Discovery: Ruwnays excluding Autogen at a distance

[Guest Claviateur]

Hello,Here is a screenshot That shows the areas that are excluded by the runways way beyong its tips. I do not know if it is related to the refpoints but I know that the refpoint is in the middle of a runway. Or maybe there is something in the runway code that excludes autogen at a great distance past its tips. i wonder if the technique described by Luis an that I used for the photogrid (transformcall) will solve this issue for the runways as wellCheers!Michel

[Guest]

Hi,Although I can't provide you with any answer to your question with my own humble knowledge of these things, I can at least mention that I have encountered the same problem when adding autogen to my own terrain (made with FS Terrain Calc), and I noticed that the runways excluded autogen beyond the ends. However, my area was not as long as the yellow ones you have painted in the screenshots, quite much shorter actually (runway is 2500*45m).

[Guest Claviateur]

Thats interesting and I think its all related to the runways sizes. In my situation I have for every runway 2 ruwnays one over the other in order to simulate the asphalt side borders of every runway so I place one runway with the asphalt texture and without any markings or lights and then I place the concrete rwy with marks and lights over it. The asphalt one is a little bigger then the concrete one in order to show its borders underneath it... So in my airport I have technically 3 runways but 6 of them in my scenery (asphalt + concrete for each). I think this explains the wider autogen exclusion area Now I am looking to see what is making this exclusion happen. Is it the refpoint or the polygon of the runway. By the way are you using Architect or another scenery program? Just to see if its an Architect runway code or FreeSCCheersMichel

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Michel.You might consider downloading Christian Stock's nzrc.zip. It's an airfield designed with BGLC coding... just to have a look.Also. Do your runways have touchdown markers, or fixed distance markers? Perhaps these could extend the exclusion of the autogen out from the ends.It almost looks as if the exclusion is half the length of the runway on each end.Dick

[Guest Claviateur]

Hi Dick,Thats right, the exclusion is half the length of each runway and it has double the width. I will check the BGLC airfield indeed. Yes all runways have the fixed distance markers and the touchdown markers as well. So you think those extend the exclusion? I will see if the BGLC has an alternative runway code that is autogen friendlyCheers!Michel

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Michel.Actually, I think the area of exclusion is exactly 4X the area of the runway... both width and length, and I'm thinking it's hardcoded in the sim. Twice as long by twice as wide, centered on the runway.Dick

[Guest Claviateur]

Hi Dick,So do you think that there is no way to have a work around this ? Do you think BGLC can be an alternative?ThanksMichel

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Michel.No, I don't think that BGLC is necessarily an alternative to the autogen exclusion... but I have noticed the SCASM code for runways does differ from Christian's BGLC/MASM example. SCASM introduces some extra coding that seems to serve as some kind of "watermark" to identify it's compilation with SCASM. I don't know if that accounts for all the difference in the actual hex code. I don't know if Christian ever noticed the autogen exclusion properties with his code.I looked back over older postings. 'tlassiter' had noted the same runway exclusion, and never got an answer of any work-around. I'm thinking one may not exist... maybe.I'm saying maybe, because of a recent discussion I've had here with 'jmf' about "VTP & Custom LandClass #252". In those posts I related a way to force custom autogen onto any LOD13 Area ( groundtile ) by using a "transparent" texture, named as a CUSTOM slice texture, and it's associated autogen. jmf discovered that the key is to have the autogen in the 'scenedbworldtexture' folder, so the sim can find it. I place the transparent 8-bit w/alpha CUSTOM texture there as well.I'm not 100% pleased with the method, because it uses an 8-bit with alpha texture for the transparent VTPm2 poly, and that shows some slight darkening or tinting of the area it covers. Basically, you index the poly to a texture of #253... the landclass number for all-season CUSTOM ( photoreal ). It doesn't matter what the texture is, so it can be a nearly transparent 8-bit ( 1 pixel is grey ). Then place the autogen wherever you want on this tranparent sheet, and it drapes over the mesh, and any other underlying texture or landclass. In this way, towns or cities could be built up over a grass or concrete VTP polyed texture if desired... or a grid of streets... lots of uses, and lots of freedom for autogen.Also, the entire "sheet" of autogen doesn't need to be used, as a VTP poly can cover a small area ( needs some testing ).I'll see if I can test it tomorrow, by using this to place some autogen at the end of a runway... if that doesn't work, I don't think anything will... unless luissa or JR Morgan know of some trick to fix this.Dick

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Michel.It seems we are stuck with the exclusion, as far as I can tell.Dick

[Guest Claviateur]

Hi Dick,Thanks for the tests you did. I was hoping that the VTP technique would work but as you mentioned that there is no way to get around this exclusion then maybe I will find a more traditoinal way to fill the excluded areas by placing buildings from an object library using FSRegen? Do you think that will work? I do not want to use traditional macros with a scenery program because it will kill frame rate so I will see if object libraries and FSRegen can do the placement of buildings like the ones we see in autogenCheers!Michel