AFCAD Lighting

[arno]

Hi Gianni,

Making ground polys with fs2004 gamepacks in the xml-style led me to problems as these polys on top of the mesh made it necessary to use the zbias-prefix to avoid bleed through effects. Then this caused the raising ground effect. As much as I know there is no solution for this problem for the time being.

Maybe I did not express myself very clear, but any made with GMax is never XML style scenery. To get a real XML style polygon you must use the XML code. Like the aprons on the default airports or polygons as AFCAD and SGX can make them.

Object made with GMax use very different code inside. It is true that they can be placed with XML code, but that only calls them from a library file.

 

[arno]

Hi Thomas,

Maybe the only person that can help us is Lee Swordy, the creator of the AFCAD program. He should know the internal structure of an AFCAD file very well, because this is not the regular ASM format I suppose.

If you look at newBGLAnalyzer, you will find a nice document contained with it that explains the opcodes of the XML-BGL format. So actually calling it AFCAD file is not really correct, with SGX or by compiling a XML file using BGLComp you get the same result.

I think the main reason of all the trouble is that we are trying to mix old style ground polygons with new style scenery. If you look at the default scenery you will see that MS does not use these ground polygons anymore. They are only supported for backwards compatibility.

As some sceneries show it must somehow be possible to combine the old and new style commands, but it will not be very easy, as they are not designed to work together.

 

[arno]

Hi Gianni,

*If I made ground polys with the fs2002 gamepack that bear the photo-texture and cut out the parts where the lights from the AFCAD-runway are located, I would see them without any limitation.
*As the parts to be cut out would have to have a certain size (for the time being I was not able to locate the accurate position of the PAPI-lights in FS9) the underlying texture of course would be visible. And this obviously I would dislike.
* To go around this I plan to make a ground poly (now with the fs2004 gamepack) and to attach those parts of the photo-texture to it, which i have cut out just recently. To avoid flickering and blend through I would give these materials the zbias prefix. As much as I understood the lights from the AFCAD runway would be visible now as they are drawn prior to the fs2002 polys (which would not be any longer at the coordinates of the lights ).

That sounds like something that should work. I only don't get the last step. Making a ground polygon with the Fs2004 gamepack will also cover your light. Maybe if you make the gap very small so that only the light comes through that it looks ok?

 

[dan]

Hi Dan,



Are there any where you can see the approach lights by day maybe? This picture clearly shows the ground polygons, but from that PAPI I find it hard to see if it is really default or not.

Sure thing Arno! I'll set the weather to IFR conditions so the lights show up and take a picture.

 

[Horst18519]

It definitely isn't. Look at the nice effect of the lights. You can't do that with default lights, can you?

 

[arno]

That was what I was also thinking Thorsten . But if the same is true for the approach lights, that would mean they have not been created with AFCAD.

 

[dan]

It definitely isn't. Look at the nice effect of the lights. You can't do that with default lights, can you?

Actually, I'm not so sure. Before my VASI did NOT look like that, but when I got a new halo.bmp on AVSIM...

 

[dan]

Edited.........

 

[arno]

Actually, I'm not so sure. Before my VASI did NOT look like that, but when I got a new halo.bmp on AVSIM...

Ah, that could explain it as well . Thanks for the picture, that shows them very clear. You can see the approach lights on the ground (and not on the posts), so that looks like AFCAD. I am going to do some tests tomorrow on this subject.

 

[arno]

Hi all,

Did a few tests this morning, but I haven't found a good way to get this effect yet. What I tried was:

• Make my photo tiles transparant, this shows the light nicely, but to get a good effect I needed them about 50% transparant, so that makes the textures look bad.
• I also tried to change the layering of the photo layer, but that did not have the effect I hoped for.
• Finally I made small holes in the texture (with the alpha channel) around the lights. That works well from a distance, but closer they still dissapear under the photo polygon.

So, if anybody has other good ideas .

 

[klausp]

Hallo!

As I had the same problem with my project (Gmax with default-lighting) I found a solution for me:

- Ground-polys with Gmax
- Afcad with NO lights - only for AI-traffic
- RWY with Afw with No surface but lights

-> Let’s have a look!


Unfortunately one problem I didn’t solve yet:

LOWL has a displaced threshold at both ends. With Afw it’s not possible to make such ones without the default markings. So I have to delete my individual markings for this area and have to work with the default ones.

I know this is a workaround and not a proefessionell method, but it works ...

So I hope this works at your airports too! Otherwise let me know your solutions.

With kind regards,
Klaus

 

[biggard]

Sorry I cant be of help, it has me very boggled, but I do agree with Arno, those are AFCAD generated lights. Otherwise, they would have been raised...now I'm wondering why no one took the time to raise them with their own lights.

 

[arno]

now I'm wondering why no one took the time to raise them with their own lights.

I think that is done because AFCAD lights look a lot better then any lights you can place yourself. Especially when you are a few miles from the runway, the default lights as generated by the scenery engine, look a lot better.

 

[Horst18519]

I'm not sure about that, Arno. I am very happy with my lights using fx. But this could lead to some problems when having a huge amount of lights at a bigger airport than EDLM.

Back to the pic: it seems that there are little holes around the lights. Maybe they really used cutouts in the polys for the default lights.

 

[dan]

I'm not sure about that, Arno. I am very happy with my lights using fx. But this could lead to some problems when having a huge amount of lights at a bigger airport than EDLM.

Back to the pic: it seems that there are little holes around the lights. Maybe they really used cutouts in the polys for the default lights.

I don't think those are holes, I'm pretty sure its just the aerial photo.

I just opened up that texture, too, and didn't see any alpha on those spots.

 

[Rellek01]

Her is a snipit of xml code for KSFO AF2 file for Fly Tampa's scenery.

The code was obtained through the use of bglxml 180.

I did a lot of experimenting with this afcad as far changing the runway and approach lights and no matter what I did, the lights in the scenery remained unchanged. Even when all lights in the AF2 file were disabled, the vasi, runway and approach lights stayed the same in the sim.
I thought that it might be another AF2 file with an invisible runway or somthing using a different altitude but if one creates a new afcad for a particular airport, it will "delete" any other xml airport below in the config file.

So in the case of Fly Tampa I would assume they are not xml lights.

However, might it be possible to tweak the AF2 file get the desired effect for an airport with gmax ground polys with the 2002 addcat command tweak.

Anyway, I'm very interested in this "Secret" if one exist as I like the look of the xml lights AND the nice ground textures I can have with the gmax polys.

Here's what I'm looking at.

"Delete" section; I assume works as a type of exclude

<DeleteAirport
deleteAllApproaches = "FALSE"
deleteAllAprons = "TRUE"
deleteAllFrequencies = "TRUE"
deleteAllHelipads = "TRUE"
deleteAllRunways = "TRUE"
deleteAllStarts = "TRUE"
deleteAllTaxiways = "TRUE" />

"Runway section; note the bias x and z after the vasi code


<Runway lat="37.621131" lon="-122.375279" alt="12.999F"
surface="ASPHALT" heading="117.87" length="11860.856F" width="199.998F"
number="10" designator="LEFT" patternAltitude="999.988F"
primaryTakeoff="YES" primaryLanding="YES" primaryPattern="LEFT"
secondaryTakeoff="YES" secondaryLanding="YES" secondaryPattern="RIGHT">
<Markings edges="TRUE" threshold="TRUE"
fixedDistance="TRUE" touchdown="TRUE"
dashes="TRUE" ident="TRUE"
precision="TRUE" edgePavement="TRUE"
singleEnd="FALSE" primaryClosed="FALSE"
secondaryClosed="FALSE"
primaryStol="FALSE" secondaryStol="FALSE" />
<BlastPad end="PRIMARY" length="879.989F" width="879.989F" surface="ASPHALT" />
<ApproachLights end="SECONDARY" strobes="15"
touchdown="FALSE" reil="FALSE" endLights="FALSE"
system="NONE" />
<Vasi end="PRIMARY" side="LEFT" type="PAPI4"
biasX="124.998F" biasZ="4129.950F" spacing="299.996F" pitch="3.00" />
<Vasi end="SECONDARY" side="LEFT" type="(null)"
biasX="119.999F" biasZ="5179.937F" spacing="299.996F" pitch="3.00" />
</Runway>

I wonder if a bias y can be written for altitude?
Can a bias be added to the other lights?
Can the lights be written with out the runways or are they dependent in the code?
Is there a way to write the code such that a new AF2 file written by someone other than the designer "Delete" the original code?


Rellek

 

[Horst18519]

How about just deleting the AF2-file to see if the lights are in it?

 

[Gianni]

Hi Rellek,

I do not know whether this is helpful, but I read in a thread in the AVSIM-scenery design forum, that "exclude" has something to do with it. I do not know what might have to be excluded. But the one who posted there seemed to try to give us a hint.

Please keep on researching - it would be really a milestone to solve this matter. I would like to give any support but I have no experience in investgating issues like this.


greetz
gianni

 

[Thomas]

Hi,

I've been testing myself now and the runway lights are not AFCAD lights. If you remove the afcad files, you will see the lights of the default afcad bleeding through the photoreal ground polygons (at low intensity) and you will see the custom runway lights.

The runway lights are in the "pvdrunways.BGL" file. Remove this file from the scenery folder, and the runways will stay dark. So now we know where the lights are.

The remainder of this post has been removed on request of FlightScenery, as decompiling and publishing their files is not allow by the end-user agreement of their scenery, Arno


Grtz,

 

[arno]

Hi Thomas,

I don't think that the altitude matters much. This old style runway command can always display on top of your ground polygons. Just like we were used to in the pre-Fs2004 days . But it is good to know that this is not AFCAD, so we can still say that AFCAD scenery will never show on top of your ground polygons .