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FSX Airport Elevations

H

hamoody

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us-michigan
Hi everyone. I was wondering if someone could give me a simple, detailed, step-by-step list of instructions on how to change the altitude of an airport within FSX using ADE. I am an experienced simmer, but I know absolutely ZERO about Airport Design for FS. If any of you could help me, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
hamoody
(By the way, I asked for help on this issue on avsim but it didnt seem to be getting anywhere. Here is a link to the thread: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/377429-changing-airport-elevations-in-fsx/)
 
I am not sure quite what else you are expecting. Anyway having said that of course we will try to help.


Can you tell us here then what the issue is?

EDIT
OK I see for the other thread that George suggested you post here for help with ADE.
 
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All default airports have flattens. Unfortunately the only way to "see" them is to use TmfViewer.

With your airport open in ADE, it displays the name of the file containing airport information, in the case of OSDI, this is Dir 0702/File 57200.

The flatten is therefore defined in FSX\Scenery\0702\Scenery\cvx5720.bgl:



You will need to zoom-in and "Jump" to the aiport position to see it.

In the case of OSDI, it would be sufficient to draw an exclusion polygon in ADE which encompasses the red circle which defines the airport radius.
 
Golf-HotelDelta said:
All default airports have flattens. Unfortunately the only way to "see" them is to use TmfViewer.

With your airport open in ADE, it displays the name of the file containing airport information, in the case of OSDI, this is Dir 0702/File 57200.

The flatten is therefore defined in FSX\Scenery\0702\Scenery\cvx5720.bgl:

You will need to zoom-in and "Jump" to the aiport position to see it.

In the case of OSDI, it would be sufficient to draw an exclusion polygon in ADE which encompasses the red circle which defines the airport radius.
Click to expand...

Ok, so what I did was put a polygon around the airport (within the red circle), and set it as an "Exclude General" with the tag "Airport Backgrounds". I then drew another airport background on top of this, with the tag "Flatten Exclude AutoGen" The airport still sits on a plateau, though, and all of the taxiways/runways are elevated over the ground. Here is a screenshot:
2012-6-24_5-33-32-536.jpg
 
It seems that you are missing the ADE "ALT" file from FSX\Scenery\World\Scenery. FSX thinks that the airport is at the default height.



BTW. I did say to create the exclusion polygon outside of the red circle ;)
 
Golf-HotelDelta said:
It seems that you are missing the ADE "ALT" file from FSX\Scenery\World\Scenery. FSX thinks that the airport is at the default height.
BTW. I did say to create the exclusion polygon outside of the red circle ;)
Click to expand...
Oh, you DID say outside of the circle.. oops. Ok, so I deleted the exclusion poly that I made inside the circle, made a big square-ish one outside of it, then I found the ALT file that I had deleted (I wanted to start over, so I did a fresh install of the airport). The weird taxiway issue is gone, but the airport still sits on a plateau (with no other problems).
 
OK, start a flight at Gate A 104, press <Shift> Z until you see the height display.

If you are in the Trike, it should display 2004 ft.

 
We're getting there :)

In ADE, highlight your airport background poly and hit <Enter>. What altitude is displayed?

 
Golf-HotelDelta said:
We're getting there :)

In ADE, highlight your airport background poly and hit <Enter>. What altitude is displayed?

Click to expand...

It says 609 meters, but it is tagged only as 'flatten excluDe autogen' , not what you have selected. Do you think that this may be the problem?
 
hamoody said:
It says 609 meters, but it is tagged only as 'flatten excluDe autogen' , not what you have selected. Do you think that this may be the problem?
Click to expand...

That shouldn't matter.

It seems that you have another CVX file active with an elevation less than 609m.

Possibly the only way to find it is to inhibit all of your addon sceneries apart from Damascus and add them back one at a time until you find the rogue area.
 
Golf-HotelDelta said:
That shouldn't matter.

It seems that you have another CVX file active with an elevation less than 609m.

Possibly the only way to find it is to inhibit all of your addon sceneries apart from Damascus and add them back one at a time until you find the rogue area.
Click to expand...

Do you mean another cvx file for Damascus?
 
hamoody said:
Do you mean another cvx file for Damascus?
Click to expand...

Yes that is what George means. It is possible that there is another file setting the elevation. If you have compiled the airport multiple times then make sure that there is no left over _CVX file created by ADE. Make sure that only the latest one you created it present. Did you change the folder you are compiling to for example. I assume you have put the airport file and associated CVX into Addon Scenery\scenery.

If you have not created more than one set of Bgl files then, as George suggests, it is possible that some other addon for the airport is present in your setup and is trumping your file. In nearly all cases the last file that FSX reads is the one that trumps all the others. If you are aware of another addon then you can go directly to that and disable it to test. If not then turning off each scenery area in turn and checking is a PITA but it may identify where the problem file is.
 
scruffyduck said:
Yes that is what George means. It is possible that there is another file setting the elevation. If you have compiled the airport multiple times then make sure that there is no left over _CVX file created by ADE. Make sure that only the latest one you created it present. Did you change the folder you are compiling to for example. I assume you have put the airport file and associated CVX into Addon Scenery\scenery.

If you have not created more than one set of Bgl files then, as George suggests, it is possible that some other addon for the airport is present in your setup and is trumping your file. In nearly all cases the last file that FSX reads is the one that trumps all the others. If you are aware of another addon then you can go directly to that and disable it to test. If not then turning off each scenery area in turn and checking is a PITA but it may identify where the problem file is.
Click to expand...
EDIT: Never mind. I did this, and after unchecking all of the areas, OSDI was at a normal elevation. However, when I checked the 0702 area, it was on a plateau. Now that I've identified the culprit file, how would I fix it?
 
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Check the altitude in OSDI_ADEX_xxx_ALT.xml which should be in FSX\Scenery\World\Scenery.

Note. xxx will be your initials.
 
hamoody said:
I could not find any .xml files in that folder, and the only OSDI related one was a .bgl, AFX_OSDI_ALT
Click to expand...

Are there other "ALT" bgls in that folder?

If not, would you attach AFX_OSDI_ALT.BGL to your reply.
 
That is ok, the height is set to 609m.

The only possibility is that your exclusion polygon isn't large enough, however, the default height is 515.696m so your airport should be sunken not raised.

Try the attached ADE file.
 
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Golf-HotelDelta said:
That is ok, the height is set to 609m.

The only possibility is that your exclusion polygon isn't large enough, however, the default height is 515.696m so your airport should be sunken not raised.

Try the attached ADE file.
Click to expand...

Ok, I deleted all of the files that I made, loaded your file into ADE, compiled it, but the airport is still on a plateau. There are no extra files in the addon scenery/scenery folder, the addon scenery/OSDI folder or scenery/world scenery folder.
 
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