Bumpy Runways and Taxiways in Converted Scenery

[Mario Donick]

Hello,

 

I converted FlyTampa's Dubai Rebooted (FS9 version, as FSX does not work well), and nearly everything works fine and looks great -- except the runways and the taxiways are extremly bumpy.

 

I opened the package in WED 1.2 and imported the apt.dat generated by FS2Xplane. When I select the runways, they all show "surface" = "transparent" and "roughness" = "0.25". I tried to change the surface to "asphalt", but this had no effect.

 

I then read something about .pol files, and indeed there are several .pol files in the "objects" folder of the scenery. Could these be related to my problem?

 

 

Deleting the apt.dat of the converted scenery is no good option, because then I would need to adjust the whole airport layout -- delete all the runway textures of the conversion and somehow tell X-Plane about the changed runway tresholds etc -- I already tried that, and I made everything worse.

 

Is there a simple solution to get the ground "hard"?

 

 

Edit: I noticed that the .pol files with filenames related to runways and taxiways all look like this:

 

 

 

I850 # Converted by FS2XPlane 3.26DRAPED_POLYGONTEXTURE grd_rwy.ddsTEXTURE_LIT grd_rwy_LIT.ddsSCALE 128 128LAYER_GROUP taxiways +2SURFACE concrete 

 

 

Anybody an idea...?

 

 

Edit 2: As temporary solution, I downloaded Ted Davis' Dubai scenery for XP9 and used his apt.dat instead of the generated. I then added a big exclusion zone for trees, plants etc. in Overlay Editor. Works okay now, but it's not perfect: I need to delete all the FSX runway textures, taxiway markings and taxisigns now, which is a pity, because they look much better than the X-Plane equivalents. So if anybody knows how to get the generated apt.dat to have a "hard" ground, this help would be very appreciated.

Edited March 21, 2013 by mariodonick

[chris k]

SURFACE concrete

 

...In essence, that should have made the polygons "hard" and drivable.

 

Youre on the right track... keep tinkering.

[Mario Donick]

Thanks. Hmm... Besides the runway/taxiway dds/pol files there are hundreds of transparent .dds files with associated .pol files, very small. They have no meaningful filenames and are all the same, bascially. The have no SURFACE attribute. Maybe I should try to add this ...

[chris k]

Yeah, just add "SURFACE asphalt" or "SURFACE concrete" to those - you should end up "lucky" if you do them all (a bit annoying, but hey, only do it once).

 

Could even write a script

 

i.e. for $1 in directory matching "\.*pol"

    echo "SURFACE asphalt" >> $1

 

My bash shell is rusty - but I think you get what I mean

 

- CK.

Edited March 21, 2013 by chris k

[Mario Donick]

The shell script is a good idea, I will try this and see if that works.

[Mario Donick]

The bash script that adds that line looks like this:

 

for f in *.pol; doecho -e "\r\nSURFACE asphalt" >> $fdone

 

Just tested on my MacOS machine in office. When I'm at home, I'll download win-bash and will try if adding the line to the .pol files has an effect.

[Mario Donick]

Okay -- I can report success! Adding "SURFACE asphalt" to all the .pol files solved my problem and I can use the apt.dat which was generated by FS2XPlane, and this lets me also use the textures of the scenery.

 

Chris, thanks for your help with the shell script hint -- without such a script it would have been a painful process

[Vluchtplan]

Thanks for sharing guys!

I ran into similar issues and manually added as per your suggestion in text editor on my Mac and all worked out beautifully 

 

Happy landings!

[mishaal]

Hey.

 

Like everyone who converts this file, i have the same issue.. Since i am an absolute illiterate when it comes to code/scripting i would appreciate some help editing all .Pol's at once. Do i need to define the OMDB scenery folder? I would like to confirm this before i go typing things into my terminal as i am afraid it will go editing all .POL files on my computer.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Mishaal

Edited August 30, 2014 by mishaal

[jettojig]

I found a slightly less code heavy solution - make an invisible polygon which has an asphalt (or concrete) surface. Add it in using OE or WED and off you go!

 

For slightly more detail, here:

 

1 - Open Photoshop (or any other image editing tool which allows DDS file saving/exporting) - make sure you have Nvidia's texture tools installed from here.

 

2 - Create a new image (2x2px is fine, and saves space!) and make sure it is entirely transparent.

 

3 - Save as a DDS, make sure the alpha channel saving is set to DXT3 - this makes sure X-Plane sees it as transparent. If in Photoshop, the Nvidia settings tool dialogue should look something like this:

Call the texture what you like, for this example mine is "SurfaceFixer.DDS"

 

4 - Create a new text file, in the same directory as the texture you just made, and paste this code into it:

I850DRAPED_POLYGONTEXTURE_NOWRAP		SurfaceFixer.ddsSURFACE	concreteSCALE		256 256LAYER_GROUP	terrain +1

5 - Edit the texture name to match the one you created. Save this text file with whatever name you like, followed by a .pol suffix.

 

6 - Add this new file to the objects folder in your scenery.

 

7 - Open OE or WED, find this polygon, place it over paved surfaces, and you're done!

 

Hope this helps some of you - took me ages to solve!

[Mario Donick]

Hope this helps some of you - took me ages to solve!

 

 

Cool solution, but takes a lot more time than simply executing the bash script shown:

 

1. Save the bash script in a text file (name it as you like, e.g. "bumpy.sh"; you can also download it from the attachment of this post, but change the ending from .txt to .sh after download)

 

2. Move that text file into the folder where all your .pol files are.

 

3. Open a terminal / console and go into this folder.

 

4. Type: "sh bumpy.sh" (or "bash bumpy.sh", if just "sh" does not work)

 

5. Done.

 

 

On Linux and MacOS, this works out of the box. On Windows, you will need to install win-bash before executing the script, because the windows terminal has a different syntax than bash.

 

 

Edit: The script also has the advantage to be adjustable easily for other use cases -- whenever you need to simply add one line of text to a bunch of files. For example, I used it just some minutes ago for adding "gritty detail" feature to photo scenery.

 

Edit 2: But I have to admit that the texture & WED solution by jiggyb2 is more precise, because you place the surface only on the places you choose in WED. The script simply forces everything to be asphalt, even where you would see grass. So don't use it where you have grass or dirt runways.

bumpy.txt

Edited September 4, 2014 by Mario Donick

[jettojig]

Fair enough! The other method makes more sense for me still as I tend to use OE a lot anyway so the "hardening" process is pretty speedy anyway (I use it in a library so it is always available).

Great to know there are other methods out there though! I can think of another use for a similar thing though, how would I go about using it (I imagine there will be similar code) to increase the LOD distance for ground textures in converted sceneries? I often find this to be the most tedious part of conversion as FS2XP likes to set tiny distances of about 500, when often 10000+ is more appropriate! Editing .obj files to change this is horrid...

[Oliver]

I've found an even easier solution! Download the following file and add it with Overlay Editor. You should basically surround your entire scenery with it and it'll make the ground hard. 

 

 

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=13129

Edited September 4, 2014 by Oliver

[jettojig]

Yep - that file is basically the finished product of the instructions I posted earlier.

[maxa340]

Okay -- I can report success! Adding "SURFACE asphalt" to all the .pol files solved my problem and I can use the apt.dat which was generated by FS2XPlane, and this lets me also use the textures of the scenery.

 

Chris, thanks for your help with the shell script hint -- without such a script it would have been a painful process

Do you have to change all the .pol files in the objects folder or is it only some if it is only some can you please give me a list of the ones I will have to change.

[maxa340]

 

Hello,

 

I converted FlyTampa's Dubai Rebooted (FS9 version, as FSX does not work well), and nearly everything works fine and looks great -- except the runways and the taxiways are extremly bumpy.

 

I opened the package in WED 1.2 and imported the apt.dat generated by FS2Xplane. When I select the runways, they all show "surface" = "transparent" and "roughness" = "0.25". I tried to change the surface to "asphalt", but this had no effect.

 

I then read something about .pol files, and indeed there are several .pol files in the "objects" folder of the scenery. Could these be related to my problem?

 

 

Deleting the apt.dat of the converted scenery is no good option, because then I would need to adjust the whole airport layout -- delete all the runway textures of the conversion and somehow tell X-Plane about the changed runway tresholds etc -- I already tried that, and I made everything worse.

 

Is there a simple solution to get the ground "hard"?

 

 

Edit: I noticed that the .pol files with filenames related to runways and taxiways all look like this:

 

 

I850 # Converted by FS2XPlane 3.26DRAPED_POLYGONTEXTURE grd_rwy.ddsTEXTURE_LIT grd_rwy_LIT.ddsSCALE 128 128LAYER_GROUP taxiways +2SURFACE concrete 

 

Anybody an idea...?

 

 

Edit 2: As temporary solution, I downloaded Ted Davis' Dubai scenery for XP9 and used his apt.dat instead of the generated. I then added a big exclusion zone for trees, plants etc. in Overlay Editor. Works okay now, but it's not perfect: I need to delete all the FSX runway textures, taxiway markings and taxisigns now, which is a pity, because they look much better than the X-Plane equivalents. So if anybody knows how to get the generated apt.dat to have a "hard" ground, this help would be very appreciated.

 

how do you do a exclusion zone in overlay editor

[jettojig]

There is a library in the drop-down list to the right of the screen called exclusions - you can find it in there!

[maxa340]

There is a library in the drop-down list to the right of the screen called exclusions - you can find it in there!

 

I've found an even easier solution! Download the following file and add it with Overlay Editor. You should basically surround your entire scenery with it and it'll make the ground hard. 

 

 

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=13129

please explain how I can place this in overlay editor

[maxa340]

There is a library in the drop-down list to the right of the screen called exclusions - you can find it in there!

thanks

[maxa340]

Cool solution, but takes a lot more time than simply executing the bash script shown:

 

1. Save the bash script in a text file (name it as you like, e.g. "bumpy.sh"; you can also download it from the attachment of this post, but change the ending from .txt to .sh after download)

 

2. Move that text file into the folder where all your .pol files are.

 

3. Open a terminal / console and go into this folder.

 

4. Type: "sh bumpy.sh" (or "bash bumpy.sh", if just "sh" does not work)

 

5. Done.

 

 

On Linux and MacOS, this works out of the box. On Windows, you will need to install win-bash before executing the script, because the windows terminal has a different syntax than bash.

 

 

Edit: The script also has the advantage to be adjustable easily for other use cases -- whenever you need to simply add one line of text to a bunch of files. For example, I used it just some minutes ago for adding "gritty detail" feature to photo scenery.

 

Edit 2: But I have to admit that the texture & WED solution by jiggyb2 is more precise, because you place the surface only on the places you choose in WED. The script simply forces everything to be asphalt, even where you would see grass. So don't use it where you have grass or dirt runways.

were do I type bash bumpy sh 

Thanks

Edited June 4, 2015 by maxa340

[Mario Donick]

thanks

 

I suggest you use the OverlayEditor solution.

 

It comes with a manual which explains everything in detail.

[maxa340]

help me I try everything and Nothing is working Can anybody help me

maxdowney44@gmail.com

[rgeismann]

Hi All,

 

I have one quick question. Did you manage to get the taxiway lights towork? I am having issues getting those to work.

 

Thanks,

Ray.