Scenery Question

[skylane]

Hello!

I have a problem: For a mission I´m making I tried to place some buildings and railroad tracks somewhere onto the ground. The problem is: the ground is not completely flat, so some buildings appear partly buried, as do some of the tracks.
My question: Is there a quick and easy way to flatten part of the terrain so I can place objects there, or do I need some scenery-building program to accomplish that?

skylane

[sc7500]

I found two references to the question of "limited area" flattening - read them BOTH and decide which will work in your situation.
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The first is from an ancient thread - still dust-covered - by an unknown source:

How to create a flat area for your airfield to be built on.
Read Carefully - This is extremely important!!

If you create a simple airfield for any of the Microsoft flight sims then the chances will be that you will create it on non-flat terrain.

FLATTEN & EXCLUDE SWITCHES

Most CFS2 scenery includes BGL files which will automatically flatten or exlude default areas to avoid conflicts.

For some FS2000 scenery the Flatten/Exclude switches will require adding manually to Scenery.cfg.

This is not difficult. Look for references to Flatten or Exclude switches in the designer's instructions.

Here's an example of an Exclude switch. The Flatten switch is very similar.

Exclude=N51 30.5,W3 27.5,N51 15.5,W3 12.5,objects

First install & activate the scenery. Then exit CFS2 & open the CFS2 main folder. Find Scenery.cfg & open it in Notepad. The switch can be added anywhere in the CFG but the best place for it is directly below the appropriate [Area.0xx] entry, usually right at the bottom of the text.

The easiest method is to Copy/Paste the complete line from the designer's Read-me into Scenery.cfg.

In FS2000, FS2002 and CFS2 this can be overcome using the terrain flatten switch. Your design program should include an options whereby you can create this flatten switch when generating your scenery. If not then below is a section from the CFS2 readme.doc on how to put a flatten swith into CFS2. This will work with FS2000 and FS2002 as well.

The Flatten switch syntax is as follows:

Flatten.X=Elevation,Latitude1,Longitude1,Latitude2 ,Longitude2,Latitude3,Longitude3,Latitude4,Longitu de4

X is equal to a number between 0 and 9, but you must start with Flatten.0, then Flatten.1, and so on, up to Flatten.9. You are allowed a maximum of 10 Flatten switches per Scenery Area (thus the numbers 0-9).

The Elevation is in feet above or below mean sea level (msl) and can be any number between -2000 and 99999.

The Latitude and Longitude of points 1, 2, 3, and 4 must be entered in a clockwise or counter clockwise fashion about the four sided area and must be in the form of degrees and minutes. You do not need to add the * or ' symbols to indicate degrees and minutes, and the shape does not have to be a rectangle. Any four-sided shape will work.

The maximum size of a flattened area is 90 degrees of longitude and 45 degrees of latitude.

EXAMPLE: This example flattens two separate but adjacent regions inside the scenery area to an elevation of 1000 ft. MSL.

[Area.100]

Group=Your Area

ID=Your Area

Title=Your Area

Active=TRUE

Layer=100

Local=C:\\Your Area

Flatten.0=1000,N45 30,W120,N45 30,W119 30,N45,W119 30,N45,W120

Flatten.1=1000,N45,W120,N45,W119 30, N44 30,W119 30,N44 30,W120

(note that there are no gaps between the lines of the code when you type this into a suitable text editing program e.g. notepad.exe. This is taken from the read-me file for CFS2)

When designing an airfield for FS98 or CFS1 you have to do it on a flat area or be really brave and create a new terrain to replace the existing with a flat area in the desired place.
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The second was written by Kelticheart [My old buddy Stefano] to Wulf a Second long time ago:

...Try a flatten switch for the whole airfield. Open MB, go to Cherbourg, put your pointer in the middle of the runway, it will give you the altitude the scenery was designed at. You can read it at the bottom left corner of the whole MB screen.

Write it down, then zoom out a little and put your pointer on the top left corner of your MB scenery screen. Write down the coords you can read in the bottom left corner of the whole MB screen, then proceed clockwise to the top right corner, bottom right corner, bottom left corner.

Each time write down the coordinates. If you did your homework correctly, you should now have a total of 8 coordinates.

Open your scenery.cfg, go to where your Cherbourg entry is and write at the bottom the following:

flatten.0=[write here the altitude figure], [write here your no.1 coord], [no.2], [no.3 and so on]; proceed clockwise with each single coordinate separate by a comma and do not put a comma after the last one.

Many times I was able to cure the problem by forcing the mesh underneath to level out at the altitude meant by the airfield designer, when its own scenery flatten for some reason did not work.

Like you, I had aircrafts buried in the ground or sitting in the air.

You can enter up to 10 flatten switches (0 through 9) per each scenery group. Each one would be numbered as:

flatten.0=
flatten.1=
flatten.2=
etc.

As Rhumbaflappy rightly pointed out in another thread, this is a rather crude method, but it works until someone steps in, better would be the original scenery designer himself, and corrects the entire scenery with an appropriate Area16 (flatten) *.bgl.
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Hope this helps. :salute:
SC
:kilroy:

[skylane]

SC, thank you very much!

This is very helpful, I´ll give it a try right away!

[sc7500]

...SC, thank you very much! This is very helpful, I´ll give it a try right away!...

Make us proud, Sky - and, if you make any new discoveries, please share them ! :wavey:

Best
SC
:kilroy:

[skylane]

SC, I followed your instructions, and it works perfectly! I get a nice, flat area where I can put my objects!
Thanks again for this valuable information!

Cheers,

skylane