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Sloped runways

A

AumKem

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82
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france
Dear master developers.

Can i ask you the best way to do sloped runways (for P3DV5) .

1. Do i need to design the slope on Sketchup or Blender and adjust something on the flat ground poly by MCX ?

2. Do i need to do the slope on MCX ?

3. Do i need to slope everything like runway lights etc in the same way ?

Thank you very much for the advises and help.

Best regards
 
I assume that at some point, someone will do a tutorial on the topic of using sloped objects. But until then, here is a partial list of stock airports with those features, that one can look at in ADE:


EGUO

LFFC, LFHU, LFKD, LFKX, LSGK, LFMB

KAVX, KCOD

VNBJ, VNFT, VNLK, VYKL
 
Been looking at these airports and it seems the trick is to leave the runway at default altitude, and set the Taxi point determine the Runway altitude at the specific point.


1587445122700.png



1587445261977.png


In this test you can see that I changed the Runway heights in multiple places by adding Runway & Taxi points to the Runway and changing the Height.

1587449043771.png


1587450006253.png
 
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Is somebody figured out what are the new fields for SurfaceQuery (in TaxiwayPath and in Apron). SurfaceQuery can take 3 value (Default, None, Elevation_and_Type). The SDK say nothing about what changing this do to the sim.

I have updated an airport made some years ago to add sloped runway and it work fine after having to work with background polygons to have a correct terrain to fit with the sloped runway.

v5jM5w7.png
 
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There is a small amount of information in the online P3d5 SDK documentation. First go to Scenery Overview:


Then scroll down to the entry reproduced below. Each of the new items explains what the Flatten setting is supposed to control. With a little luck, the links below should direct you to the correct page in the SDK. These items have subrecord type at or above 0x00AC.

Sloping Airports
Airports can now be specified as sloping. Sloping airports include sloped runways and taxiways that can be used by AI aircrafts. The sloping value in the airport element must be specified as true in order to make changes to altitudes of airport objects.
Other new values include:
TaxiwayPoint and TaxiwayParking
  • Alt
  • BiasY
TaxiwayPath
  • SurfaceQuery
  • Flatten
TaxiwaySign
  • Alt
  • AltitudeIsAgl
  • Pitch
  • ClampPitch
  • Bank
  • ClampBank
Apron
  • SurfaceQuery
  • Alt
  • Flatten
 
I had a look at hte SDK doc but not easy to understand the meaning. SurfaceQuery for instance is "Specifies if the taxiway should or should not return a surface type and elevation".

I tried the option NONE and its like if the runway doesnt use the altitude information in the taxiway and the runway texture is just lying on the surface polygon for terrain which could be sloped. The "type" according to my test seem to influence the behavior of some special effect like dirt from the aircraft wheel when we select Altitude_and_type. No effect if the parameter is NONE. Maybe this affect also others things like braking (for instance for ice runway). But the type of surface is defined in the Runway object and not in the taxiway description so I'm puzzled why this tag is put there.
 
I have been experimenting with the new ADE and setting the airport as sloped in the properties you can set the alt on every node. The terrain sorrounding is the tricky part. I had to use sloped "flattens" and insert and alt for each vertex to be able to control the terrain.

The other hard part (if possible) is to be able to use the ground polys which give the opportunity to have nice detailed floors. I don't know if there's a workaround to this to have those ground complex materials or the new tools will allow Arno to modify the GPW to stick vertex to ground.
 
Apparently SurfaceQuery give two different options for the runway altitude. Il you set it to NONE, the runway is draw directly on the ground polygon. The change in angle is not very smooth with this option but I didn't try the 4 new types of flatten with "smooth" maybe they are there just for this type of case where you want to put the runway directly on the ground polygon and you want some smoothness. If you put the flag ALTITUDE_AND_TYPE, then the nodes in the taxiway control the altitude of the runway. I was successful to create runways with both methods.

In summary:
- NONE: give you a runway directly on the ground polygon but still have to find if we can make the changes in the different polygon smooth for the aircraft. None doesnt return to P3D the information to determine the sort of effect the wheel should do so no effect in this case.
- ALTITUDE_AND_TYPE : the runway follow the altitude of the taxiway path but you are responsible to ensure that the ground polygon are not interferring with the runway. This necessitate some trial and error.
 
I see there are few people who already made the slope runway successful. I hope someone can help me on this post (I am not sure that was the right thread where I posted the issue).

www.fsdeveloper.com

ADE - ADE Version 1.79.7410 Dev is released. Supports P3D v5

Taxi points, aprons and parking spots can have an altitude in v5 for sloping airports. If you check a v5 stock airport you will see that the altitude is set to the airport reference altitude, This raises two issues - first changing the airport altitude in v5 will need all these set to the new...
www.fsdeveloper.com www.fsdeveloper.com
 
Hello misters Nagmaal ,Carlos, Kamarad and Jay
Thanks for your great answers !
I will test every advises on my new scenery and report here what i will find .
Kind regards
 
Kamarad said:
Is somebody figured out what are the new fields for SurfaceQuery (in TaxiwayPath and in Apron). SurfaceQuery can take 3 value (Default, None, Elevation_and_Type). The SDK say nothing about what changing this do to the sim.

I have updated an airport made some years ago to add sloped runway and it work fine after having to work with background polygons to have a correct terrain to fit with the sloped runway.

v5jM5w7.png
Click to expand...


Dear Kamarad, can you show (or send me in MP) your ADE details please like your modified taxi or runway points as well as your background surrounding poly ?
Thank you very much
Best regards
 
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