Need help creating an island

[stormtrooper271]

I have attempted to create an island in FSX and things aren't looking like I had hoped, A large area of sand has appeared and it acts as water, the area that I have attempted to make as my airport is water. Does anyone have instructions on how to make an island in FSX?

42001

[Walter]

I don't know how to help ya, but that looks pretty cool to me! :icon_lol:

[CG_1976]

By chance did you punch a hole in the water? Looks like a scenery design layer ? Usually for Islands you shape and punch a hole in the water and then fill with a Landclass like sand.

[Meshman]

A float plane might be better than the Trike?

What are you using to do the terrain work? Hopefully it's SBuilderX?

In FSX everything is land, with water placed on top. So where you want your island to be, it's already there waiting for you. The process involves excluding out the existing water for the area, which will give you a LARGE area of land, to which you redo the water so that the land mass for your island shows through. Sounds convoluted and it is in a way, but once you've done it the process becomes simple.

Did I mention I hope you're using SBuilderX? There are other tools that might/will work, but I like a terrain tools (SBX) when doing terrain work.

[stormtrooper271]

By chance did you punch a hole in the water? Looks like a scenery design layer ? Usually for Islands you shape and punch a hole in the water and then fill with a Landclass like sand.

I have a layer titled "Exclude Specific Hydro Polygons Generic Ocean Perennial" Should that be the lowest layer?

Meshman, I am using the ADE.

[stormtrooper271]

I now have a visible island, but the land surrounding the runway behaves like water.

[Dave Torkington]

I have a layer titled "Exclude Specific Hydro Polygons Generic Ocean Perennial" Should that be the lowest layer?

Meshman, I am using the ADE.

Hi stormtrooper271. Like Meshman I use SBuilder X for any ground work, so I only use ADE for airport tweaking...

I suggest you try the ADE support forum at FSDeveloper. They're a very helpful and friendly bunch there

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=95

:salute: Good luck with the project,

Dave.

[stormtrooper271]

Hi stormtrooper271. Like Meshman I use SBuilder X for any ground work, so I only use ADE for airport tweaking...

I suggest you try the ADE support forum at FSDeveloper. They're a very helpful and friendly buch there

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=95

:salute: Good luck with the project,

Dave.

Thanks for the help, I will begin trying to create an island with SBuilder X in the morning.

[roger-wilco-66]

Islands are easy in SbuilderX. I made almost 500 islands in the Solomon project :-)
There's a nice small tutorial here:

http://www.newsite.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?p=137567


Cheers,
Mark

[Meshman]

I now have a visible island, but the land surrounding the runway behaves like water.

Once you've created the cutout for the island you need to copy that portion and then apply a land class texture to the area.

If using SBX to make the work it goes like this;

1. Exclude water with a small polygon
2. Make a new water polygon that fills a QMID 11 boundary area, in SBX I adjust the transparency down to about 35 so I can see through the poly
3. Make a new polygon within the water for where the island will be
4. Right-click on the island polygon and select Set as Hole, which will prompt you to click on the "Parent" polygon. That's the new water polygon in step 2. Clicking needs to be precise in SBX to get it to take. Once it does take the hole polygon will turn white.
5. Click on the edge of the water polygon and select Edit | Copy and then Edit | Paste. The cursor will have Paste at the end, so find a spot away from the original Hole polygon and click. A copy should appear. Press Escape to quit pasting or every mouse click will make a copy!
6. Right-click on the copy of the hole and assign it a land class texture
7. Move the copy of the Hole back on top of the Hole polygon to where they are stacked on top of each other. Zooming in may be required to be precise.
8. Save, compile, copy the cvx_XXXXXX.bgl file into FSX and see if the water is gone.

[stormtrooper271]

Thanks for all of the help, I now have a working island now it just needs a runway and some buildings. How would I go about making a runway for my island?

[roger-wilco-66]

I'd use ADE for that. Connect ADE to your running FSX, slew your plane to wherever you want your runway on the island, and center on the airplane in ADE. Or get the coordinates in FSX and enter them manually in ADE. Then place your runway and define its properties...exclude autogen if you have, maybe define a grass polygon around the runway or whatever...maybe place a few airfield objects...save...

Cheers,
Mark

[stormtrooper271]

I'd use ADE for that. Connect ADE to your running FSX, slew your plane to wherever you want your runway on the island, and center on the airplane in ADE. Or get the coordinates in FSX and enter them manually in ADE. Then place your runway and define its properties...exclude autogen if you have, maybe define a grass polygon around the runway or whatever...maybe place a few airfield objects...save...

Cheers,
Mark

I got the coordinates from FSX and tried placing a runway, but after I did this my island disappeared.

[falcon409]

I got the coordinates from FSX and tried placing a runway, but after I did this my island disappeared.
Just a thought but, have you set up a single folder for your Island with both a "scenery" and "texture" folder inside? All your bgl's (and the ADE file) would go into the scenery folder and any textures you might have (bmp's) would go into the texture folder.

If not, if you're just sticking bgl's into the main addon scenery/scenery folder along with the ADE file, that can sometimes cause problems, not always, but I have seen scenery get lost if it doesn't have it's own folder that's activated in the scenery library.:salute:

[stormtrooper271]

Just a thought but, have you set up a single folder for your Island with both a "scenery" and "texture" folder inside? All your bgl's (and the ADE file) would go into the scenery folder and any textures you might have (bmp's) would go into the texture folder.

If not, if you're just sticking bgl's into the main addon scenery/scenery folder along with the ADE file, that can sometimes cause problems, not always, but I have seen scenery get lost if it doesn't have it's own folder that's activated in the scenery library.:salute:

I have the island in its own scenery folder, I just need to get the runway to cooperate with me.

[roger-wilco-66]

As Falcon said, you should put all the SBX and ADE bgl files in an own folder structure (with the \scenery\ and \texture subfolder\ ) under \addon scenery\ and activate it in the scenery database somewhere at the top of the list.
What scenery elements did you define in ADE for your airfield? That's crucial in ADE.
You also have to watch out for elevations, otherwise you'll get weird results. Your airfield should have the same elevation like you have on your island (you can check that by slewing the default trike to the point of your runway).

Cheers,
Mark

[stormtrooper271]

As Falcon said, you should put all the SBX and ADE bgl files in an own folder structure (with the \scenery\ and \texture subfolder\ ) under \addon scenery\ and activate it in the scenery database somewhere at the top of the list.
What scenery elements did you define in ADE for your airfield? That's crucial in ADE.
You also have to watch out for elevations, otherwise you'll get weird results. Your airfield should have the same elevation like you have on your island (you can check that by slewing the default trike to the point of your runway).

Cheers,
Mark

I rechecked my altitude and now everything is working correctly. :jump:

[stormtrooper271]

I have a new problem now, I noticed the runway and the apron is floating above the island so I changed the altitude of the airport, now when I try to compile the airport in ADE an error is encountered; Also how do you add lines to taxiways?

[Meshman]

...Also how do you add lines to taxiways?

By reading the nice manual that was put together? :mixedsmi:

*IF* you used a plane or the sorts to get an elevation you must allow for the height of the pilot's view, which for the Trike is 6.4 feet. Is your runway about 6.4 feet above the ground?

*IF* you have already changed the elevation once you will need to go to the \Scenery\World\scenery folder and find and delete the file there with your airport code in it. Otherwise I *think* you get into a problem when compiling.

[stormtrooper271]

By reading the nice manual that was put together? :mixedsmi:

*IF* you used a plane or the sorts to get an elevation you must allow for the height of the pilot's view, which for the Trike is 6.4 feet. Is your runway about 6.4 feet above the ground?

*IF* you have already changed the elevation once you will need to go to the \Scenery\World\scenery folder and find and delete the file there with your airport code in it. Otherwise I *think* you get into a problem when compiling.

I am unable to find the file I am supposed to be looking for, could it possibly not have been added to the scenery/world/scenery folder? Also the error message says access is denied.



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Problem solved, solution... run as admin. :banghead: