Is there a way to add a runway photograph?

[al2000]

Hello,

This is my first post here. I am not a developer but was wondering if there if there is a reasonably easy way to replace the default runways in FS2004 and FSX with photographic images of runways.

For example I know that FS Architect had a tool that allowed you to add a custom texture to the runway so that it looked nicer. You just made a BMP image of a runway and loaded it in. But unfortunately it looks like FS Architect has discontinued and I can't try out that feature.

What I would simply like to do is take a photo of a runway in Google Earth and make it into a BMP image and then assign it to a particular runway instead of having the default boring runways. Is there a way to do this and what tools would make this possible? I have looked at a few things out there that looked like they might help me but not sure if they can or not because they are not always so clear on the websites as to whether they can do this task. I am not a developer but I don't mind trying to learn a few skills in this regard to be able to have improve the environment I fly in.

Thanks for any help you can suggest.

The programs I read brief look at were:

Airport Facilitator X

http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=afxv1

Instant Scenery

http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=instscen

And Abacus EZ Scenery

http://www.abacuspub.com/

Al

[al2000]

Oh I just saw another post dealing about photo runways. I should've looked first before posting. Looks pretty complicated to achieve this result. Gmax and polygons I am frightened already! Pity there is no quick way you could just take a photograph of some land, airport or runway, you had earlier prepared with nice sharp resolution and then just simply be able to overlay it straight away over some of the dull land scenery in FS.

Al

[arno]

Hi Al,

I am not aware of a quick and easy way to do this indeed. The GMax ground polygons option is what comes to my mind as well.

[xbuddy]

I think custom runway is famous question in here, are you plan build some tutorial of it Arno? like simpilot magazine do? :)

is another way/ tools to make this happen for FSX runway besides using a fs2002 gamepack techniques?

[n4gix]

Frankly, nothing in FS development is "easy..."

If it were, there would be a whole lot more folks busy creating stuff. :rolleyes:

[arno]

I think custom runway is famous question in here, are you plan build some tutorial of it Arno? like simpilot magazine do? :)

is another way/ tools to make this happen for FSX runway besides using a fs2002 gamepack techniques?

If you want to make custom textured ground polygons, using the FS2002 gamepack is the only way. Following the latest FSX SDK you can only make runways with the BGLComp XML code. If you want to be able to customize things more the FS2002 gamepack with ASM tweaking is the only way to go.

Bill Womack made a nice tutorial (http://www.simpilotnet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=206&Itemid=32) related to this recently.

[nz255]

How's that tool coming along that you're making Arno? GroundPolygonAssistent?

[arno]

Very slow, I have been kept rather busy recently with other things (work for example). Hopefully during the Christmas break I can make some more progress on it.