Re. Common Airport Backround

[toktiny 0]

Hi there,Wondered if it is possable to get rid of this "sand" backround on an awful lot of airports and have a common "grass" backround for all airports ?I use FXPlanner to change from "sand" to "grass" backround at any one specific airport but there is an awful lot of airports to change. I know that everyone may not agree but I like to see grass on any airport that I land at.I wondered if Airports have a default texture that they use for backrounds and if so would it be possable to use the old trick and change a copy of the grass texture to this name ?Help appreciatedTokTiny

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

It is not sand, but the seasonal variant of grass, the Fall coloring.To make it green, set season to Summer. Or, recolor all Fall grass ground textures to green.Best regards.Luis

[wvernonc 0]

Look here for a file called "picnic" I think. All new grass textures with CHOICES! Fixed mine anyway. picnic_1.0.zip

[Mace 1,896]

The color of the airport background is determined by:1) the surrounding landclass2) the seasonI don't know how you can change it using FSXPlanner. Please tell me how you are doing this.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[toktiny 0]

Hi there,Many thanks for your replies. I will answer Luis reply first.Luis I am afraid that when you say that the grass changes at ALL delault airports in line with the season I do not find this so. If you take as an example Lispon in Portugal it does not matter what season you select the "grass" in the airport backround still remains more like sand. The same applies for I would say a large percentage of default airports in certain regions. Your second suggestion of changing all of the "Fall Grass Ground Textures" to Green, could you give some directions on this. I went to the "Grass" textures in the texture folder and found four : 1.Grass 2. GrassS 3.GrassW 4.GrassF ( which I took it to be the one for the Fall which you outlined as the one which was used in some Airports). I did as you said and tried each one of these as the only option by changing them to the one choice but this did not change the airport grass in any way. I can only assume that the default airport backround textures are not taken from this source. Could you tell me where are they coming from?Rhett your suggestion that they are dictated by Surrounding LC if you check the Airport I mention above you will find that the Surrounding LC is a mix of types of grass, type of city and other LC but I am afraid there is no LC in the proximity of the airport that resemples what you get for all seasons "Sand".I apologise for my mistake in telling you that I use FSPlanner to change the Airport Backround , what I should have said that it is SBuilderX that I use for this but as I said am getting tired of changing airport after airport and would like to have "Good Green Grass" on all my airports.Someone (and I can not find a name), suggested the program "Picnic" which I have tried but I am afraid it does not change the Airpoort Backrounds on the default airports. A very good program which give you lots of options and good quality but did you find it a bit severe on frame rates ?My sincere thanks for your replies.TokTiny

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Very sorry for my quick and somewhat superficial answer.The airport background (or skirting) is a texture mask. It displays a type of ground texture that is totally dependent on the underlying land class value.Usually, it will display grass, and this will show seasonal variants, meaning that it is brownish-yellow in Fall and Winter, and snowy white in Hard Winter.But, often, the mask (airport background) will display another ground texture altogether, not at all grass. And this depends on the land class under it. You will find an airport ground masking table showing exactly what displays in the mask with each land class in Terrain Design for Flight Simulator X in the Avsim library:http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fsxsd&DLID=100997So, to change the yellowish grass to green at all airports in the world (or at least, at those that display grass in the airport background mask), you will have to find the correct ground texture, remove the Fall and Winter variants, make copies of the Summer variant, and rename those copies to replace the Fall and Winter.Why did it not work for you? Because the Grass textures are not the ones used for the mask, they are not land class ground textures.The most common ground textures used for masks (but by no means the only ones) are:lc 95 - Grass Skirting 1 - ground texture 139lc 96 - Grass Skirting 2 - ground texture 140lc 98 - Dry Grass and Dirt Skirting - ground texture 142You will find the correct textures in the WorldTexture folder.Good luck with your project.Best regards.Luis

[Mace 1,896]

>>Rhett your suggestion that they are dictated by Surrounding LC>if you check the Airport I mention above you will find that>the Surrounding LC is a mix of types of grass, type of city>and other LC but I am afraid there is no LC in the proximity>of the airport that resemples what you get for all seasons>"Sand".That doesn't matter. That's visual appearance only.It doesn't matter what the landclass around the airport LOOKS LIKE. What matters is what TYPE of landclass tiles that are there.FSX has two types of landclass. "Wet" and "Dry". There are many landclasses that look fairly green or city-like, and yet they are classed as "DRY". This means that your tiles around Lisbon are classed as "dry" and as a result, you get sand-looking texture at LPPT.If you replace the landclass around LPPT with, say, "Grass Crops" landclass (value 93??), you will see that magically, LPPT airport background will indeed change to green in the summer.Now in fall, it might very well change to sand color, due to the seasons.bgl. That brings me to the OTHER determinant of airport background color: The seasons bgl file.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[FlyingsCool 3]

Luis,I'd have to say this, I think, is the only thing that I do not like about FSX. This STUPID brown grass texture. (Well, also the popping autogen, and short radius range of autogen. I have mine set at 6.5 and even that is too short. But I don't believe these are fixable.)I do not like the fact that I have to fly in summer all the time. I would love to see someone do a project to fix this and replace these textures with proper green grass, either payware or freeware. In New England, even in winter, when you can see the grass, it's green. In fact, about the only time you MIGHT see PATCHES of brown grass is in the summer during high heat/no rain periods (end of July to middle of August)!I realize that if it were simple, it would be fixed by now. But I know we've learned a lot about FSX in the last year. Hopefully somebody will pick it up sooner rather than later.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[Mace 1,896]

There is more to it than the textures. There is also the season and landclass. Those actually govern what texture gets loaded.The real problem is that there are only TWO textures. You have the brown one, and the green one. Hardly enough to make for a realistic variety for all parts of the world.One of thje things I am/have/am going to lobby for in FS11 are MORE textures for the airport backgrounds. This will also lead to better blending between the background and the surrounding landclass textures.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Thomas,I guess it is a pretty simple project and anybody can do it.Just find the correct ground texture, remove the Fall and Winter variants, make copies of the Summer variant, and rename those copies to replace the Fall and Winter.This will give instant results, no matter the season or surrounding land class.Best regards.Luis

[Barnes 192]

Hi There,Could somebody point me in the direction of a tutorial or infomation on the easiest way to modify landclass in FSX? I would like to try my hand at modifying the area around some of my favorite airports to get rid of the brown grass texture. Please note that I have no experience in playing around with scenery, so please be gentle... :-)Thanks,Dave

[Mace 1,896]

Do you have MS Excel?If you do, EZ-Landclass by Russel Dirks is the way to go.It is useful for small areas, but not as useful if you want to change the landclass for large areas.Alternatively, if you don't have Excel, a program called FSX_KML can now do landclass, although I have not used it for that yet.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[Barnes 192]

Rhett,Yes I do have Excel so I'll have a go with EZ-Landclass. Thanks for the tip.Dave

[FlyingsCool 3]

I did about a third of Massachusetts using SBuilder in FS9. I have not yet tried SBuilderX yet for FSX. SBuilder was a little tricky to understand at first, but after a little bit you'll get it, and it's a very good tool at that. Nice being able to use a graphical tool with a google earth background to help as a reference.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Dave,There is an old tutorial for modifying land class in FS 9:Simple Instructions for Modifying Land Classhttp://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?&DLID=60908At the least, it will show you the basic concepts and how to use EZ-Landclass. There will be a new version of this tutorial soon for FS X.For FS X, I would recommend SBuilderX (available in the Avsim library).You can load background images directly from Google Earth, Microsoft Live Virtual Earth, or other image servers, thus seeing directly the real thing. Here is a tutorial on how to use the SBuilderX image server function:http://www.ptsim.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1059To add land class, just select the land class icon on the tool bar. You will see a list of all available ground textures in a separate land class window, just choose the one you want, switch back to the main SBuilder window, and click to place the land class where you want it. Very easy.Best regards.Luis