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FSX Making a landable mountain using ADE for FSX
- Thread starter Tomt478
- Start date
Hi again:
It is best to keep any airport test radius to a minimum (typical max = 5,000 Meters), so IMHO make those airports stand-alone.
Your scenery is inset into local terrain, I assumed that was incidental to it being a Q&D test-of-concept not intended to "blend".
If you wanted to actually use that Geographic location and blend the flat / level configuration of your custom scenery into surrounding default terrain, there is a way to do that via Altotude changes and sloped CVX vector flattens at edges of KWR1 scenery.
I'll take a look at the (FSX) local lay of the land tomorrow (Monday), and offer some suggestions on how it may be blended.
GaryGB
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Here is the link for the new AD4 file.
KWR1_ADEX_TT_20250127103906
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Hi Tom:
I have the latest *.AD4 file, and I do see a number of changes which may help fix a few things in the CVX vector content.
IMHO, it still merits substituting CVX vector Roads for all Taxiway Paths, to minimize length rendering issues, and test radius.
I shall have to know which altitude you plan to test the scenery at prior to assigning Altitudes to the sloped flatten "Hill" demo.
I have the N-E-S-W corner coordinates of your project extent, and will add Altitudes to points along FS' TMF LOD-10 quad grid.
I may be able to auto-triangulate vectors for a sloped flatten at the edges of your project area to blend it into FS' terrain mesh.
If that proves to be a preferable appearance for an otherwise flat terrain surface area, you may consider changing all Altitudes.
Pending your decision on final Altitude for your scenery, I plan to complete the sloped flatten "Hill" demo using that Altitude.
GaryGB
I have the latest *.AD4 file, and I do see a number of changes which may help fix a few things in the CVX vector content.
IMHO, it still merits substituting CVX vector Roads for all Taxiway Paths, to minimize length rendering issues, and test radius.
I shall have to know which altitude you plan to test the scenery at prior to assigning Altitudes to the sloped flatten "Hill" demo.
I have the N-E-S-W corner coordinates of your project extent, and will add Altitudes to points along FS' TMF LOD-10 quad grid.
I may be able to auto-triangulate vectors for a sloped flatten at the edges of your project area to blend it into FS' terrain mesh.
If that proves to be a preferable appearance for an otherwise flat terrain surface area, you may consider changing all Altitudes.
Pending your decision on final Altitude for your scenery, I plan to complete the sloped flatten "Hill" demo using that Altitude.
GaryGB
I decided not to mess with the altitude any. I did some testing with changing it and it threw in a whole bunch of other issues ,mainly with scenery objects being at the wrong height and stuff. It's been working fine at the current alt, so I'm just gonna leave it alone. My moto is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The alt never gave me any problems, so I ain't gonna screw with it.
I have a question though, how can I tell what is the front of a library object and what is the back. I want to add in a terminal building, but can't figure out what is the front and what is the back of the building. (BTW:This is to a new airport, not KWR1)
I have a question though, how can I tell what is the front of a library object and what is the back. I want to add in a terminal building, but can't figure out what is the front and what is the back of the building. (BTW:This is to a new airport, not KWR1)
If working with 3D models of objects from IRL, one may use Google Earth Street View to view a 'front' side facing the Street
Generally speaking we should 3D model objects with their base centered on the Origin Of Axes, facing Frontwards.
Then, when we 'place' them, by default their "Heading" is at 0 degrees (North), and they are facing frontwards.
Additionally by having the base centered on the Origin Of Axes, if we rotate an object Heading, it stays within its footprint 'area'.
Be aware that 'some' 3D modelers who make scenery for FS do not follow this standard, so one must fine tune placed objects.
If we view object library BGLs in MCX, its 3D Preview shows the default orientation described above, so objects face frontwards.
If you work with 3rd party objects as MDLs intended for FS2Kx (not MSFS), they must first be packaged in FS library object BGLs using Arno's Library Creator.
An exception to this requirement may be ADE for FS2Kx via its Library Object Manager (LOM) feature.
The BGLs should be kept in a \Scenery folder 'paired' locally with a \Texture folder containing all 3D model mapped textures.
Arno's MCX can search / find / map textures onto 3D models in its preview mode if BGLs and textures are in 'paired' folders.
GaryGB
Generally speaking we should 3D model objects with their base centered on the Origin Of Axes, facing Frontwards.
Then, when we 'place' them, by default their "Heading" is at 0 degrees (North), and they are facing frontwards.
Additionally by having the base centered on the Origin Of Axes, if we rotate an object Heading, it stays within its footprint 'area'.
Be aware that 'some' 3D modelers who make scenery for FS do not follow this standard, so one must fine tune placed objects.
If we view object library BGLs in MCX, its 3D Preview shows the default orientation described above, so objects face frontwards.
If you work with 3rd party objects as MDLs intended for FS2Kx (not MSFS), they must first be packaged in FS library object BGLs using Arno's Library Creator.
An exception to this requirement may be ADE for FS2Kx via its Library Object Manager (LOM) feature.
The BGLs should be kept in a \Scenery folder 'paired' locally with a \Texture folder containing all 3D model mapped textures.
Arno's MCX can search / find / map textures onto 3D models in its preview mode if BGLs and textures are in 'paired' folders.
GaryGB
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Hi Tom:
Testing an isolated sloped flatten on local default terrain, Altitudes may impact user engine ability to climb steep inclines.
Is there a particular FSX Ground Vehicle you planned to use for driving up the "Hill" slope ?
PS: There is only a finite amount of land available on the SW end of the 'Island' to make a "Hill".
Did you plan to have a 'level' flatten area on top of the "Hill" for the airport ?
If so, did you plan to also make the RWY 1,500 Meters in length, so that it is similar to the other RWYs in the project ?
GaryGB
Testing an isolated sloped flatten on local default terrain, Altitudes may impact user engine ability to climb steep inclines.
Is there a particular FSX Ground Vehicle you planned to use for driving up the "Hill" slope ?
PS: There is only a finite amount of land available on the SW end of the 'Island' to make a "Hill".
Did you plan to have a 'level' flatten area on top of the "Hill" for the airport ?
If so, did you plan to also make the RWY 1,500 Meters in length, so that it is similar to the other RWYs in the project ?
GaryGB
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I actually plan on using both the Lexus and the BMW for most of the driving. I will be needing a flat area on the top for the airport and 1500 meters is pretty much standard for the type of aircraft I will be using as they are either Cesnas or other smaller aircraft, won't be using large airliners as I haven't learned to fly them very well. The larger jets also need much larger airports to operate in. I'm not quite experienced enough to even use them. I like the look of what you have already, it's much what I imagined it would look like. How high is the tallest peak there at the top from the airport ground level which is 452.113ft.? That does look like a pretty steep slope to drive up, are you sure it will work without it crashing? Or in my case since I had to turn off crash detection (for other reasons I'm still working on) the vehicle would go right through the mountain without actually driving up it. I've had that problem in the past when trying to build a custom bridge, never could get the vehicle to actually drive up the darn thing without either crashing or just passing through it.
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I've had him working on this for a while now and I am extremely grateful for his help. I've tried for months to make a drivable mountain and just never could get one to work. This was my last hope posting it on here, I'm glad I got a reply from someone who knows what they are doing. I was beginning to think that something like this was not even possible. Gary sure knows his stuff. I'm new at developing ,so it would have probably taken me a year or two to even figure out something this complex. I want to thank him so much. My "search and rescue" project has been on hold for a long time because I could never get this to work, it is needed in the project, now if I can just figure out how to get my effects to work right...LOL. IE: "need some forest fires going in a couple of places" they don't seem to want to work for some odd reason. I think it has something to do with my GPU settings or something.
One other question, is the "drive" up the mountain going to be a "straight" drive or will there be a few turns (like in the real world where you kind of twist and turn to get to the peak). I would like it to be somewhat like "real world" so as to not make it too easy. Once I get the crash detection working (there are some areas of the airport that for some reason cause crashes where there is nothing to crash into) I will be having the players (using remote access) actually drive up and down the mountain successfully. I don't want it too difficult and not too easy, sort of in-between. It would sure be nice if FSX still supported online interaction, but since it moved to the Steam Edition, online is no longer supported on FSX Acceleration Gold Boxed version. I don't want to upgrade to FSX Steam. Using remote access slows down the system but is tollerable.
KWR1_ADEX_TT_20250131093944
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Here is my latest AD4 project file. I went in and did some land class vector alignments and I changed the airport background from just "flatten" to "flatten exclude autogen", this seems to have solved my "vegetation on roads" problem, and I think it may have solved my crash problem. It appears since I did not exclude autogen, FSX still "thought" there were autogen objects even though I couldn't actually see them, so whenever I "ran into" one of those "hidden" autogen objects such as a tree or bush, FSX would detect that as a "crash". With the exclusion now in place there are no objects to "run into". I haven't tested it on all of the roads yet, but so far so good. I just thought you might need the updated project file with these corrections, They shouldn't affect the mountain project except for the change in the airport background which covers the entire project area. Not sure if that affects your work or not. I'm slowly going in and fiixing some of the little errors that were made when i created the project. I'm working on repairing some of the roads now, such as removing taxi lighting and putting in actual road lights and signs. I do have one question, can I use Sketchup to take a "flat" model and give it some depth to make it 3D instead of flat. I have some custom "people" objects that appear "flat" and I would like to make them more realistic by giving them some depth. Can Sketchup do this?It's going to be kinda hard to spot a "flat" person from the air since you have to be "looking" straight at them to see them. I made the objects using Photoshop 3D , saving them as a DAE file and converting that to a .MDL file using MCX. But Photoshop is very limited in it's 3D editing abilities and you can't really import the depth from the .DAE file it saves because of how it saves the texture files. I've tried frantically to get depth to work with Photoshop, but it just won't work. I get too many errors when I try to convert the file to a model. I was hoping that Sketchup might do a better job than Photoshop.
Hi Martin:
The 1st screenshot is from FSX, showing the default terrain for Mexico from FSX (and a superimposed custom CVX vector):
Max LOD is 10, so it is no better than available from SRTMv3+ or ASTER GDEM, both of which are 1-Arc Sec, / 30 Meters.
I have not yet found a more detailed source, but I shall look again as this project advances.
Custom FS2Kx terrain mesh / CVX vectors are relatively easy to make via SDK Resample / SHP2VEC after learning the process.
The above screenshot is just a quick-and-dirty (aka "Q+D") test-of-concept to see how Taxiway Paths behave on sloped flattens.
Tom will likely have more fun with this project as he considers using non-flat, multi-elevation modified default local terrain.
The 2nd screenshot from Sketchup shows modified CVX vectors extracted as ESRI *.SHP files from Toms project via Patrick Germain's CvxExtractor, imported to Sketchup as *.SHP files via a free Ruby plugin (aka "extension") script.
GaryGB
Are they freeware ?
Would you please post a link to where they can be found for download ?
Good, as the prototype already utilized some of your CVX vectors to do that, at the top of the "Hill".
I'll tinker a bit more this weekend and then send the prototype current build for you to test
It is indeed very steep, and beyond the capacity of the aircraft and Ground Vehicles I have tested thus far ...to climb.
That is because the slope starts at KWR1 ARP Altitude, and ascends to the top of FSX default terrain (~1912.52734375 Meters)
GaryGB
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I'll take a look at the Fx sometime later to see what they involve, and how to ensure display.
GaryGB
If you make the airports separate and small sub-components of the scenery project, everything can use modified local terrain.
IMHO, there is no need- and perhaps no benefit, to making the scenery flat / level at an assigned Altitude of ~452 meters.
FSX local terrain is reasonably detailed (although one could easily make a newer terrain mesh file to add 'some' more detail).
Ground Vehicles should be able to handle the local terrain without crashing, although I always turn off crash detection in FS.
I must learn how to disable crash detection fully in MSFS, because I still get hung up on buildings, rocks, and other objects.
IIUC, you "stream" FSX over a video streaming process instead of requiring your clients / patrons to have FSX installed ?
If you required your clients / patrons to have FSX installed, you could use a "Shared Cockpit" feature in user aircraft / Ground Vehicles (with the required Gauge code installed).
That feature can be toggled ON/Off dynamically within an ongoing multiplayer session with multiple players visible.
When connected via multiplayer server software (all of which IIRC, are free, and already online), multiple players are visible.
One could also use a 1:1 peer-to-peer 'public IP' based connection modem-to-modem via FSX' own multiplayer 'direct' feature.
BTW: I would not consider FSX Steam an "upgrade"; you can easily implement anything it does and more with FSX Accel. Gold.
GaryGB
Attach files
KWR1_ADEX_TT_20250131093944
MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.www.mediafire.com
Here is my latest AD4 project file. I went in and did some land class vector alignments and I changed the airport background from just "flatten" to "flatten exclude autogen", this seems to have solved my "vegetation on roads" problem, and I think it may have solved my crash problem. It appears since I did not exclude autogen, FSX still "thought" there were autogen objects even though I couldn't actually see them, so whenever I "ran into" one of those "hidden" autogen objects such as a tree or bush, FSX would detect that as a "crash". With the exclusion now in place there are no objects to "run into". I haven't tested it on all of the roads yet, but so far so good. I just thought you might need the updated project file with these corrections, They shouldn't affect the mountain project except for the change in the airport background which covers the entire project area. Not sure if that affects your work or not. I'm slowly going in and fixing some of the little errors that were made when i created the project. I'm working on repairing some of the roads now, such as removing taxi lighting and putting in actual road lights and signs.
I have inspected this latter *.AD4; it appears you are making good progress with the vector cleanup; still stuff to be fixed.
I suspect that multiple vector layers / overlaps may require modification to more quickly fix the many areas that cause issues.
I will do a few tests to see if we can "intersect" / weld object onto a single ground plane Face to 'clip' overlaps in Sketchup.
Then we can group objects by intended vector type for attribute re-assignment, and custom color to match ADE / TMFViewer.
"Face-Me" (aka FS "Rotate To User Aircraft Camera") type flat 'sprite' double-sided Face objects are an option in Sketchup.
It is true one can see this when in top-down view, but they are very convenient to make compared to adapting them to full 3D
There are special tools that could do it, but it may be labor-intensive to do so with free software.
Most developers instead attempt mapping a persons face texture onto another 3D 'body' model' head (labor-intensive too).
GaryGB
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Those are free Ruby plugin scripts (aka "Extensions") which can be installed in Sketchup to perform special tasks easier / faster.
I plan to discuss these soon, as time permits, so you can import KWR1 ESRI *.SHP files into Sketchup and make changes easier.
OK, here is the T4SU plugin authors' Blog page with pertinent info on download and installation of the plugin etc:
https://t4su.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/how-to-install-it-through-the-console/
Here is a (larger) thread where I describe additional info on use of T4SU plugin as well as related GIS apps and GIS procedures etc:
https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...x-sloped-flatten-scenery-object-moved.446355/
I suggest installing Sketchup-specific (by year ?) versions of T4SU plugin; you may find it very useful in your Sketchup 2017 work.
GaryGB
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