AFCAD 2.11

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi all.I thought it would be nice to start an AFCAD 2.11 thread.Some random thoughts:AFCAD now makes a small BGL that correctly places airfield visual and non-visual data. The map view is right, as is the "go to airport" menu.:)What we still need is to flatten the terrain, exclude autogen, and perhaps set the surfacetype for the surrounding terrain. ( The surfacetype for the runways and aprons themselves are controlled by the textures selected in AFCAD ).All this can be done by SCASM, and can be in one BGL.Header( 1 42.6579279436951 42.6424606230409 -88.6543506471666 -88.6570784305022 )LatRange( 42.6579279436951 42.6424606230409 ); ================ SURFACETYPE ==============Area( 5 N42.650312 W88.656005 2 ) Call( :_Make_Surfacetype ) Jump( : ) :_Make_Surfacetype RefPoint( abs :_Set_Surface_Fail 1.00 N42.650312 W88.656005 V1= 20000 V2= 1000 E= 291 ) RotatedCall( :_Set_Surface 0 0 0 ) Return :_Set_Surface SurfaceType( 1 60 1200 291 ) ; rough surface :_Set_Surface_Fail ReturnEndA; ============== FLATTEN ==================== Area16N Elevation ( 291.00 ; elevation in meters 42.6579279436951 -88.6570784305022 42.6579279436951 -88.6543506471666 42.6424606230409 -88.6543506471666 42.6424606230409 -88.6570784305022 ) End16;================ EXCLUDE ==================exclude( 1 42.6579279436951 42.6424606230409 -88.6543506471666 -88.6570784305022 )This type of SCASM code makes a small BGL that can be placed into the same 'scenery' folder as the AFCAD bgl for the airfield.Dick

[wsieffert 0]

Hi Dick,I have been experimenting with AFCAD211 and Airport for Windows (AFW). Since I already had a Test Isle airport build with AFW, I decided to use AFCAD to make the usuable ground scenery.I used the FSUIPC interface to place the different items, runway, aprons (grass and concrete), taxiways, parking, communications, etc. I then modified my original AFW file by deleting all the ground components, i.e., grass, aprons, taxiways, roads. I left the runway but made it invisible with no lights because I wanted to retain the ILS. I retained the buildings, helo pad, VOR, NDB, light pole, and tower.It works great and with the ability of AFCAD to draw all the taxiway lines, it makes the airport look super. The textures for grass are not as good as can be found elsewhere but I guess it is using the default FS2004 textures.One thing in AFCAD doesn't seem to work for me and that is the ability to label the taxiways, i.e., A, B, CC, etc. The AFCAD documentation indicates typing in the designator box should work.W. Sieffert

[Guest sapper42]

Ive just tried the new AFCAD and was glad to see that it can now add to the GPS and Airport Goto menu, however, maybe i need to read the help files more but i would like to be able to create taxi pathways for AI to and from parking spots and RWY without AFCAD creating the visible data, for my current project / projects i am using VTP polys for taxiways and apron. If anyone sees what im doing wrong pls give me a heads up ( im a tad thick at times ).all in all, its great to see the advances in the current version but i think id prefer to create my own flatten and exclude files with scasm. It may be advantageous for AFCAD to be able to export scasm code for possible flatten, exclude, surface areas for hand tweaking or learning curve.However all this said, i think its a sensational effort as it stands and im more than happy with what it offers now.rgds Jeff

[Guest Efrain_APR1]

>however, maybe i need to read the help files more but i would like to be able to create taxi pathways for AI to and from parking spots and RWY without AFCAD creating the visible data,You want to have the pathways without any visible lines or textures? This can be done! Just create the pathway and RIGHT CLICK on the segment. Then for Link Type choose APRON ROUTE and below that, choose NO LINE for all 3 options. This will make the pathway invisible and yet still be there for the AI traffic.regards,Efrain Ruiz, APR1AirPUERTORICO Virtual Airlineswww.airpr.net

[Guest sapper42]

Sensational ! thanks for that Efrain, i had thought of it but had my brain locked onto APRON and couldnt see the woods for the trees !Allso thanks for the No Line tip !best regards Jeff

[Guest rafaelds]

AFCAD 2.x is definitely a sweet piece of work. The new AF2 scenery system sure will cause some problems, mainly for designers of "100%-realistic" airports. But I am enjoyng the synthetic appearance of the new taxiways and aprons: in the airports I have built so far, they make a pretty good representation of reality with very little efforts necessary to build the scenery.But one thing that should be avoided in my oppinion is the creation of flatten polys, excludes and surface areas using the old-fashioned design style. These are being faded-off and very likely will not be suported within 2 versions of FS, I suppose. Instead, we should try to always make VTP backgrounds for airports, since it's the 'right' way to do it. And not only it excludes autogen, but also sets the surface texture and altitude, allowing us to kill 3 problems with just one shot.Now the problem would be how to create those with relative ease and not using a tool like ground2k4 (which is great, of course). It would be necessary some way to make the polys regardless of a reference background map. The best way would be if AFCAD itself could draw those, but I suppose it's a little far from the intentions of the author, as it would make the program a lot more complex. Another possibility could be a program that loads the AF2 BGLs and allows drawing the polys while displaying rwys, twys and aprons.When designing sceneries of relatively large areas with AFCAD one will come to a problem. Distributing hundreds of AF2 files would be a mess, and would create the possibility of duplicate files with different names in case the filename changes between two versions of the scenery (and it is installed over the previous version). I don't know how FS will behave if it finds two BGLs for the same airport (same ICAO code which seems to be what matters for FS) both in 'addon scenery' folder.A good idea would be a SCLINK-like program for AF2-style BGLs. It should be able to merge all airports into a single BGL and should not be too hard to design (I think that it's a matter of knowing the structure of the header of the new BGLs).Rafa

[bob.bernstein 0]

<>I think you wrote this because its the closest mimic to the default. Since the fs2k2 sdk described the use of custom imagry in resample.exe, I'm assuming that using the bgl created by tmf2bgl is another "right" way to do it.The reason I bring this up is my work over the last six months has been a study of the different techniques for airport polys along with the use of ground2k4 to create excellant terrain in the immediate areas beyond the airport. I recently found that including a combination of vtp2 polygons with custom textures for the airport overrides vtp polygons with landclass textures applied. While there may be workarounds using secondary fs library layers, this is still not working for me. I may still figure that out, yet the technique still has the unpleasant requirement that the "custom" textures for use on the vtp poly must be stored in the fs9worldscenerytexture file, which is a complication...I think most folks like to keep addons seperate from the game itself.I'm now finding the use of a 4 lod13 grid of tmf2bgl style scenery for the airport property is desireable. It allows for the use of addon directories only for storage of the textures, and I can include vtp2 polygons using landclass assignment beside it to my hearts content.Now...to the thread about afcad...perhaps this is one consequence, as its not working for me over top of these textures. Dick started the thread describing the need to remove all ground textures...making me think that my method won't allow the use of afcad for visual images.Still in the early phases of experimenting with AFCAD, but it seems to me that if I have to sacrifice the ease of afcad's taxiways for the realism of the tmf2bgl style airport along with vtp2 polygons surrounding it, that may be my choice.Bob Bernstein

[Guest rafaelds]

>> I think you wrote this because its the closest mimic to the default. Since the fs2k2 sdk described the use of custom imagry in resample.exe, I'm assuming that using the bgl created by tmf2bgl is another "right" way to do it.Definitely, Bob. Perhaps I didn't express myself very well. (probably because my English isn't that good)When I talked about the VTP poly being the correct way, I was thinking of a more general case, where the scenery design project does not include this much detail, and the intention is just to represent airports in a generic way, pretty much like the default scenery. You may ask why, since the default database already does this. But the data is very coarse for many places around the world, including where I live (south Brazil, near Uruguay).I agree with you that some LOD5 (I think that's what you meant instead of LOD13) quadrants filled with a custom texture are generally better than a poly as a background. Other than the advantages you mentioned, it's also possible to make your airport seamless integrate with the stock textures around (of course, if one has the necessary skills in a paint program). Small grass strips are one of the kinds that benefits the most out of this, because often they are just another patch of land when seen from far away. And, by cutting, pasting, rotating, resizing things in an image made of four default landclass textures (appropriately chosen to match the nearby ones, of course) one can make a ground texture that includes the aerodrome grass in the correct place and aligned with the "grid" of crops, pastures etc.And there's one more bonus, which is the possibility of correctly places autogen trees and houses in the vicinity. But this all is a lot of work, and it's more suited to detailed airports.I guess it's OK to use AFCAD airports on top of these TMF textures. After all, many default airports are done this way and they work. Perhaps putting the AF2 file in a higher layer, or trying different filenames in order to change the loading order... It's strange that it's not working.

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Bob.I haven't tried to use the AFCAD runways and aprons over CUSTOM ( placed by resample ). Maybe this weekend I'll give it a go to confirm your problem. I can see advantages to your method, if we can get it to work. I do understand your using 4 CUSTOM groundtiles, as that is the minimum resample's BGLs will display ( because like the water landclass value, they don't blend from the assigned LOD13 vertex ).As far as excludes, I used the SCASM exclude to get rid of any stray scenery autogen that might want to pop up through the runway... and as long as I used SCASM, I included an Area16n flatten... why not? Your CUSTOM shouldn't need an exclude, as CUSTOM groundtiles will exclude autogen. But if you need a flatten, the SCASM code works fine.The next version of FS may not allow these codes, but what of it? The next version may not allow LWM flattens or VTP polys either. In fact, those structures are still using BGLC and the old header style!SCASM excludes are identical to anything else we can code with BGLC for removing objects. Using a VTP exclude for the runway would make all the LOD13 Areas involved excluded. Using VTP polys for the airport background might still require an old-style exclude to get rid of odd autogen. The exception appears to be vector autogen ( telephone poles and the like ). They require a VTP exclude for the LOD13 Area.At this point, there's nothing wrong with SCASM coding.And SCASM may quicken the design process when reworking default runways.Dick

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Bob.Just a followup.I have no trouble using AFCAD 2.11 created runways and aprons over CUSTOM groundtiles, as placed by resample. So your method should work just fine.Dick

[bob.bernstein 0]

pretty interesting...ok, the experiments continue...I'll report in a bit.B

[bob.bernstein 0]

Hi all, of course you were right, Dick. My problem was I had a scasm exclude in place to remove the default taxiways and runway...it appears that the afcad does this by itself. It also appears that a scasm exclude acts on an afcad bgl even if its in the same scenery folder as the afcad bgl. That's a remarkable departure from normal function of a scasm exclude.I just figured out how to change the properties on the taxiway too...cool...at least the width.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/51461.jpg

[basher 0]

Dick,Since reading your post I have been pouring over SCASM html documents to try and make sense of this. I think I have it sussed. But...Is it correct to assume that setting the surfacetype for the surrounding terrain doesn't affect visual scenery except to cause fx like dirt from a/c wheels in ext view taxi etc.Also lat/lon referred to inArea( 5 N42.650312 W88.656005 2 )andRefPoint( abs :_Set_Surface_Fail 1.00 N42.650312 W88.656005 V1= 20000 V2= 1000 E= 291 )would be same as the lat/lon of the Airport Reference Point in AFCAD2Presumably then,SurfaceType( 1 60 1200 291 ) ; rough surfacewould create a "rough surface" rectangle of 60m west and east of ref point and 1200m north and south of ref point.If this is right, then I get itThanks Bryan Jenkins

[Guest royboy]

Hi Fellas,This is a little different from what you are discussing but maybe you can help me out since you seem pretty AFCAD savvy.I make bush scenery .. primarily coastal locations for seaplanes. I use FSDS to create my objects and FSArchitect to place them. Everything works OK except that Architect will not creat an AFD readable by FS9 except as "scenery from previous version" All I want AFCAD to do is create a start location for me beside my dock. I don't need any runways or anything else. So here is my problem ..I am trying to create a water type start location for a seaplane base. Everything works fine except the heading. No matter which heading I set AFCAD 2.11 to start the a/c always starts at the same heading.It doesn';t matter if I use the same coordinates for the airport and the start point or not (help file says AFCAD will automatically assume the heading of the runway for the start).I have tried creating a fake water runway and still no joy.Any suggestions?Ray

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Bryan.You've got it. The rough surface doesn't affect the runway, as that is determined by the surface type selected in AFCAD... it affects the PAB area.Dick