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Help with runway lights on a custom runway!

Thomas

Thomas

Messages
103
Country
belgium
Hi Gianni,

Now I don't know AFW very well, but I didn't have a problem when inserting the coördinates (N50 53.xxx, E04 xx.xxxx). Did you also type in the right coördinates when you created a new project in AFW? When you start a project, you have to define an 'airport', type in the ICAO code and then you also have to give coördinates for the airport.

Maybe you can also change the coördinates yourself in the scasm-code. I'll have a look at it later. ;)

Grtz
 
Gianni

Gianni

Messages
453
Country
austria
Thomas,

Hm, thx. I haven't defined an airport. I started with creating a runway. So this indeed could be the prob. I will try further.

greetz
Gianni
 
Thomas

Thomas

Messages
103
Country
belgium
No you will still need an AFCAD file for the AI traffic and for defining ILS systems on your runways...
 
Gianni

Gianni

Messages
453
Country
austria
Thomas, good morning!

I did not succeed for the time being. What I am trying was to import the existing airport and to delete all objects which I would not need for the invisible runway in the "new" scenery. Idea was to replace the runway parameters to "invisble" and to keep only the already attached lights. In the remaining AFCAD-airport I planned to delete the lights then as they would have been not used any longer. But that propably is the wrong way.

Wouldn't the whole exercise possible in SceneGenX, too? In this case we could achive XML-codes for the invisible runway? Or is the "UNKNOWN" surface type in SceneGenX different to "INVISIBLE" in AFW?

greetz
gianni

... starting to be a little frustrated, as I didn't get it up to now
 
Thomas

Thomas

Messages
103
Country
belgium
Hi Gianni,

Here are the steps to follow:
  1. Startup Airport For Windows
  2. Create a New Project
  3. Go to the menu "Sections" => "General" and set your Airport properties, like ICAO code and Airport Coordinates.
  4. When you move over in the design viewport, you wil see the coordinates of the mouse pointer at the bottom of the window. These coordinates should be in range of your airport coordinates you just entered in the General options.
  5. Right click in the viewport and choose "Create Runway". Set the runway properties, like ID, heading, length, width, coordinates, lights,... And certainly set the surface to 'invisible'.
  6. You can verify the coordinates in the SCASM-code view. When you are in the properties window of the runway, you will see a button in the right-bottom corner "View SCASM code". The coördinates you just entered should match with those in the SCASM code view, otherwise you did something wrong.
  7. No you can view your runway in FS. Go to the "File" menu and select "Generate SCASM code for Airport". After that you go to "File" menu again and select "Compile SCASM code to BGL".
  8. A small window will popup now with the compile information, you will also see the location where the bgl was exported to.
  9. Copy the bgl to your scenery folder and check it out in FS (at night).

You should see your lights now.

In your AFCAD file, you can indeed remove the runway lights, because they never show up on top of custom ground polygons.

I never tried SceneGenX, but I think SGX generates the same code as AFCAD, so those objects won't be shown either on top of your custom polygons. And yes the "UNKNOWN" surface type is different from "INVISIBLE".

I hope you can get those lights in your scenery now :wave:

Grtz
Thomas
 
Last edited:
Gianni

Gianni

Messages
453
Country
austria
Hi Thomas,

I really appreciate your help and it is more than I would have expected. So I will try it again this evening following this tutorial step by step.

If I am not able to get it now I should rather learn how to knit or spend my time to fix the garden (what my wife would certainly acclaim ;) ).

So thanks again
gianni
 
Gianni

Gianni

Messages
453
Country
austria
Thomas, it works. This solved one of my biggest problems in my project! Thank you again so much.

If have now to check whether only one side of the PAPI-lights is shown in FS9 although "Both" is applied in AFW. And the RAIL lights seem to be a little tricky.

CU
gianni


If we should meet ever - the dinner is mine!
 
Gianni

Gianni

Messages
453
Country
austria
Thomas, I have finalized the work now.

*With the double-sided PAPI lights I had to add a second invisible runway.
*With the REIL-Lights I had to manually activate the Treshold-Lights in the SCASM-file and then to compile this file via SCASM.exe.

So it is done
:wizard: :stirthepo :cool: :wave:
gianni
 
Thomas

Thomas

Messages
103
Country
belgium
Hi Gianni,

Nice to hear that you have the lights working now. The only thing I was thinking now is if it would still be possible to put approach lights on poles. Maybe it works with an invisible runway with only approach lights in it, and the height of the runway, slightly higher than the ground. I'll have to test this... :stirthepo

I'm wrestling with the taxilights now. I wrote a program for that like I said, but when I want to export a large number of AttachPoint objects, I get a MakeMDL error => "Too many parts". Apparently there is a limit on the number of attach objects you can put in 1 file. But it's really weird, sometimes it occurs and sometimes not. :scratchch

Grtz,
Thomas
 
Sean_E

Sean_E

Messages
69
There is a max of about 1400-1500 attached object in any one scenery export.
I have created a whole airport and had to divide it up into 4 quadrants to export the necessary taxi centerline and edge lights.

Just for your FYI

Sean E
 
12bPilot

12bPilot

Messages
611
Country
switzerland
Hey Thomas!

Hope you have some spare time to work on EBBR and on that Tool you mentioned some posts before...so any news on that one?

Cheers,
Jeff
 
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