Hi all.My "Nevada" (as in test place) has now concrete all over and a very nice large pond...It works by defining rectangle areas in gmax (don't forget to convert them to editable meshes).Use the method described in the (urgently needing update) manual with "special materials". Select "Ground Type" in the dropdown list of step 3 and select the desired ground type (in parameters): CONCRETE, GRASS_LANDABLE, WATER, GRASS_BUMPY, ASPHALT, GRASS_SHORT, GRASS_LONG, HARD_TURFI rewrote all the math stuff greatly improving accuracy but bugs are expected :-)Hope you enjoy it.George

Nice work!!!http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/jimlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

Thanks, maybe I can now throw away my buggy tool (that I couldn't get to work) that made the SurfaceType commands for me :).On the other hand, it means that I need to get all taxiways into GMax and that's not very easy either (and GMax is not meant for these kind of objects).ArnoMember NL2000 Teamhttp://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen

Thanks JimArno, why ? You got alpha channels, you got z-bias control, you got gmax, you got the power :-)Actually it would be nice to make taxi lines (proper ones) in gmax... hmmmmI got a runway extention to try now... excuse meCheers

How about the problem that you don't see shadows on the polygons you make with GMax? You will need to change the code for that. GMax makes code for 3D objects not for flat polygons.ArnoMember NL2000 Teamhttp://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen

Wasn't it you, Arno, who showed me how to take out the shadowcall and adjust the layer? Easily done... And maybe Georgio can add a way to do it from his program...Derek

Yes, that was me, but that shows that GMax is made for 3D objects not to make ground polygons. You can much better use Airport or GroundMaker for that.ArnoMember NL2000 Teamhttp://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen

Hi guys.What excactly is the problem and what is the prefered solution ?Let me know what I can do.If it is asm file modification, we can probably do it automaticaly.CheersGeorge

What you need to do, Georgio, is to flag certain polygons as not having a shadowcall. I think you need to be able to indicate layers as well. I just posted another message on another thread here which explains how I do mine from within GMax, thanks to Arno.Derek

The feature would be nice as well as a time saver.http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/jimlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

Ohh, O.K. I see what you mean.Actualy I have the solution ready.It was part of a shadow optimization that I left half way through to mess around with the Surfaces thing.I will seperate it and release it later tonight.What it already does is to remove all polygons that are flat on the ground from the shadow engine. This improves frames rates too, as many surfaces that are never visible get into the shadow game...Of course the most experienced designers do this by hand already :-)Then you get the airplane shadow too.For overlaying anything with an alpha channel on the ground (skid marks for one) ALWAYS use a matterial name that starts with ZBIAS_x where x is a number from 1 to 9.I know most of you know this and sorry for repeating it.For the ones not knowing the trick, it solves the flashing problem of polygons on the ground. You get to draw even on runways...Catch you later guys...