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Adding artificial islands

AirplaneNiner

AirplaneNiner

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20
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southafrica
Ok, I have been trying for two days to create an artificial island in the ocean, but it doesn't seem to work, does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Every time I spawn, I just see water, and it's starting to get irritating.

I have tried raising airport altitude and then adding a custom poly, and trying to change it to different stuff such as land class or exclusion, but I can't seem to get the island to show. Does anyone know what I can do to get it to show? Any help would be much appreciated.

PS: this is my first post on this forum please don't roast me for not knowing anything
 
AirplaneNiner said:
Ok, I have been trying for two days to create an artificial island in the ocean, but it doesn't seem to work, does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Every time I spawn, I just see water, and it's starting to get irritating.

I have tried raising airport altitude and then adding a custom poly, and trying to change it to different stuff such as land class or exclusion, but I can't seem to get the island to show. Does anyone know what I can do to get it to show? Any help would be much appreciated.

PS: this is my first post on this forum please don't roast me for not knowing anything
Click to expand...

Hello @AirplaneNiner

First of all, what Sim are you using? It's important to note that to let others know how to help you best!
Second, what tools/how are you trying to create said island?
Thridly, did you try searching the forum for similar threads? I'm sure that this is something that has been extensively covered somewhere :)

Either way I'd be glad to give you some pointers if FS9/2004, though I could still help somewhat if FSX!

Cheers
 
Hello @AirplaneNiner

First of all, what Sim are you using? It's important to note that to let others know how to help you best!
Second, what tools/how are you trying to create said island?
Thridly, did you try searching the forum for similar threads? I'm sure that this is something that has been extensively covered somewhere :)

Either way I'd be glad to give you some pointers if FS9/2004, though I could still help somewhat if FSX!

Cheers
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for the quick reply!

1. Whoops, forgot to say which sim I'm using o_O I'm using FSX
2. I'm using ADE 1.79, if that helps
3. Yep, searched on a bunch of other forums, didn't get my answer sadly.

Thanks again!
 
One of the first rules for creating land in the simulator is to understand the default state of the world is covered in water. To create land, you must first exclude the water. A very common mistake is to covert an entire grid to land. I believe ADE can create simple islands, but for more complex shapes you'll need tools to edit terrain mesh, like SBX and/or TerrainSculptorPro.

Here is my first island. It is available at Avsim and you are welcome to examine the elements and reverse engineer it to create your own. The inset is an actual photo of the location.

sendfile.php


AVSIM Library

Flight simulators premier web site. Freeware, forums, community; it all comes together at AVSIM.
library.avsim.net library.avsim.net

A few others I never published.

evQqIzp.jpg

02mqz94.jpg

bgzSjKK.jpg


The plane is an AT-200 drone China developed to resupply islands in the South China Sea. It's a project of several islands I shelved, because there is an area near Subi Reef that has proven very difficult from which to remove an unintended land formation. I believe it is a deficiency in the simulator software representing that area and this fact demonstrates that creating land in the simulator is not exactly "cut and dry," to put it mildly.
 
Hello again @AirplaneNiner

As Rick mentioned, to create islands your best bet is using SbuilderX (in my opinion/experience as I have never used TerrainSculptorPro).
To better help you what kind of island were you looking to make?
#1 Just a flat sea-level/same altitude all around piece of land to have an airport in?
#2 Or a mountainous custom island?
The 1st option is fairly simple and straightforward to do and I can point you in the right direction, even if my experience is with designing scenery for FS9; the 2nd will require someone else's assistance particularly because I know nothing of mesh creating. Dissecting Rick's work posted above would be a good idea to get you started if your goal is option 2!
 
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Thanks so much for the kind pointers and info!

I do have SBuilderX, and I should probably use it instead of leaving it to rot in my file explorer (I mostly use ADE). I am looking to create a custom mountainous island, and from what I see, it probably looks much more complex than I originally thought, but I am willing to jump that hurdle and download Rick's work.

When I do figure it out, I'll be sure to provide info and any other updates, but until then, I'll have to see how it works. Oh, and learn how to use SBuilderX!

Once again, thanks a lot!
 
AirplaneNiner said:
Thanks so much for the kind pointers and info!

I do have SBuilderX, and I should probably use it instead of leaving it to rot in my file explorer (I mostly use ADE). I am looking to create a custom mountainous island, and from what I see, it probably looks much more complex than I originally thought, but I am willing to jump that hurdle and download Rick's work.

When I do figure it out, I'll be sure to provide info and any other updates, but until then, I'll have to see how it works. Oh, and learn how to use SBuilderX!

Once again, thanks a lot!
Click to expand...

No problem!
If you do want to make a mountainous island then that involves creating mesh from scratch (which I know nothing about); although a complex process indeed don't give up! :)
And do learn how to use Sbuilder! ADE can do a few things terrain wise, but I'd stick to using it to make airports, adding objects and airport scenery making really; for terrain editing/creation sbuilder is a far superior tool, not the most user friendly of applications but once you get the gist of it it's easy to do amazing stuff with it! :) Just be happy SbuilderX is more user friendly and intuitive than the FS9 version which is the one I mostly use :rotfl:
 
I'm having the same problem, but all I want to do is simply make a solid surface on the water (no fancy scenery, just a solid land surface that I can place objects on top of. I also want to cover the surface with a laval land poly. So far I can't get any solid surface and nothing will show over the area, just water. I did this years back, but I just can't remember how the heck I did it.
 
For FSX, you must exclude the water polygons in the squares that you want your island and then create new water polygons around the island. You cannot create land polygons on top of water polygons.
 
I pretty much figured that out. I know there is an order you have to follow in order to do what I want, I did it years ago and still have the old files (minus the ad4 file which I wish I had) with those islands in them. But without the actual ad4 file, I can't load them into ADE to see what structure I used.
 
Still trying to figure this out. I have used the exclusion water polys where I want the island, got that... I then created the new water polys around that island area, now, how the heck do you get land on top of that if you can't use land polys? I can get it to kinda work with aprons as solid surfaces, but aprons are very limitted. What I would like to do is use the 'land class' polys such as a lava field ,and place that as the surface of the island but have it solid and not liquid. Everytime I try, it remains liquid and if you happen to 'drive' off the road or taxipath, you bassicaly just crash into the ocean. It creates no solid surface. Is there a way to actually make a solid piece of land on top of the water in the ocean (not on land) that you can park on without crashing? I even went as far as moving the entire airport onto a dry lake bed in Nevada, but that created a whole new set of problems such as missing objects and roads and such, also could not get the elevation correct, so I abandoned that line of thinking, probably should have started on land to begin with, but I've done too much work on my project that starting over isn't an option anymore. So how do you create an actual island with a solid surface on it? That still eludes me.
 
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