How can I make a grass runway in this cityscape?

[betelgeuse 41]

The first photo shows the position of a grass runway at a sports stadium in Marosvasarhely (Targa Mures) in Romania. The airfield is not included in the FS9 default scenery. The second photo shows the FS9 scenery with the aircraft cross at the 'correct' real life lat/lon. The city autogen is only vaguely accurate, but at least the River Mures runs roughly as it should from NE to SW. The arrow points to a green area beside the river which I suppose could be tweaked to resemble the actual aerodrome in the first photo and which is not too far away from the real life location. I have modified many airports with AFCAD and I've tried to create this new airfield with it. However, I get very odd results with houses floating in the air and other strange effects. I think this is probably due to the lack of a flattening tool in AFCAD. I have a little experience of AFW but not of SGX or Ground 2K4. I'd be grateful for ideas on how best to approach this.Thanks.John Betelhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/152302.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/152304.jpg

[arno 1]

Hi Jon,To make a grass area I would suggest that you use a VTP polygon, this is also how the grass of the default airports is made. It would probably be a good idea to make a flatten at the correct altitude as well.To create VTP polygons SBuilder and Ground2k4 are the most used tools. Which one you choose depends on your personal preference I guess. With both of these tools you should also be able to generate a LWM flatten for your airport.

[scott967 62]

I think this is an ideal project for LWMViewer and Sbuilder.I would1. Append the default streams file ST954150.BGL into sbuilder, and using your google shot as a background, edit the river to more closely match the real one. you might also want to play with the roads and railroads too.2. Use sbuilder to create a flatten and background for your airport, in the real world position.3. Use AFCAD to place the airport details.4. As an option, use your shot as a basis for creating a landclass file for the area.Attached is a quick mod, with airport set to 304.0 m (designed for default mesh and terrain). Just create a scenery area with scenery subfolder to unzip into and activate in the scenery library (or just unzip into addon sceneryscenery). If you use sbuilder, you could just append my files and mod them as desired.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/152307.jpgscott s..

[betelgeuse 41]

Wow! How I wish I could do 'quick mods' like this, Scott. Amazing! Thanks to Arno too. I must get to work on it. John

[Mace 1,904]

Wow is right. I have got to get into SBuilder and Ground2K more.Thank you for this great thread John, Arno, Scott...Rhett

[betelgeuse 41]

RhettSbuilder is great! And the help folder is excellent. In addition, Scott has written a superb Sbuilder tutorial which I worked through today. I'm making real progress now that I've found this. Despite several attempts I could never understand Ground2K4 although I'm sure it is also be a good program.John

[Mace 1,904]

I'll have to look for that tutorial.I'm wanting to load a background Google image so that I have something to work with in the background, and from what I gather SBuilder can do that.I too tried Ground2k and found that it would take a lot of time for me to gain proficiency with it.I have been able to learn Gmax pretty well though. But it is really for object creation, not VTP or LWM stuff.It's tough going from using BGLCOMP, BGLGEN, then getting out of scenery design for oh, 6-7 years, and trying to make a comeback. :)Rhett

[betelgeuse 41]

It's on Avsim: sbuilder_terrain_tutorial_v1.zipJohn

[betelgeuse 41]

>scott wrote:>I think this is an ideal project for LWMViewer and Sbuilder.>>I would>>1. Append the default streams file ST954150.BGL into>sbuilder, and using your google shot as a background, edit the>river to more closely match the real one. you might also want>to play with the roads and railroads too.Help needed please. I cannot append ST954150.BGL into Sbuilder. I get runtime 9 error. I can append AB files so it can't be an install problem.John

[betelgeuse 41]

Problem solved. I unwittingly attempted to append something called ST954150.bgl from NAME. This gave me a runtime error. When I looked where I should have looked i.e. EURE I found ST954150.bgl and this file appended fine. Question now is how did ST954150.bgl get into NAME? And do I delete it? John

[betelgeuse 41]

Scott S created a great scenery for me for this a while back. I've been trying to do the same myself using his excellent tutorial and Jon Masterson's series. I created a large field at the correct lat/lon and I moved the river so that it is following a more accurate course (google map). I've had partial success but seem to have run up against the buffers. I've posted two photos showing that there ia a discontinuity in the river.The VTP2 airfield polygon (#16 for some reason) is in green. There is a flatten polygon at 304 metres, and the river is a VTP2 polygon. The airfield poly is level 9 and the river is level 4.There are three files in the FS9 Addon scenery:Mureseni_LWM2.bglMureseni_VTPL.bglMureseni_VTPP.bglNo matter what I do, I cannot fix this. I even tried a flatten over the intervening autogen but the river remained hidden.

[betelgeuse 41]

Problem solved I think. Logged on this morning and started up FS9. The river came up fine. Next thing is to alter the shape of the city perimeter to be more like the real world. Using LWMViewer I can bring up FL, AB, RL etc, all files in fact, but there doesnt seem to be a polygon for the city itself. If anyone can advise me about this I'd be grateful.John

[scott967 62]

The two main approaches to this are1. Create a modified landclass file using Sbuilder or Ground2k4 calling out city textures in the appropriate area. Landclass blends adjacent texture tiles together, and is limited to LDO13 size tiles, so it isn't possible to be precise, but it does blend in with the surrounding country side. 2. Create a VTP poly and assign it an appropriate landclass (city) value. Make sure it is a lower priority than your airport background and roads/railroads, but > 4 so it doesn't cover water. This allows for precise shape, but it doesn't blend in so the edge sometimes looks kind of obvious.scott s..

[betelgeuse 41]

Thanks again! I'll look at the landclass option but am not sure how to append this into SBuilder. I will read up about this. In the meantime, I created an AFCAD for this new grass strip but have a problem with altitudes. The SBuild flatten polygon is set to 304m and the AFCAD runway altitude also to 304m. In the sim the runway sits about 1 ft above the airfield at both ends. When I reduce the AFCAD altitude by 0.5 m, one end only of the runway disappears into the airfield. I'm using some ID runway markings to help me see what is going on. I cant understand why this should happen. If both ends sank in, that would be okay and I could most probably fix things. But one end??I know from other threads that there can be problems with AFCAD altitudes when modifying default airports but this should not apply to this project.