claviateur 789]

54 minutes ago, Thomasso said:

Never thought about that. I'd say it's 50/50. Seems to good to be the casual one to me.

Yes, maybe to create such a smooth airport layout while keeping the radical variations, the terrain underneath might have been reworked, using in-engine terrain editing (painting style) tools like what we find in other engines. But I am not sure and I can't wait to know more about the terrain and scenery SDK 🙂

 

16 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

There is another airport they've shown where the taxiway does conform with the terrain, though I can't remember where it is.

 

Edit:

Tumlingatar Airport in Nepal, though looking at real life images/videos, it's exaggerated in the sim, probably because of an inaccurate terrain mesh. Although, look at the airport in the Maps app, it doesn't look that steep.

 

Well, now that I learned a bit more about how the runways are probably done , I think by looking again at this screenshot, it seems to me now that if they used the Charts numbers for the runway thresholds on each side, the summary of both elevations might have pulled the terrain underneath to create the rounded smooth slope on the sides. Just guessing.

[reignman40 450]

Maybe you can add deformation points to the runway in the afcad where you can adjust the runway elevation at 1 or more points. Maybe the green dots in the picture are these?? 

[Claviateur 789]

40 minutes ago, reignman40 said:

Maybe you can add deformation points to the runway in the afcad where you can adjust the runway elevation at 1 or more points. Maybe the green dots in the picture are these?? 

Maybe yes but the tool they use is an in-engine editing not AFCAD. Hopefully we will have access to this tool or we will need to wait for the MSFS version of "AFCAD" to be available 🙂

Edit: Now I see what you mean by the green dots, they are mainly for adjusting the width of the runway as far as I noticed in the video.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Claviateur