Ground poly questions

[mhlarsen]

Well, its really not only questions about ground poly, but related issues as well.

1. Will creating ground polys through MCX always have to be on top of a
flatten?

2. Will ground polys always follow the ground on the flatten, even if sloped?

3. If ground polys follow flatten as in item 2, why give an altitude?
I saw a video with a button for 'lowering the poly to ground level', when
handling ground polys.
Was this feature aborted or incorporated?

4. When creating textures for a runway, is the best approach to have a
texture covering the width of the runway in stead of many smaller tiles?

Thanks for MCX, its a fantastic and practical tool.


Michael

 

[jdberg]

Well, its really not only questions about ground poly, but related issues as well.

1. Will creating ground polys through MCX always have to be on top of a
flatten?

Yes, it is the only chance to get rid of all flickering.

2. Will ground polys always follow the ground on the flatten, even if sloped?

No, you specify the altitude of the ground poly in FSX and this is the altitude of the complete poly

3. If ground polys follow flatten as in item 2, why give an altitude?
I saw a video with a button for 'lowering the poly to ground level', when
handling ground polys.
Was this feature aborted or incorporated?

They don´t, you must give the alt to generate the BGL-file. Don´t know the feature you mentioned, perhaps somebody else does, sorry.

4. When creating textures for a runway, is the best approach to have a
texture covering the width of the runway in stead of many smaller tiles?

It depends on what you are intend to do. I make a texture for the base texture that covers the width of the runway and repeate that in Gmax as many times as the runway length requires. The textures for dirt, lines etc. you place on top must be made with different textures to get the correct layering.

 

[arno]

Hi,

1. Will creating ground polys through MCX always have to be on top of a flatten?

Yes, it is assumed that the area is correctly flattened.

2. Will ground polys always follow the ground on the flatten, even if sloped?

The ground polygons will follow the curve of the earth, but the elevation should be the same everywhere. So really sloped terrain will not work with the wizard.

Technically it could be done, but the wizard does not know about the terrain elevation at the moment.

3. If ground polys follow flatten as in item 2, why give an altitude?
I saw a video with a button for 'lowering the poly to ground level', when
handling ground polys.
Was this feature aborted or incorporated?

The elevation is needed to correctly determine the slope of the earth in FSX. Without it there could be small gaps between polygons that have different reference points. So it is supposed to be the elevation of your airport (and of your flatten).

The current wizard still has a function to put the polygons on ground level. It's just the name that has changed a bit, it is now called project flat polygons on ground.

4. When creating textures for a runway, is the best approach to have a
texture covering the width of the runway in stead of many smaller tiles

I guess it all depends on the texture resolution you are looking for. But the fewer textures (and thus drawcalls) the better your performance will be. But if you want high resolution it might not always be feasible.