Mesh scenery and building elevations...Help please...

[Guest Tatu]

Hi!>I'm sure I saw an airport somewhere that had snowbanks, though>these must be triggered to show up only in winter.Yes, I have done that for example. And hills as well because the flattens and remesh were not precise enough. The link Arno posted has good instructions to get seasons show and change correctly.I think small hills in important places (like airports) are best done with gmax, just make sure you don't use hundreds of polys. :-DI did this with Rovaniemi. As you can see there are two layers actually. First few meters up from platform to the parking place. And behind that is another hill, you can see reindeers on the top of that one. All done in gmax and I think it works ok. And in this case it was the only solution to do all in gmax.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/94808.jpgOh and I tricked the autogen trees to grow through the gmax hill with a "dummy rotated call", I rotated the object around itself 0 times. This trick keeps the autogen around the object and finnish forests keep growing. ;-)Tatu

[Guest abent]

Thank you all three. This is some excellent advice/suggestions. I will preceed with GMAX to make my model - keeping the polygon count low. I will have to do some study to learn how alter the code that you mention, Arno. Not even really sure how to open up that source code. If I run into trouble, do you mind if I track you down again?Tatu, your scenery looks great. What you have acheived is very similar to I would like to do.Holger, I use your wonderful mesh sceneries. BC look so much better now than default. I especially like what you've done with Castlegar. One of my favorite airports to fly in and out of.One quick query, obviuosly I will have to make 4 different textures, maybe 5 for hard winter. Could I use default FS textures? I don't know if they are 256x256 or 512x512. Also, it will obviously have to be tiled so the texture is not stretched too badly. Is there some ratio, say 256x256 texture, for every x number of meters that FS uses?Thanks again you guys. This is extremely helpful! :D Adam

[arno 1]

>I will have to do some study>to learn how alter the code that you mention, Arno. Not even>really sure how to open up that source code. If I run into>trouble, do you mind if I track you down again?Hehe, no problem at all. Tbat is what these forums are for. In the Fs2002 gamepack you can just press the option "keep files" during the export to save the source code as well. In this file you make the tweaks then.>One quick query, obviuosly I will have to make 4 different>textures, maybe 5 for hard winter. Could I use default FS>textures? I don't know if they are 256x256 or 512x512. Also,>it will obviously have to be tiled so the texture is not>stretched too badly. Is there some ratio, say 256x256 texture,>for every x number of meters that FS uses?FS uses a 256x256 texture on an area of circa 1.2x1.2 km, this gives the famous 4.8 meter resolution. But mesh textures are displayed different than object textures, so they might not look completely similar.You can very well use default textures if you want, these are in general 256x256. But if you want you can also use 512x512 textures.One warning, it is not possible to use HW textures in 3D objects. These are triggered in FS by the snow and the scenery can not see the state of that. But you can add a snow texture during certain period of the year of course, especially when there is snow often over there (which is not really the case for the sceneries I made :)).Last thing, the tutorial uses the season variables (6F8), but it is probably better to use the day of the year variable. That way you can get the season switch completely the same as the mesh scenery. The season variable just splits the year into blocks of three months, which is not how the seasonal textures are changed on the mesh.

[Guest GCBarni]

Hi Adam,No, I'm not from N.B. at all....I live in Windsor, ON. But I have a copy of some mesh that when used creates some very artistic effects in some places and the river from Fredericton to the sea was one such place. This mesh was "loaned" to me to see if a correction could be made, and I won't say any more than that, except to hazard a guess by saying that my 'fix' would probably not be beneficial to you since we're talking about two different add-on's.When I decided to redo London, ON. Airport, I emailed the administrator with a request to access the apron side of the terminal in order to get photos. I included info about myself and referred to the Avsim link so that they could confirm that I was who and what I claimed.....and not some sort of nefarious criminal or terrorist.I had a response in about 2 weeks with an "OK" and we set up a date whereupon I was escorted through security and spent a few minutes taking pics. We came back inside and sat for a few moments over coffee and a chat. I felt welcome and completely at ease and thanked them profusely.At Sarnia, I visited on short notice, on a Sunday and was denied access to the active side of the terminal. I should have given advance notice and a regular work day might have helped because supervisors would be on duty. On a Sunday, no one wanted to risk their position....can't blame them really. Luckily, one of the security staff, who was off on that particular day, is a simmer and he was able to get the necessary photos for me.For Windsor, I sent a written request in mid-August....to date, no reply! I even included the bit about visiting London and how they treated me! Apparently, it carries little weight. I've been over and got photos of everything else.....on a Sunday since parked vehicles and other obstructions are less than a working day.....except the active side of the terminal. I haven't given up however, and intend to drop in some day and ask to access the apron out front. There's no real panic yet, as I have enough material to keep me busy...the terminal can be done last. Besides, better results when the trees are bare!