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[Stainless]

This is so frustrating

I added vegetation to the airport, and I am not happy with the result. It is obvious to me I am going to have to replace all the vegetation meshes with something much better.

So far I have been using freeware tools to extract data from the BGL files, but while doing the vegetation I found a load of flags that don't get extracted by the freeware tools.
Things like sampler state, and blend mode are defined in the BGL file but ignored by the freeware tools.

So I have no choice but to write my own.

When this tool is done, it will have to automatically look for replacement meshes for the ones in the BGL files, so all I will end up using is object name and transform. Damn, more work

[Stainless]

Added a day night sequence and started adding lighting.

Just added calvert so far , so many different bloody types to work through.

Just using sprites for lights at the moment. This is only the editor, the game will use a baked lightmap so will look a lot better, but I need the lights in before I can bake a lightmap.

Still haven't figured out taxiways, anyone every looked at them in FSX ?

[Mission_bug]

Awesome stuff, seems to be coming on in leaps and bounds, excellent.


Take care and be safe.


Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[Pursuivant]

I added vegetation to the airport, and I am not happy with the result. It is obvious to me I am going to have to replace all the vegetation meshes with something much better.

One trick might be to have the option of making certain objects slightly random in location and/or orientation along their various axes.

For example, if you put down a rectangular group of identical tree objects, the location randomizer offsets each tree's location by some random amount along the X and Y axes so the grid pattern becomes a bit less obvious. You could then rotate the tree object by some random amount from 0-180 degrees around its Z axis so that, at first glance, identical tree objects don't look so uniform. Then, slightly rotate each tree along its X and/or Y axes by 0.5-2 degrees so that they come out of the ground at very slight random angles. That gives you more realistic tree farms and cultivated woodlots.

You could also specify that certain objects follow a line defined by some other object being spaced at a certain distance, orientation, and interval from the defining object. A variation of the same trick could be used to define objects that appear on or near two different objects which intersect or parallel each other. That allows you to procedurally generate scenery items along roads, define barriers where two roads parallel each other, or define railroad crossings where a road crosses a railroad track.

As for MSFS taxiways, is it possible that they're just defined as polygons and curves defined by mathematical points and then "clipped" where they intersect so the textures don't overlap and suitable markings can be laid down near the intersection?

[Stainless]

The taxiways are really confusing me.

They don't mesh together as you would expect, so I have a whole bunch of points defined, that is obvious.

Then you get an array of paths which go from one point to another. That's it. The points are always close together.

So I thought like you that I could just connect them all together into chains, so point 1 -2, point 2 -3, point 3-4, and so on.

But that doesn't work and when I try to connect them all together that way I get a load of unconnected short paths.

Now I could possibly work with that , except the path structure includes these values

Code: [Select]

public class RunwayTaxiwayPath
    {
        public String Type;
        public int Start;
        public int End;
        public float Width;
        public float WeightLimit;
        public bool DrawSurface;
        public bool DrawDetail;
        public String Surface;
        public String Name;
        public bool CenterLine;
        public bool CenterLineLighted;


The two booleans DrawSurface and DrawDetail are always false.

It makes no sense

[Stainless]

https://github.com/PaulBlythe/Fox1/blob/master/README.md

[Pursuivant]

The taxiways are really confusing me.

It appears that runways and taxiways in FSX are more complex than I thought. There are many features you can define, such as runway surface texture and aprons along the edges of the runway or taxiway. You can also define taxi paths for AI aircraft. It's also possible that there are additional parameters which define load-bearing areas for a taxiway/runway although they don't appear to be used in FSX.

I have no idea how these various parameters are defined, but it's possible that if you get them mixed up you get textures like you've described.

One possibility is that rather than defining just one rectangle or curve the numbers actually define three or more areas - the taxiway area and the areas bordering the taxiway. That gives you the option of, say, concrete taxiway but earth aprons, or plowed taxiways but snow-covered aprons. Aprons of different textures could also have effects on dust being kicked up by engines or problems with lack of load-bearing capacity should you go off the taxiway.

As for the FSX DrawSurface and DrawDetail booleans, it appears that those are null values which are just applied to aprons and taxiway values. They were included in FSX but never implemented in the stock game. They have been implemented in derivatives of FSX like Lockheed Martin's Prepared3D and in payware add-ons to FSX. In those cases if their value is set to 0/False then they don't appear in the game.

If you haven't yet seen this page, you might find it helpful:

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=BGL_File_Format

[Stainless]

Hi Pursuivant,

Yes it is looking a mess.

I agree the taxiways records in the file seem to be used only by AI, but that gives me the problem of finding how the taxiways are defined for the renderer.

They have to be drawn by something, so where is the data used to draw them?

At the moment I am trying graphing code to connect all the various taxiway paths into something sensible, but they just don't connect as I would expect.

To be honest I would not be suprised to see aircraft piled up in a traffic jam at certain points of the airfield 


I started writing an importer based on the doc you pointed out, but when I tested it, it was wrong 

I have a couple of tools I am using now. One converts the BGL file to XML.

Another just shows a view of what is in the file, but it shows raw data and interpreted data which is bloody useful.

Using these tools I can write my own code to extract and convert lot's of the features. Objects, lighting, runways, etc are all there waiting for rendering code to be written.

It's just taxiways that are doing my head in.

Thanks for looking at it man.

[Stainless]

Started putting together the items I need for a useable airport

This windsock is very simple, but functional for now.

I still need to generate a few bits of the mesh , and handle wind direction, but as you can see it will help you land an aircraft in a cross wind

[Stainless]

Added spacer and connection bar so it looks good enough for the low res version





Now to do the lit version

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Lit version

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Seems to work okay at night