Surface Painted Taxiway Direction Signs

[zzip]

Thanks Don.
I'm going to try again myself first. If it doesn't work, you'll hear it.
Grtz
Peter

 

[zzip]

I've taken the dump file and plotted all points in Google Earth. I don't know what's wrong, but I'm going to delete this part in ADE and redraw it. Grtz Peter

 

[zzip]

SOLVED:
I removed parts of the Custom Ground line, taxiway, Edge Lights and the hold short one by one.
Until after the removal of the Custom Ground Line (centerline of the taxiway) ADE no longer gave an error. That was the problem. But what was the cause? I do not know.
Thank you all
Grtz
Peter

 

[gadgets]

Peter, such problems are usually very simple. But, as I mentioned above, we often need to see the .ad4 file to diagnose with certainty.

 

[zzip]

Hi Don, I understand you want to see the .ad4 file, but I wanted to try it myself first because this is the first time I use Custom Ground Line.
I am therefore happy that I was able to solve it myself.
Thank you anyway and I will send the .ad file with the following problem.
Grtz
Peter

 

[Butch1]

13. Click the left Drag button and drag one of the polygon's vertices so the box is centered over the letter R.

View attachment 45506

14. Using the left Resize and the left Drag buttons, resize and move the polygon until it is just outside the letter R.

View attachment 45505

15. Click OK to return to ADE. Your first letter is done. Now let's create the W.

16. Click your polygon until the sides turn orange. Right click and choose Copy Objects.

View attachment 45504

17. Right click to the right of the polygon and choose Paste Objects.

View attachment 45503

18. Now you have a new polygon next to your original one. Select it by clicking it, and press Enter to go to the GP Editor.

View attachment 45502

19. Click the left drag button and drag a vertex to the W.

View attachment 45501

20. Note how much wider this letter needs to be verses our original R. Click OK to return to ADE.

21. Select two vertices of our new polygon and drag the W polygon so it is wider by the correct amount.

View attachment 45507

22. Select the resized polygon by clicking it, and press Enter to go to the GP Editor.

23. Drag the mouse across the right 2 vertices of our polygon, click the middle Drag button (left/right) and drag one vertex to the right so the vertices enclose the letter W.

View attachment 45500

24. Click OK and return to ADE. Now the R and W polygons are finished.

25. Repeat steps 16 through 23 to create the Y polygon. I would copy the R polygon, since it's about the same width as a Y polygon.

Now save the airport file, and compile and view your handiwork in FS. Go back to ADE and adjust the size and spacing to get the look you want.

Hope this helps,

Using ADE and after selecting the ground poly icon, I can start to click out a square and when I am done, I find it difficult to get to the Editor box
so that I can continue on. I also note that if it is hard to get out of ground poly mode (like a sticky booger on my finger) and also the undo option doesn't work at all for me.

Following your directions, I have been trying to get one runway number painted on the runway and not have any luck what so ever. I have a texture sheet with the numbers I want to use
I can draw a outline (Lasso) around what I want to put into the poly, save then compile then load my scenery and no numbers. I have tried repeatedly over and over and over to no avail.....Grrrrr....

 

[tgibson]

When you *double click* the last vertex in ADE the GP Editor should come up automatically.

To get it selected in ADE and turn orange, you need to click on an edge of the polygon (usually).

 

[Butch1]

Okay I sort of made one runway number as an experiment. The number flickers a lot. Always something.

I could not get any of the resize buttons (GE Editor) to work to where I could make a more accurate square.

I did notice that ADE made a GP file that I copied over from the projects to my actual scenery folder.

I got a red number per instructions, It wasn't easy. After all the fighting with the buttons
in GP editor and trying to make a square number I get a flickering red number.
Such a deal. Wish ADE would incorporate adding things like this like they did when
it came to adding runway signs. It would be sooooo much better and less nerve
racking for me and perhaps the untold others

If I try to make adjustment to this one number (square it up) it will most likely
get hosed up yet some more, Such a deal for me.

I tried to make the square look more square, If I try to click for the orange square
I get another session of the Purple button and it wants to make more green outline
square.


I wish these numbers could be saved to an object library so that they could be just
placed as easily as other objects. That would be just ducky.

Saw this as I was compiling, I don't know what this is all about but I didn't change any
presets.

 

[Butch1]

Now I tried to square up the number and now it's gone. I was looking for the file that had the number and the only file that shows my number is the ad4 and none of the others. Why is that?
Any way,,, the green square shows with no number (I thoght the main bgl file would show the number) and after all the struggle to make it happen it flickers.

 

[=rk=]

I got a red number per instructions, It wasn't easy. After all the fighting with the buttons
in GP editor and trying to make a square number I get a flickering red number.
Such a deal. Wish ADE would incorporate adding things like this like they did when
it came to adding runway signs. It would be sooooo much better and less nerve
racking for me and perhaps the untold others

Hi! Congratulations on all your advancements! I just noticed your mention about ADE and wanted to ask you to try and remember, "they," are just one person, Jon Patch, he's a developer just like you and pretty much the thing he likes to develop, is software that makes it easier to do our developing. I never paid for ADE, I doubt you did either, so it goes without saying that his only compensation, presumably, is our gratitude.

I suggest, in moving forward, that the reason Jon did not incorporate custom, ground polygon numbers, is the same as, or similar to the reason you are having so much trouble mastering yours and if you really wanted to help, you could probably assemble a library of quality ground polygon numbers and offer that to Jon, to incorporate in future releases of ADE. It couldn't come at a more opportune time imo, as many here are feeling at a loss, when it comes to ADE custom ground polygons.

 

[scruffyduck]

Jon Patch

I am not John Patch And I have to say that the Ground Poly (GP) functions were developed by Don Grovestine (Gadgets) who sadly passed away earlier this month. This means that the GP functionality is now fixed in time and will not get further development or fixes)

 

[=rk=]

My apologies for the mistake. I'd thought I'd seen Don post a whimsical suggestion that someone take over his role and that memory is probably exactly as reliable as the rest. Since it had seemed like the in-built ground poly editing functionality of MSFS had been directly lifted from Don's software and improved upon, we can remain grateful to Don's memory for providing the path of development, until the sim developers themselves took over.

 

[tgibson]

You can't make the square orange in ADE with the purple shape button active, you must have the Pointer button chosen to select ANYTHING in ADE.

CREATE the ground polygon with the purple shape button
EDIT the ground polygon with the Pointer button (arrow).


GP's do flicker in some versions of P3D I hear. What sim are you using?

 

[Butch1]

You can't make the square orange in ADE with the purple shape button active, you must have the Pointer button chosen to select ANYTHING in ADE.

CREATE the ground polygon with the purple shape button
EDIT the ground polygon with the Pointer button (arrow).


GP's do flicker in some versions of P3D I hear. What sim are you using?

P3D V5.3 HF2

 

[Butch1]

Okay, I managed to create two (22) numbers, I did a save and then a compile. The process created an AD4, GP and BGL file. I copies all there over to the actual scenery folder and none of the numbers show
on the runway. Yesterday I managed to get the one number that flickered. Only in the AD4 file do I see two green squares where the 22 number should appear. I was under the impression that one of the compiles
ade files I would see the red and white numbers (which I don't) but see a green box. I am dazed and really confused now just when I thought I was getting the hang of it all. My 77 year old brain hurts from all this.

This is the ad4 files. The GP and BLG files do not show the two green squares. They both had the same images assigned (22).

 

[Butch1]

I checked further into the no show numbers issue - Here are some screen shots of GP editor, It says a texture used is not available yet in the next screen shot you can see the texture I used to make the numbers.

 

[tgibson]

The bottom picture clearly shows that the Signs_Red texture has not yet been defined, so it won't be used properly.

From the ADE-GP manual:

From ADE's Tools menu, open the GP Texture Editor.

Texture Editor

In the upper left-hand combo-box, select the name of the new texture and specify:

--Select Signs_Red (no def)

 the distance (in feet or meters) the height and/or width of the texture is intended to cover.
(both entries may be left blank if the texture is not distance-sensitive),

--In your case leave the distance values blank unless you know a typical size you want ADE to default to. You can always edit it in the ADE GP Editor on a polygon by polygon basis.

 whether the texture is to be tiled for use as line-backing, large area coverage or ground
poly outlining, and

--Leave the tiled box unchecked

 where in the Main Texture list on the GP editor you want this one to appear.

--This places your new texture in the texture list in this numbers location. Leave as the last in the list (the largest number) if you don't care.

Finally, click on Update Definition Files

Now you should be able to select the texture in the GP Editor as a valid choice.

Hope this helps,

 

[Butch1]

Thanks Tom for you help, I managed to change the no def status but still the runway 22 signs do not show. I had saved/compiled everything. What is strange is the first time I managed to create just the one
"22" marker (and it flickered). Now I see nothing. In the AD4 file I see the two green squares. Thought that maybe correcting the update def issue would iron out the issue.

 

[tgibson]

You will never see the texture displayed in the ADE airport screen, just the green squares. Confirm that the Signs_Red texture is in the texture subfolder alongside the ADE GP BGL file in the scenery folder (along with the main ADE BGL file). Also confirm that the texture found in that texture subfolder is in a format that FS can read (should be in a DXT or similar format).

 

[tgibson]

Also try overhead view in FS and go up a ways.

P3D v4 - gp poly problem

I did one gp in one area. worked great. Did another one with a different texture ( installed correctly in ADE gp texture editor. texture is difined), but it does not show in game unless I go top down and zoom out a ways. Bob

www.fsdeveloper.com