GMAX landable surface

[Guest Stormshadow]

Hello peeps,Question: How can I make a surface (created in GMAX) landable...?Storm

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Storm.This probably belongs in the MSFS Scenery Design Forum.Check this out:http://forums.avsim.com/dcboard.php?az=sho...3&topic_id=9670JR Morgan and I discuss using zero-height Advanced Buildings as helipads. The only restriction is that you must set your aircraft's crash detection on. The roof of an Advanced Building is landable. We don't need the sides, and we don't need a texture, although a texture can be over written with another in the scasm code. The ADV BLDG roof will be rectangular, and flat, but it may be rotated as desired. These invisible pads can also be stacked, to allow landing on different floors of a building. They are hard fron the top-down, but inactive from the bottom-up. And yes, you can actually make an invisible runway floating in space.The pad needs to be placed at elevation, not AGL, and so should the GMax object upon which it rests. Some designers will place a flatten under a building, so any mesh addons will not alter the height of the objects placed on them... not a bad idea. Area16n flattens ( elevations ) are fine.There are other schemes for making hardened landing surfaces, some are even built-in macros in scenery programs, but none are as simple and reliable as this.JR has created some macros for helipads, but I believe all the design programs allow Advanced Buildings, and all allow you to claim zero-height for the walls.Dick

[Guest Stormshadow]

Thanks Dick...once again! :)Apart from helipads, can one make an entire region landable? A friend of mine managed to make a small Island in Gmax (using elevation files from ACAD) and although the result is fantastic, the surface is not landable. I was wondering if there's a way to get around this....Storm

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Storm.To my knowledge, there would be no workable solution to making that island landable.Dick