FS2004 taxiway lines, lights and progressive taxi

[Guest RollerBall]

I'm converting my FS2002 scenery for FS2004. In both versions the default apron and taxiways are unsuitable and incomplete so I've excluded and made replacements in FSSC with lines and lighting. All is fine in 2002 but I had no progressive taxi in 2004 despite being careful with heights.Decided to use AFCAD2 for all lines etc in 2004 and now have no lines and lighting at all or progressive taxi. My apron/taxiways are layer 16 and if I deactivate my scenery all the details in my AFCAD2 file show up.I've been careful to ensure scenery and AFCAD2 ref point heights match and have played with the latter to try to make the lines etc show in 2004 without any luck.Have I missed something stupid? Anyone have any ideas?Sorry if this has been asked before but I couldn't find anyhting on a quick search.

[arno 1]

I think you can not get the lines made with AFCAD2 show on top of polygons you have made with FSSC. It only works if you also make the taxiways etc with it (but then you get the same look as the default scenery and that might not be what you want.I think the Progressive taxi instructions should still work on your FSSC polygons, if you have the height in AFCAD set the same as your airport (that way it was in Fs2002). But the current version of AFCAD2 can not yet change this height.

[Guest RollerBall]

Ah thanks Arno. I'll have to go back to how I originally had it - with lights and lines from FSSC. But strangely enough the progressive taxi line would not come then and I was very careful about matching the heights.My fear is that progressive taxi will not work in FS2004 if you remove/replace default ground polygons

[arno 1]

I have put my airport at a different height from the default scenery and because AFCAD does not yet support the height, I have not yet been able to check the progressive taxi instructions, but I expect it to work as it should use the path data for the AI traffic that is there and not the taxiway data (but maybe I am wrong :)).

[Guest RollerBall]

Ah - perhaps you could explain more what you mean by 'AFCAD does not support the height', ArnoCertainly you can change the reference point height in AFCAD2 - are you saying this has no effect? (I have to confess that working flat out I have not fully read the AFCAD2 user notes :-hmmm )If so, I need to accurately check the default scenery height and change the height of my scenery to the same exact figure if it is different I think

[arno 1]

No, the height has no effect (yet). I still have AI aircraft buried in the ground at my airport.

[Guest RollerBall]

Right, so no matter what I do, if my scenery is below the default scenery height then I will never see the progressive taxi.As my scenery is more or less at sea level I obviously need to adjust the height to exactly match the default scenery.Can't check now because I'm working (!) but I'll see later what the difference is and let you know how I get on.Thanks as always for your help and suggestions, Arno

[Guest RollerBall]

:-( Well I've messed around a bit more with heights and unless anyone else has had different experiences, I'm afraid that my conclusion is that the progressive taxi line goes the same way as the taxi lines and lighting when you put your own ground polys down ie it disappears. I just cannot get it to show at all. It looks as though it's done differently in 2004 than in 2002. Then my initial problem was getting the pink line down to ground level!;)

[Guest RollerBall]

Looked at this some more and now I understand what Arno is saying.Have just put in some AI and they are sitting with their wheels in the ground by about a metre.If I lower my scenery height, my apron disappears under the surface which becomes default mesh.So the AI and the progressive taxi line (and I guess the taxiway lines and lighting) are linked to the AFCAD facilities file which is at a lower height than the scenery. It's that height which you can't yet change using AFCAD.What I still can't understand is - the default facilities file is at the correct level. What changes and drops the level down when you edit it using AFCAD?I just installed John Youmg's latest 2002 Stansted which has all replacement apron polygons (I think). I haven't tried editing it yet, but straight off, the prog taxi line works in 2004 (but is misaligned).:-hmmm

[arno 1]

This is funny, are you saying that the addon AFCAD file you loading made the height lower then the default FS scenery?Could it not be that the height you see for the default scenery in the FS screen is the height of the aircraft refpoint and not of the scenery? That could mean that you addon scenery is a few feet (4 for the Cessna) heigher then the default scenery if you use that value.

[Guest RollerBall]

Almost but not quite!I checked heights in a 182 - in the default scenery at 3.1 feet, in my scenery at 6.3 feet.OK, I had already tried reducing my scenery height to 0m and it hadn't worked. Tried reducing height again, checked - still 6.3 feet!Aha! The only way I could get the change to register was to delete the scenery in the scenery library, physically delete the bgl files and re-export from FSSC.That worked - now I have AI on the surface AND the progressive taxi line! Hurrah!BUT now my A16-N flatten isn't working. Whole chunks of my scenery are disappearing underground if they are in between 'low' and 'high' terrain and large objects are floating with one tip of the base perched on the highest part of the ground below them.Didn't have these problems in FS2002! How do we flatten in 2004?EDIT: Looks like the problem is solved - FSSC for some reason wasn't exporting the flatten bgl file. Just copied it over from my 2002 folder and it appears OK at first glance.Arno, thanks again for your advice and patience!