MSFS Adding arrestor gear and carrier markings

[crushnik]

I used to be able to add these via library objects in P3D using Airport Design Editor. I've been watching videos on scenery design in MSFS but haven't found one that discusses this line of work. Is there a way to add these runway markings to MSFS, like Blender?

 

[crushnik]

Looking at videos out for importing satellite imagery into MSFS and it seems bits of my old process would actually work better. I can generate a PNG file on SAS Planet and it has a KML file with coordinates. Could I somehow feed this data into QGIS and then cut it up into grids?

 

[superspud]

As in adding them to Naval Air Station runways?

In most places the underlying satellite imagery should be good enough to simply trace over them with painted lines supplied by the SDK if you delete the aprons. It'll probably wind up looking better than any sort of imported image too.

Or I'd use a bunch of square aprons with custom colours which would work better and give far more control over the appearance.

I can likely dig out PNGs of all the major markings if you want, which you could apply to aprons using a material added in the material editor, but I'd favour in-SDK stuff first.

 

[crushnik]

Well thanks but the reason for doing this is one of my favorite airports is now a solar panel farm now, but the airfield still shows up in SAS Planet's Google scenery. In MSFS the runways are there but they look hideous and the background texture is where they started trenching for the power lines. Ideally I'd like to create a freeware package of Cold War-era bases as they appeared in their glory days and this is my practice run.

 

[superspud]

It does indeed sound like you need some imagery then.

But for the actual carrier markings I'd still do the square apron route. It'll be far sharper and easier to tune than any import.

Guess you'll need something on the ground to refer to first though.

 

[crushnik]

Right. I think creating apron textures wouldn't be so bad if I could trace from something. This was all a breeze in P3D/FSX (thanks to a lot of help here over the years), but now I'm having to relearn everything.

 

[crushnik]

Seems the way people do it is to pick points on the image that you can assign coordinates to, but my issue is that the airfield is wiped out so there isn't a way to do that very accurately. Meanwhile I have a KML file that has all the data I need to put it right where it needs to be. Don't know if the videos I am watching, which all seem to be about two years old, show an old way or if this process really is more complicated than it was in P3D.

 

[GaryGB]

Hi Chris:

As with FS2Kx, in MSFS one can either drape imagery onto the underlying terrain mesh as custom land class textures which will be limited to the max resolution of LOD-20 (which is actually higher resolution than most areas of the world currently have available for imagery, thus one may need to "up-sample" to ensure priority visibility over other default local ground textures).

Otherwise, one can map imagery onto Ground Polygons as flat / level or sloped 3D models with no assigned limit to displayed texture resolution at run time.


You may wish to review this thread:

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...efault-land-detail-texture.456765/post-912411

GaryGB

 

[crushnik]

Hi Chris:

As with FS2Kx, in MSFS one can either drape imagery onto the underlying terrain mesh as custom land class textures which will be limited to the max resolution of LOD-20 (which is actually higher resolution than most areas of the world currently have available for imagery, thus one may need to "up-sample" to ensure priority visibility over other default local ground textures).

Otherwise, one can map imagery onto Ground Polygons as flat / level or sloped 3D models with no assigned limit to displayed texture resolution at run time.


You may wish to review this thread:

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...efault-land-detail-texture.456765/post-912411

GaryGB

THANK YOU. My SDK didn't come with samples for some reason, and this thread looks like what I figured had to be out there somewhere. I just hadn't put in the right search terms or opened the right forum thread to come across it

 

[GaryGB]

Apparently MS-Asobo attempts to remove older SDK components previously installed on our hard drives, for which methodology has changed substantially.


But, the in-sim Menus do change occasionally, as Dick shows us here (click on "View Attachment" link):

Doesn't this get the samples?
View attachment 85799

Online SDK Docs components are usually current within a day or so of MSFS numeric version- or SDK- updates discussed in MS-Asobo's tech support forum.

https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/index.html


It sometimes takes longer period for the online SDK Docs search engine to index / retrieve updated info, but if we wait, eventually we get query results.

GaryGB