A Problem for Maskrider

[Shadow Wolf 07]

I am building an airbase at Miyako Jima (N24 45 E125 20, elevation: 176 ft = 53.65854m) . I'm using FSSC version 1.5.11 on a Windows 7 system (I haven't had a problem on a win7 system before). I have placed 2 runways in the same poly, on a flat area of correct elevation with taxiways, fuel point and NDB laid out. All points conform to the correct elevation.

My problem is that when I export the scenery and go to Free Flight to check it and do a screenshot for texture creation, I see it all on a black square, which is the size and shape of the polygon. In "preferences" under "visible objects", polygon, background image and flat area are turned off = unchecked. Yet, I still see a black square/polygon.

Do you have any suggestions for a solution? I even copied over the textures from scenedb/world/textures to my main textures folder. I'm puzzled. I never had this problem before. What am I forgetting?

Thanks:

SW07

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Here's what I have an what I see...

[UncleTgt]

Hi SW,

The bitmap needs to be extended 16 bit. MR usually saves as DXT3 with alpha so it "blends". My guess is your viewing 24 bit bitmap.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Hi SW,

The bitmap needs to be extended 16 bit. MR usually saves as DXT3 with alpha so it "blends". My guess is your viewing 24 bit bitmap.

I know, but I'm not to that stage yet. I am creating a bgl to do a screenshot so I can create the BMP. The DXT3 with alpha stage is almost the last thing to be done before GSL creation.

[Blood_Hawk23]

I get this once in a while. Check your layer. it should be higher then any other poly.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

I get this once in a while. Check your layer. it should be higher then any other poly.

Right... the layer position is the second thing I checked. The layers are as follows from bottom up: 1. polygon; 2. flatten; 3. runways and taxiways (also NDB and fuel point). The first was that the poly was not checked in preferences as "visible."

[achim27619]

Shadow,

check your pm, please.


Cheers

Achim

[UncleTgt]

Ok, you may have found the issue.

But I use a slightly different sequence for taking the screengrab that will be used to make the background poly, & it might avoid such "poly-related" issues in future.

I create a runway of known length, & use a texture that you can see clearly. Don't create any poly yet.
Create the bgl, & load in Quick Combat
Pause
Using the cfo weather 7.5.7 add on, change a/c heading to 360 deg & altitude to 5000ft at the current location. Load this info & let the scenery rebuild.
Start, & pause immediately once more
Shift view to overhead & take a screenshot
Use this screenshot as a background in FSSC
Scale it to the same position & length as the runway you created.
You now have something the right size & position that you can use to generate a background from
Now I create a square poly, that I can use with Maskrider's instructions on creating blended backgrounds.
Don't forget to change the runway properties later on if you need to.

I find this a useful way of making non-airport scenery/ flattens too, just remove the runway before your final bgl compile.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Yup. That's it! I created the polygon too soon. It goes in after the background image is taken. Doh!!! I'll remove it and get back to work...

[MaskRider]

Glad you guys got it handled. Nicely done!

MR

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Glad you guys got it handled. Nicely done!

MR

Everything went well and I created the new bgl. The only thing that is wrong is that the Paintshop/DXTbmp created texture is floating about 50-100m above the ground. I had that problem once before but I forgot the solution. Can any of you help out?

[Shadow Wolf 07]

... still need some help/advice. See the post above. Anyone???

[Devildog73]

Shadow Wolf,

I know it has to do with elevation, or as the FSSC puts it ALT and the flattens, but I am not sure how you cure it.

I have encountered it before also. My Henderson runway was the same and I finally went through all scenery folders and searched for everything that had "Henderson" in the bgl and deleted all of them except one.

Sorry I can't help you.

[Blood_Hawk23]

I'm sure you've done this but... Check list...

---Are you set to the correct elevation in CFS2?
---Are you using the lowest point?
---Did you use the Flatener?

I think your flatener isn't working. I've had this issue with FSSC. Thats why I use groundmaker for my flatener. If all of your elevation data matchs your airbase.dat then that would be the next thing to look at.

Verify that your Poly is set right. you may have something entered wrong and have overlooked it. After staring at it over and over its easy to do.

If you'd like send me an email and I can look it over. Maybe an extra set of eyes will help.

I know you'll laught and kick yourself once you find it.

[UncleTgt]

SW,

I haven't fired up FSSC since I changed to WIN 7 from XP, but I vaguely remember the ALT for polys etc. being the ALT above the value you have already set as the airbase ALT when you first created the airbase.

So for something to stay at the airbase altitude, it should be zero ALT for the poly (0m above the airbase ALT).

[Blood_Hawk23]

is there any other scenery close by?

I had an issue with Hulliun and Hulluin-ost. they were too close together. the flatteners were conflicting. once set to the same alt it was all fixed.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Thanks for the tip UncleTgt... resetting the poly altitude to 0 did the trick.

[Devildog73]

Blood_Hawk,

Is groundmaker a program we have in the library here, or is it a MW program available to us?

[Blood_Hawk23]

Blood_Hawk,

Is groundmaker a program we have in the library here, or is it a MW program available to us?

no its at NoDice's Freeflightsite.

http://www.thefreeflightsite.com/Design.htm

here is the download link
http://www.thefreeflightsite.com/Grmkb400.zip

I use FSSC after to add the fuel areas. they work much in the same way. all of my WWI areodromes were done with groundmaker.

[Devildog73]

no its at NoDice's Freeflightsite.

http://www.thefreeflightsite.com/Design.htm

here is the download link
http://www.thefreeflightsite.com/Grmkb400.zip

I use FSSC after to add the fuel areas. they work much in the same way. all of my WWI areodromes were done with groundmaker.

Thanks,
I went to Dave's site and got it and other stuff.

[Blood_Hawk23]

Kool. If you have any trouble using it, just give me a shout. You'll find its easy to use.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

At long last I sorted all my problems out and 2 days ago created the gsl file for the base. The complex is located on and in the edge of a forest, so I used a lot of Lindsay Watt's trees to give it some "life," But not so many as to drastically effect frame rates. I took a dusk screenshot and noticed that one runway was not lit, so I went back into FSSC and fixed that. The second landing strip, for some reason, doesn't show in the selection menu for Free Flight, but both are available for use in Mission Builder.

Now that I have refreshed my memory in doing this, if any of you have any more of the Japanese bases to be done, let me know. I'll wait to publish it until I find out if there are any more you want me to do.

Greg

[UncleTgt]

Very nice!

I'm reading a lot of anecdotal info that suggests a lot of the runways in these islands were made from crushed coral - I'll research some more but you might want to change the runway textures. Sorry for being a bit of a party-pooper...

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Very nice!

I'm reading a lot of anecdotal info that suggests a lot of the runways in these islands were made from crushed coral - I'll research some more but you might want to change the runway textures. Sorry for being a bit of a party-pooper...

"a lot..." is nice. This can serve as one of the exceptions. I'm attaching a screenshot, showing an FSSC coral (left) and an FSSC dirt (right) runway textures. The difference is very small. If someone wants to do a total redo of the runways, taxiways, cleared areas and reposition the 514 objects and trees, they can be my guest. I ain't changing it. But any further runways in this area will be coral.

[MaskRider]

The second landing strip, for some reason, doesn't show in the selection menu for Free Flight,...

For any multi-runway airfield scenery, CFS2 will default to one end of the runway designated as the default runway for that scenery. The default runway is usually going to be the very first runway you add to the scenery in FSSC. The runway becomes so designated by checking the "Airport and Facilities Entry" check-box in FSSC's runway properties dialogue box. Normally, the first runway added will have this box checked by default. There can be only one runway so designated. Additional runways as well as the other end of the scenery's default runway can easily be made available as start-locations in FF by using FSSC to add what are called "Menu Entry" start points. Once added, menu entry start points are accessed in FF as follows:

"Start Location" --> "Advanced Go To" --> "Scenery From FS95 and before" --> pick a scenery area from the list in the "Scenery Area" box --> pick a start point from the list of start points in the "Search Results" box.

You can add menu entry start points all over the place- inside hangars, ready-aprons, hardstands, at refuel points- where ever. The screen shot below shows a partial list of the start points in the MR Saipan, Isley Field scenery. Isley has 2 runways- and 4 runway entries. The default end of the designated "Airport and Facilities Entry" runway, the one that shows up in the default CFS2 Start Location list, is runway 7L. The other three runway start points are accessed through the menu entry start-points listed in the "Search Results" box: 25R, 25L and 7R. Notice also the refuel area start points. There are a ton of other start points listed below those. You can also put menu entry start points in the water for float planes.

Having a wide range of start point locations at every airfield also makes online multi-player flying a lot more fun.

Cheers,
MR