Poorly textured airports

[Guest Pieter]

Just for my own entertainment and comparisons I'm on tour in the Seattle area between the smaller airports with both FS9 en FU3. I fly to one airport first in FU then in FS. Needless to say that most smaller aiports such as Bandera State, etc. are almost invisible in FU! One has to criss-cross near ground level many times over most of them before one can barely see the dotted lines that may mark the runway. I tried Resviewer but could not really find the files that contain the textures of each airport so that one can adjust, as an e.g., the colours or whatever of the landing strips.I was just not in the mood to do screen captures to illustrate, but I think you will get the idea... mmm that FS looks much better and realistic (shudder;-)) than my beloved aging sim?What and how can one improve on this - any takers?Pieter

[agtim 0]

Hi Pieter,Airport definitions are located in the Airport folder or packages.The model placements are in the models folder inside .mod files.You need FLED to view and modify.FledViewer.exe to analyze and AirportEditor (under construction, soon in the library) as I remember you can force the line display during flight with shift F11.The small airports in the Seattle mountain region was just made with lines to save time. You can build a runway model and place it there using FLED then it's easier to find it but check first the ground may be it's not a flat area then you have to build a tilted runway.Robert Driscoll wrote tutorial for model builder see makeobj2.zip and makerunway.zipin the library. You can convert your MSFS FBOs to FU3 models using my bgl2e tool also in the library. :-wave agtim

[Guest R_Driscoll]

The airports "out of the box" are a bit sparse, yes, but a lot of work has been done since to provide the tools (as agtim said) to make them as detailed as you like. So with the McChord, ForestFalls, Grays AAF and Seattle packages I explored how to enhance the airports. Chris supplied deatiled enhancements for the Seattle region for (I think) all of the airports (I assume you have got these? If not search for his name in the package library). In the UKS scenery we have also enhanced existing airports, mainly by overtexturing - adding higher resolution ground textures to replace the existing ones, most useful near airports, so we can have taxiways, ramps etc to the resolution we want, similar in principle to what MSFS does. Also thanks to Captn Bazza and LGS White pages we have added hundreds of new models to populate the world, all available in the avsim library. Other enhancements are improvements to Seattle's palette (better snow!), better flt3.cfg files which allow improved weather effects, and well over 100 planes developed since LGS gave us the initial fleet. So search avsim for these and you can then enjoy the great flightfeel of FU3 without feeling that you're in an old sim.RobD.

[Guest Pieter]

Hmm, thanks guys. Although I'm not so much worried about "true" runways and even less so about the models. I just wanted to "repaint" the textured area to enhance the looks of an earth/grass runway. Rather than to go the FLED way! I'm not really interested in a full FBO with geese and grazing cattle type of thing, just to enhance the landing strips. I could not find Chris's Seattle area, only SFB.Pieter

[Guest R_Driscoll]

You can email Chris (use the avsim email service) and he would be delighted to help you.I think repainting the ground textures is not worthwhile when it is so easy now to put a full realistic grass or concrete strip on top. Both agtim and I have put packages on avsim for doing just this.http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=40879http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=31399How to make runways:http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=25263In this way, the textures stay realistic right down to ground level, rather than blurring at 2000 ft.Using FLED is easy and very rewarding, and adding models has a great effect on the feeling of realism. Here are some easy downloads to help:Taxiway signs (improved):http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=9743Generic taxiways:http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=19039Generic airport objects:http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=21355There are dozens of other similar collections. Or if you don't like using FLED and building your own, contact Chris for a complete set or search for 'package', 'airport', 'bush' in the AVSIM search engine, and you will find over 50 packages for the Seattle region alone. Installation of these is normally as easy as moving the downloaded folder into your 'packages' folder in FU3.RobD.

[Guest Pieter]

> Using FLED is easy and very rewarding, and adding models has a> great effect on the feeling of realism. Here are some easy> downloads to help:Thanks Rob!Hmm, back then to ol' FLED it'll be! I still have Salt Lake City airport I remade for myself when FU3 was brand new oout the box long ago, before I was trapped in flying rather then being creative. ;-) I'll browse again for ready-made packages...Pieter

[Guest R_Driscoll]

You're welcome! Maybe its time to make a sort of list of useful library facilities - we've got a great stock of useful material there (Ansgar's incredible planes, Stefan's challenges, Jon's planes, packages and models, etc etc and it is hard to locate them. RobD.