flattenening switch???

[stevewilson]

data:

I think I know what is wrong. After taking a closer look at you cord', it appears that you started your flattening area at the northeast corner. The manual says start it in the northwest and go eather cw or ccw, so try the following:

Flatten.0=470.9,N53 27.68,W0 48.72,N53 27.68,W0 47.59,N53 26.61,W0 47.59,N53 26.61,W0 48.72

Just copy this and past it into your area and see if it does the trick.

Befor you do, you might check the area due east of your airport and see if it is flat.  Bet it is.

Let me know if this works.

Steve

[data790]

It is still not working, steve. see if you can spot an error in my set=up here. i have added this at the bottom of each scenery cfg file. I have made up the list from copying others in that folder

[Area.039]
Title=Rotherham airport
ID=MARC
Active=True
Layer=039
Local=Addon Scenery
Flatten.0=470.9,N53 27.68,W0 48.72,N53 27.68,W0 47.59,N53 26.61,W0 47.59,N53 26.61,W0 48.72

that is how it looks in both cng files.

PS. This manuel you speak of, where can i get one? did it come with the fs? if so i'd better have a good loock for it. but if i can get it on-line then it'd be better. thanks for the help.

[Hagar]

Data. I assume you're creating a new airport in AFCAD. I've never done this myself & haven't used a manual Flatten switch since the early days of FS2000. I just read the instructions included with the latest version of AFCAD & the principle is exactly the same as in FS2000. There's a link to this page in the AFCAD instructions. http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2000_articles_sceneryobjects.asp
I suspect this is the "manual" that Steve is talking about. It might also be included in one of the FS2004 SDKs.

Just to make sure you're doing this correctly the new scenery must be activated in FS9 before it will work. The Flatten switch line is added below the existing entry for the scenery.

I hope this is some help.

[data790]

It means no sense to me at the moment but i'll have a play.

Also, when adding airports to the ttools list there is a number lurking at the end eg:

01J ,N30* 40.91',W81* 54.27',59 <---- this one

how do i find these numbers so i can add the airport to the traffic list?

[Hagar]

The last time I messed around with AFCAD or TTools was in FS2002. Things are a little different in FS9 so it's no use me giving anything but general advice. I might trying creating a small airport in FS9 with AFCAD later to find out what all this is about.

The comprehensive instructions included with TTools should tell you all you need to know. These are not always easy to understand so make sure you read them carefully. I found that a front end utility like AITM makes it so much easier to  work with TTools. http://www.molitor-home.de/fs/News.html

[data790]

Found out how to add AI to an airport that doesn't support AI. All i did was do a COLLECT AIRPORT witht he ttool - the purple icon. And just copied and pasted the coords. that's one thing down anyway. Just need to flatten still. Really having no luck with it at all. is there a program out there that will enable me to to so???

[Hagar]

Maybe it would help if I know the problem & exactly what you wish to do. The Flatten switch will flatten the area around the runway or airport. If the entries are not exactly right you should see a warning message on starting FS9. I'm not sure the Exclude switch works for all objects in FS9. I found a little utility that creates Flatten switches & Area16N Flat area BGLs. http://www.fs-traveler.com/flatten.shtml This might be better but might confuse you even more. It requires FSUIPC.DLL & other extra files to work. I haven't tried it yet.

I tried creating a small airstrip in AFCAD with no problems. From what I can make out this only adds the basic runway with no other scenery objects. It might be easier to create the visual airport with one of the conventional scenery design applications, Airport for Windows or FS Scenery Creator. Then add the menu entries, parking gates, navaids & all the other bits & pieces with AFCAD. This is how I would tackle it myself.

[Hagar]

Data. Check the altitude of your scenery. I don't know the exact coords so I plonked a runway down roughly in the middle of your Flatten area. This might not be realistic but the altitude of the default mesh is 56 feet. The new airport & runway must be level with or below the altitude of the mesh. It's not possible to raise it above that level. I created an airport & simple runway at the correct altitude of 56 feet in AFCAD. Then modified the last Flatten switch entry you quoted with the correct altitude. I also added an Exclude switch to remove the trees & buildings like this. Please remember it's only a rough example.

Flatten.0=56.0,N53 27.68,W0 48.72,N53 27.68,W0 47.59,N53 26.61,W0 47.59,N53 26.61,W0 48.72
Exclude=N53 27, W0 47.26, N53 26, W0 46.77, objects

PS. It's only necessary to edit the Scenery.cfg file in the FS9 main directory.

[stevewilson]

Hager:   Good point about the alt, I assumed it was ok, and we all know what "ass-u-me" spells

Also thanks for pointing out that we can put the flatten switch in the main scenery folder. I've always put in the root folder.

Hopfully data has it now. The last thing I had noticed was his starting point with the coord', as I understand it you have to start in the NW corner. I could be wrong, it wouldn't be the first time.

Steve

[Hagar]

[quote]Hager:

[stevewilson]

Hager:  It was a good guess. I'm not sure what happens if it is to high, but if you place it over hills and don't set the elevation low enough you will see the tops of the hills flattend and still have some low areas.

As for the scenery.cfg file, I understood that the flatten and exclude files went into the one located in the FS9 folder, which is found under the Doc and Settings folder.

It took me a long time to learn that the starting point had to be in the upper left corner. And that the exclude uses only a lat for north and south, lon for west and east. And they have to be in N, W, S, E order.

Anyway hopfully we have done some good here and data will let us know if all is okey now.

See ya in the posts

Steve

[Hagar]

[quote]Hager:

[wji]

Thanks for the input to an interesting thread I built my first airport using Lee's AF2 and was disappointed by the lack of a flatten switch (trees in runway) Lee tells me he will include this in the next AF2 release (due out in June 04)
Bill
http://members.shaw.ca/bai/wwa/wji-airport.jpg

[Hagar]

Thanks for the input to an interesting thread I built my first airport using Lee's AF2 and was disappointed by the lack of a flatten switch (trees in runway) Lee tells me he will include this in the next AF2 release (due out in June 04)
Bill
http://members.shaw.ca/bai/wwa/wji-airport.jpg

Hi Bill. It's a long time since I had anything to do with manually editing Scenery.cfg. Hope my comments help with the basics. I think this might be where Data got confused. The Flatten switch flattens the area, that's all. The Exclude switch removes the scenery objects like trees. The new AFCAD should make all this much easier.

[stevewilson]

Hager  Great post, that is the manual I was refering to earlier. Its also where I found that I was doing the exclude wrong, ie... you don't use both Lat/Lon for each leg.

Really helps when one reads the instruction.

Steve