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Editing Airports

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I'm trying to edit airports to make them more accurate (airports near my home town and where I go to college). I'm suing AFCAD and have it down to photo real according to the pilots who fly at my college but it has a few flaws. I can't get the terminal set up in the right spot. Is there a way I can edit the scenery for the ENTIRE airport instead of just the runways and taxiways like I have done with AFCAD? Can you point me in the correct direction for the products that would allow me to do this?Thanks,Medic

There's a tutorial I uploaded here at AVSIM that deals with this. "How to decompile, edit, and recompile default scenery object BGLs" is the title and it is also in the Scenery Hall of Fame at http://www.scenery.org.It's a step of methods that I used to do practically the same thing you are doing - only I used it to revamp Sanderson Field in Shelton< Washington.

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The more general way of scenery design, does not include decompiling default files and creating new BGL files from them. You can also use exclude files to remove parts you don't like and then place new objects at the locations you like. That is how most designers do it.

Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

I agree, but SceneGenX has a user interface that can't even touch AFCAD's clarity and ease. When I work with SceneGenX, it's mainly to position objects within an imported AFCAD.

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Personally I don't like the GUI of SGX either. I prefer to use AFCAD and do the object placement with a tool like Rwy12 or ObPlacer XML (just by slewing through my scenery).

Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

I agree that trying to build from scratch in SGX would be hard, but if you are using a photo for positioning, thre isn't much of an alternative.scott s..

Speaking of AFCAD, does anyone know why the program hasn't been revised? Every so often I get a pop up saying that the version is more than 20 months old and that I should get the latest version.Did Lee Swordy choose not to update AFCAD anymore?

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No, 2.21 is the latest version available. I don't expect any more updates for this version of FS.

Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

Quote:+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++No, 2.21 is the latest version available. I don't expect anymore updates for this version of FS.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++That's the same version I have. It'd be great to see it get a little update or two for this version of FS. IMHO, it's one of the best tools out there for creating/modifying airports.

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Yes, it would be great if we could have object placement in AFCAD as well. But I don't expect that is going to happen. From what I have heard Lee is not working on any AFCAD updates.

Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

  • 3 weeks later...

I've been trying to use the tutorials and I can't seem to figure out how to display the terminals using any program I have (SceneGenX, SBuilder). I attempted to follow the tutorial for decompiling the default BGL scenery for Philadelphia (KPHL), but it seems everything but the terminal buildings show up. What I would like to do is the ability to recreate terminal buildings from scratch. I want to create a smoother curved terminal wing for the smaller express aircraft since the default scenery doesn't work well. Can anyone help me on how to view the buildings with SceneGenX? If SceneGenX cannot do it, is there something else out there? I know how to exclude the default buildings that are there but I don't know how to recreate the terminals. Are they a 3D object? This has me stumped.Thanks,Eric

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Hi Eric,On most airports the terminal buildings are indeed 3D objects, so if you want to improve them you will have to design a new terminal in a program like GMax or FSDS3.I don't think tools like SBuilder or SGX can show them, as there is only a placement of the object done in the code they are loading. They would have to lookup the object in the library before they could display it.

Arno

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.

FSDeveloper.com | Former Microsoft FS MVP | Blog

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