arno

Hi,You might want to tell us what the problems are that you are having...

Hi,

I was wondering, there seems to be 4 different lights in the halo.bmp file, can anybody tell me what lights they each represent. Is there something special you should be aware of when editing this file, i seem to get some strange "borealis" phenomenon around some lights (just from certain angles), even if i just put in a perfectly round circle?

I also do not know what each of the 4 lights are used for. When editing the file it is most important to make sure the centre of the lights does not move. Did you also check if you saved it in the same texture format after editing?

Hi,I would still check if .NET is installed, AFAIK FSX itself does not need it to run. For the tools menu you might also not need it, but the GMax exporter requires it.

Hi,You need to make sure that the vertices are maximum 100 meters apart from each other. So this means that you will have to slice the polygons of your runway into pieces.From a distance you might still get some flickering, that can probably be fixed with a LOD (I am still experimenting with this).

Hi,Bit late reply :). What kind of things do you want to tweak in the MDL file? And for which FS version?As mentioned for FS2004 MDL Tweaker might do the job for you and maybe ModelConverterX can help as well. But both of these tools have their limitations, so it is good to know what you want to tweak.

Hi,Before starting to tweak v1 and v2 values (especially the v2) it is good to realize what they mean.The v1 distance is the distance at which the object becomes visible. So this is a value that you can tweak to get better performance. Usually the value you want or need depends on the size and importance of the object.The v2 value on the other hand is fixed. There is only one optimal value for it. So in general I would not advice you to change it. The v2 value is the radius of the object. It's the radius of a circle from the reference point that the entire object fits in. If you make the v2 value to small your object can disappear from certain angles. If you make it too big it means your object is drawn when it should be out of view already and it will hurt performance.

Hi,

FS Altitude was first bought to my attention in the Flightstore magazine with PC Pilot as was quite tempted after looking at the screenshots on their website, is the Western European package any good, for the price it is, i'd like to receive some feedback on the product before i jump into the deep end and buy, can anyone shed some light on the product please, i've heard very little about it?

Looking at the product information it is a photo scenery that uses 15 meter resolution images. If you are flying at FL300 or similar IFR altitudes that is fine. But as soon as you get near the ground you will obviously notice that you are missing detail. I have never used the product, but I guess it delivers what it advertises: imagery for higher altitude.

Hi,

Yes Arno, it is at the edges of the BlueMarble tile I have extracted. And yes, it seems to occur in places of 'monotonous' color (deep ocean water). I will try to add some 'noise' using some image programs and test the results.

What we did in the end is not use the water from the photo, but add a watermask to show the default FSX water in the end. Not sure if that is an option to you as well.

Hi,I have also seen this sometimes, but mainly in parts of the imagery that use very monotonous colours (so all the same or very similar colours). I have not seen it in other parts of the imagery. Is that similar to what you see?

Hi,Where do you get stuck? I assume you already tried to update the lat/lon positions in the XML file to the new location you want.

Hi,

What are the different format rules and what are the tools of the trade? I do have the SDK, PhotoShop, Corel Paint and others. I recall Martins editing tools such as DXTBMP do those still work?Ground textures, I want to edit some of the default textures for my own use, what format to resave them in?3D building objects, daytime, night LM textures and transparent textures.Aircraft textures, if I want to edit or do a repaint and not loose bump mapping etc?Editing clouds and any others I may have missed.

I would use the ImageTool tool that comes with the SDK. If you open the default textures in it you can see in which format they are (most likely DDS with DXT compression). After editing you can then use ImageTool to save it in the same format again.

Hi,

How do I map?

There are the UVW Mapping and the Unwrap Mapping modifier in GMax that you can use for this.Did you try to follow some of the introduction tutorials on making objects in GMax? They should address these topics. The FS2004 gamepack comes with a tutorial on how to make a house and on this website you can also find good tutorials.

Hi,

When I apply the Textures to the Building in GMAX the Textures are way too small and need to be moved so that it maches the Building.

What do you mean with the textures being too small? After applying your material to the object, the next step is to map it. In this phase you determine which part of the texture is displayed on your polygons.Or do you mean that the texture does not have enough detail?

Hi,Your folder structure looks fine. FS will look in the texture folder that belongs to the scenery folder where the BGL file is.What is the format of your texture? FS can not read 24 bit BMP files. It is best to make it a DXT file with mipmaps using ImageTool.

Hi,I would for sure try to contact the authors first to see if they want to help you. Or at least to ask permission to use their work in that way.With my ModelConverterX tool (mentioned before already), you can import scenery objects from FSX and FS2004 MDL format and from SCASM files. The tool also allows you to export to 3DS format, which you can import in 3DS Max.

Hi,

Time to move on, Alan. If you mastered AFW you can learn SceneGenX. Although AFW was good in its day, SceneGenX has far greater functionality and is easier to use. My guess is that time spent doing that will serve you better in the long run than learning how to convert old models.

I think it is still worth converting those old models from API macro to the modern MDL format. That is exactly why I made ModelConverterX (mentioned before already). Doing such a conversion also results in better performance in most cases, compared to using the older API macros in FS2004.If you only want to place objects and not design a complete airport, than tools like Rwy12 or ObPlacer XML might also be useful to you. They allow you to place objects using the FS2004 BGLComp XML code.

Hi,The presentation you can find here gives a nice overview of how the scenery engine works. It has been made by the ACES team a few years ago.

Hi,No, that is not possible. Most likely there are multiple BGL files and you could not load the ones you don't like. But loading only a part of a BGL file it not possible.

Hi,

How do I add red stop bars at rwy holding points? I have some ISD airports such as Venezia. Roma etc., where the red stop bar changes to green as the a/c is about to cross it. I know that one of the halo.bmp lights is used. I have also seen "very small" rwys used as well. Any help would be appreciated

I think in the sceneries you have seen that they made some custom BGL_LIGHT lights (with GMax for example). And then tweaked the ASM source code of them so that they display at the right conditions. For example by checking how close the aircraft is and than changing the colour based on that.

Hi Bill,I think you will get a better response if you post this in the general FSX forum. In this forum the developers hang around who makes their own scenery and are discussing the technical details of how to do so. But in the general forum you are more likely to meet users of the products you mention.

Hi,As mentioned above, I think most people if they do it use the Pro version and the 3DS format to go to GMax. In GMax it can be exported to the MDL format for FS.The more complex your objects, and that would be especially the case for aircraft, the more work you need to do in GMax to be able to export it to FS. For example setting the material settings correctly, setting up the LODs, etc. In general I think it is easier to work with GMax directly in that case.

Hi,

I know one example of a simple object that is influenced by weather - the windsock.That brings me to wonder, is it possible to create more complex objects that are influenced by weather, say trees close to the airport that are swaying in relation to wind velocity, or even "transparent" objects such as debris / snow flying across the runway?

Although it would be great if we can do things like that, FSX does not allow conditional animations for scenery at all. So even making a custom windsock model is not possible. Most developers will return the FS2004 MDL format for those things, as it is possible there.

Hi,Many BMP files for flight simulator already contain mipmaps (they are extended textures). If you open them in ImageTool you can see if this is the case or not. If they are not present you can indeed add them with the tool as well.

Hi Brian,After you place the new object (the default hangar will appear), you need to double click on the object on the map. This will open the properties of that object. In them you will see the thumbmail on the right and by clicking on that you will see the list of all available objects where you can choose from.

Hi Brian,When you place a new object the default is indeed the hangar from Edwards. But one the dialog with all the object properties you should see a screenshot of that object (or else it shows a default images) and the name. If you click on that you get a list of all libraries and the objects in them available. From there you can browse to your library and select the object you want.Hopefully this helps,