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ORBX Airport Question

Geoffb

Geoffb

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83
Country
australia
Hi, I have a few of the ORBX airports, which are very good. However, some are now getting out of date and as they do not propose updating them, I want to update mine. As I have just retired...I now have the time.

First project will be YBBN, which has a new taxiway and apron joining between two existing taxi ways to the international terminal.

I have downloaded ADE 1.6 so....I need to know where to attack first. Been looking at lots and lots of posts, so, it seems like a very accurate process needs to be followed. A first use of ADE shows the stock airports very well. However, could not for the life of me find YBBN.

Can some one point me in the right direction?
Regards
Geoff
 
However, could not for the life of me find YBBN
Click to expand...

Errrr........ where are you looking. File >Open Stock Airport and there are two ways to find it:

image328.png


On the left via the Country Tree or on the right by using the search function.
 
Oh - in which case he needs Simple Airport Scanner?
 
Ah - OK but SAS will find non duplicates airports so it should find a single addon copy of YBBN
 
I am afraid using ADE to add taxiways to ORBX airports won't work, since they are using 3D modelled terrain. In effect, you will have the taxiway, but it will not be shown.
 
Thank you jon, Yes, I found the stock airports ok, it was trying to find the ORBX airports that has me mysterfied. I'd hoped I could find a similar layout of the ORBX version of YBBN and work out how to build a missing portion. From what Peter says, probably makes sense, otherwise we would all be updating our ORBX airports. I would have thought(having nil experience....) that as the airport taxiway was 'flat' adding a new taxiway between two existing taxiways 'base' would involve some how copying a similar portion and 'joining' it...Yeah I know what you are thinking, %^&beginners^^^^ I am a CAD type person and used to layers etc.

I did ask ORBX about updating it and they confirmed no. Makes me wonder why they do not have a suitable "repair" kit, for this very purpose, considering they probably will not repair is any time soon.

Anyway, thanks guys, I will just have to make sure I taxi slowly over the ground.
 
That is, in essence, what ADE is for, you could add a taxiway in it... however... over the ADE layer, there is one more layer, purely visual. ADE will not be able to add taxiway to the visual layer.
 
So Peter, is this 'top' layer the ORBX eye candy view we all love and enjoy, but underneath it is the actual working parts of the airport, which when combined, they display on the top layer?
 
You could use ADE GP polygons and lines to overlay the ORBX ground .
 
Yes George, I wondered if I could "patch" it with some thing, though with no experience, will this actually join with my existing taxiways...

Anyway, my first challenge is actually "finding" the ORBX YBBN with ADE.

Because I have the original ORBX program, I guess not too much issue with 'breaking' it, and reloading. Or maybe better that I should backup which file? to recover my clumsy first attempts?

Who says retirement is boring....
 
Use Simple Airport Scanner to find it.............
 
Issues you will face with this:

As suggested above, the taxi and runway surfaces are 3D modelled .. which is why they don't look like standard FSX surfaces. You can turn these off, but that's a significant part of the airport gone IMO.

The photo-real terrain under the airport will not match the new taxiway at all. I can't think of any easy workaround for this. It is going to look stuck on, I suspect.

I have to wonder whether it is worth killing the sense of immersion and realism simply to have an additional taxiway, but I guess it's a project.
 
hcornea said:
Issues you will face with this:

As suggested above, the taxi and runway surfaces are 3D modelled .. which is why they don't look like standard FSX surfaces. You can turn these off, but that's a significant part of the airport gone IMO.

The photo-real terrain under the airport will not match the new taxiway at all. I can't think of any easy workaround for this. It is going to look stuck on, I suspect.

I have to wonder whether it is worth killing the sense of immersion and realism simply to have an additional taxiway, but I guess it's a project.
Click to expand...

Well as the OP says, the sense of realism has already gone. It depends on how good an artist he is as to how good his version will look.
 
Jon, just downloaded it. Playing now. I have:
ORBX YMML,YBBN
FSDT: KLAX,KSFO
UK2000: EGLL

It found, if I select, show only airports found in active scenery areas
KSFO....(D:\FSX\Scenery\world\scenery\KSFO_ALT.BGL
YSNF...which appears to be ORBX...(D:\FSX\Scenery\world\scenery\AF2_FSX_YSNF_ADE_ORBX_ALT.BGL

Ummm, getting closer.
 
The _ALT file is not an airport - it is an altitude adjustment file. Its only job is to change the altitude of a stock airport. So you should not do anything with those. They will not contain anything that affects the airport looks or operation
 
Yes. It is all well and good "patching" the airport, but it has got to look ok by the end of the project and not some bits of scenery flashing back and forth spoiling the whole effect. ORBX did a great job, and my skills now and maybe much later will not come close to theirs.So, yes hcornea, I agree with you. However, that said.....The now retired project guy in me says, well in your spare time you can learn about this scenery building etc and maybe in time learn sufficient to tackle the ORBX project. Also, maybe some more software will eventuate to make 3d modeling economical for non commercial guys like me.
 
I suspect most scenery designers start with a project that wasn't quite right in the sim and go from there.

Sketchup is commonly used for modelling (free) and gMax (also free) and Blender (free but perhaps less FSX oriented; there is a toolset for it in dev'ment somewhere on these forums)
 
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