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Undulating runway.

C

Chris Jones

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unitedkingdom
Hi All,

I am a glider pilot, and bought FSX to enable me to fly when the real weather is not too friendly! I had a good search for my local airfield, but couldn't find it, so installed SDK and ADE. I have begun modelling my airfield, and in terms of the physical layout I'm reasonably pleased with it (though I intend tweaking it as I learn, and hope to eventually have the entire local area accurately modeled), but I can't seem to get my runway to undulate with the contours of the land. The contour representation in FSX is pretty accurate, but I can't seem to get my runway to follow these contours.

10683677_1005712892796638_2197807283972600639_o.jpg


I have placed a polygon around the airfield boundary, and have it currently set to Flatten Mask Class Map ExcludeAutoGen. This has given me a fairly good background match, and created a flat airfield, but I want to make it fit the actual contours of the existing land. I tried using the Edit Individual Points option, but without knowing the heights for those specific points it's going to take me forever to figure them out. Is there a way of making the airfield conform to the contours automatically, or of finding the FSX altitudes for the points I have selected?

Many thanks,

Chris
 
Hi and welcome to FS Developer. Airports in FS are flat by definition. So it is not possible using ADE to create a sloped or undulating runway. So it can't be done automatically and it can't be done manually. The alternative would be to do without the runway but you would also have to do without the airport background polygon as well. Then you would be following the mesh itself. Or you can create sloped polygons using multiple flattens. The real question is how important is the undulating runway to your enjoyment - can you live with a flat one?
 
Remove the flatten and the runway. Place starts at will.

However, you really need photographic scenery otherwise you may find that there is a house on the runway ;)

Which is your airfield?
 
Hi guys, thanks very much.

Jon, the undulations are quite important as they play a huge part in the approach and landing, especially the ground run, in unpowered gliders. Are you saying that I can use ADE to remove the scenery (trees etc), then just launch and land on the existing, undulating surface? If that's the case that would be a great solution, and one I could happily live with.

George, you found it, Brentor. I have plenty of photos, but how do I use them as scenery?

Many thanks,

Chris
 
Yes - you can use ADE to clear the ground and add back other objects but you can't add a runway or taxiways since they need to be flat. Also make sure that any background polys exclude but don't flatten

Then you would be landing on the mesh which gives the ground its shape
 
Hi Chris,

Attached is the ADE4 file.

I also added a higher (than Gen-X) resolution photo texture insert. PM me your email address and I can let you have it (it is 230MB).
 

Attachments

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May I add a question in this context?
Is it possible cheating FSX in such a case (no runway drawn) to give back runway data nonetheless? I'm just building an airport being sloped in all directions, but it should show up (if possible) in third party flight planners like Plan-G that are reading the FS sceneries with the known airport properties.

upload_2015-1-3_19-48-36.jpeg
 
Thanks George, I didn't realise that ADEX can do this now. I'll try it.

EDIT: It works (of course). Thanks again George - and may the Power be with you this year! :coffee:
 
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