World Editor Questions

[Sgt R Lee Ermey]

I've read the manual for the most part, yet there are some issues I still am trying to grapple with and understand before I start actually designing any scenery.  So this is going to be my question dump.  Maybe others who are getting started as well can benefit from this thread.

 

Airport Borders

 

Do we really need them?  What if we want to use high res photos for the airport area? Also I added a new border and exported the scenery, went into OE to see how it looked it shows its own airport borders I didnt draw.  It also didnt show the border I drew.  I looked in the wed list and there was no existing border I could remove. 

 

Polygons vs Taxiway tools.

 

I notice if I want to make a gravel road at the airport or parking lot I am sort of out of luck because there are no .pols that have gravel.  But if I choose taxiway there is an option to use a gravel texture.  Also the asphalt and parking areas should I use .pol tool or the taxiway tool?  What about adding other textures around the airport?  Really what is the difference between the two?

 

Exclusions

 

So this is another issue I run into.  I added a church to the area and I want to add water towers and other objects,  but the autogen actually put buildings on top of it.  Do I really need to add small exclusion zones for every building / warehouse / tv tower I want to add to scenery?  Can't there be some automated way of doing this maybe in the next version fo WED?  Where if you place an object down it knows to exclude that area from autogen?

 

High resolution textures for airport.

 

When I bring in orthophotos I have to downsample them to maximum 2048x2048 png/dds files.  Problem is that isn't really detailed.  Is there a way I can cut sections of the airport up and apply those textures to a similar polygon and apply it to the airpot?

 

Hierarchy

 

This is where it gets confusing.  In the instructions it says to send orthophotos to the bottom.  The list on the right hand side will send them all the way down.  Is this the correct way to read how the layering will go?  The bottom most will be at the bottom and anything above will be on top?  What about going up one subdir it shows "world" .  What should be in the "world" section.

 

Navigational Beacons and other things not displayed in WED

 

I have an airport that has its nav beacon on the field and it actually off and clashes with my scenery.  How can I get nav beacons and things like that to show up in WED or how do I adjust them?

 

Thanks for any help you can offer. 

[chris k]

Airport Borders

Do we really need them? 

 

Yes. For the next datarun for XP10 scenery.

 

 

What if we want to use high res photos for the airport area?

 

Photos are in-addition-to.

 

 

Also I added a new border and exported the scenery, went into OE to see how it looked it shows its own airport borders I didnt draw.  It also didnt show the border I drew.

 

OE deosnt read airport data at all. Use WED.

 

I looked in the wed list and there was no existing border I could remove. 

 

Then you'll need to make one. There probabaly wasnt one in there before historically for that particular airport.

 

I notice if I want to make a gravel road at the airport or parking lot I am sort of out of luck because there are no .pols that have gravel.  But if I choose taxiway there is an option to use a gravel texture.

 

Yes - use the Taxiway tool for Gravel... or make your own custom .POL

 

 

Also the asphalt and parking areas should I use .pol tool or the taxiway tool? 

 

Your choice. If oyu make it a taxiway - AI aircraft will see that as a valid taxiway route tho.

 

What about adding other textures around the airport? 

 

Again, your choice. taxiway + texture, or custom .POL

 

 

Really what is the difference between the two?

 

Taxiway is stored in APT.DAT - Custom POL is stored in the DSF.

    

 

So this is another issue I run into.  I added a church to the area and I want to add water towers and other objects,  but the autogen actually put buildings on top of it.  Do I really need to add small exclusion zones for every building / warehouse / tv tower I want to add to scenery? 

 

You can make just one BIG one... but yes, oyu need to tell XP where to exclude the Autogen. How else is it supposed to know?

 

 

 

Can't there be some automated way of doing this maybe in the next version fo WED?  Where if you place an object down it knows to exclude that area from autogen?

 

Nope. Mnay times I want to have both showing. Adding this may benefit you, but it will be a detrement to me. Existing system works well - explicitly rejecting stuff vs implicitly. What if you added a landmark building into a downtown area? should it supress the other 5 autogen buildings which are within x meters? i.e. how would this work? What would the algorithm be? (and.. you would confuse new users - as the behaviour would be unpredictable as to "how far away" it has effect.

 

 

When I bring in orthophotos I have to downsample them to maximum 2048x2048 png/dds files.  Problem is that isn't really detailed.  Is there a way I can cut sections of the airport up and apply those textures to a similar polygon and apply it to the airpot?

 

You can use 4096x4096 in XP10.

 

Yes you can cut them up into smaller tiles of higher-res. You'll need to manually place them; but it doesnt take long to do.

 

This is where it gets confusing.  In the instructions it says to send orthophotos to the bottom.  The list on the right hand side will send them all the way down.  Is this the correct way to read how the layering will go?

 

No. Use LAYER_GROUPS instead.

 

Read: http://developer.x-plane.com/2007/04/using-layer-groups/

 

Specifically adresses this issue.

 

 

The bottom most will be at the bottom and anything above will be on top?  What about going up one subdir it shows "world" .  What should be in the "world" section.

 

WORLD is everything.. every scenery, every airport, every object you have definedin your WED project. It's just the "root" hierarchy.

Navigational Beacons and other things not displayed in WED

 

Yes they do (if youre talking about an Airport Beacon)  Look closer. =) It has a unique icon.

I have an airport that has its nav beacon on the field and it actually off and clashes with my scenery.  How can I get nav beacons and things like that to show up in WED or how do I adjust them?

 

Select the rotating Nav Beacon like any other object - it's indeed there and selectable using the vertex or marque tool. You can also select it in the hierarchy pane on the right (once you find it).

Thanks for any help you can offer.

 

Glad to help.

 

Edited January 17, 2013 by chris k

[Sgt R Lee Ermey]

You can make just one BIG one... but yes, oyu need to tell XP where to exclude the Autogen. How else is it supposed to know?

 

 

 

Nope. Mnay times I want to have both showing. Adding this may benefit you, but it will be a detrement to me. Existing system works well - explicitly rejecting stuff vs implicitly. What if you added a landmark building into a downtown area? should it supress the other 5 autogen buildings which are within x meters? i.e. how would this work? What would the algorithm be? (and.. you would confuse new users - as the behaviour would be unpredictable as to "how far away" it has effect.

By seeing that there is an object on the ground, its footprint would be in 2d and those coords would be exluded.  Just the base of the object.  That way if we make custom sections.  For example if I wanted to add a dock and some offices for a ferry,  a whole complex as one object  if I placed it down across a 100ftx100ft area Xplane should know a user generated object from a scenery file was loaded in that area and not to generate. 

 

I'm just saying maybe theres a way of adding objects in WED - we could have WED auto script it to deposit an exclusion zone below any object.  Maybe a new tool  "Object and exclusion" combo tool.  In the case of the church I want building around it to be autogen but not right on top of it.  So I'd have to make very small exclusion for the church and any other objects I place like a windmill etc.   Just 2 steps per object.

 

You can use 4096x4096 in XP10.

 

Yes you can cut them up into smaller tiles of higher-res. You'll need to manually place them; but it doesnt take long to do.

 

 

Hmm you can cut a rectangular tiff into pieces?  Will it retain its geo data? I'm wondering how we'd snap them into place.

 

Speaking of which have you ever have the USGS give you a large square area,  then you import them into wed and it actually missed some areas in between tiles?  Like I've got some empty spaces between some! I don't know what I'm going to do.  Maybe it'll fill it in the original mesh?

 

 

No. Use LAYER_GROUPS instead.

 

Read: http://developer.x-plane.com/2007/04/using-layer-groups/

 

Specifically adresses this issue.

 

 

Thank you.. thanks you!

 

 

WORLD is everything.. every scenery, every airport, every object you have definedin your WED project. It's just the "root" hierarchy.

 

 

Yes they do (if youre talking about an Airport Beacon)  Look closer. =) It has a unique icon.

 

Nope not there.. I've even removed orthophotos and looked.  I know about a beacon for the "light"  but I'm talking about the NDB. 

 

 

Select the rotating Nav Beacon like any other object - it's indeed there and selectable using the vertex or marque tool. You can also select it in the hierarchy pane on the right (once you find it).

 

 

Glad to help.

 

[3TB]

Regarding the navigational equipment like ILS beacon, VOR, check out this topic:

http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php/topic/3408-moving-ils-ariels-in-wed/

[Sgt R Lee Ermey]

Thanks perfect, just what I was looking for. 

 

I also realize that my USGS photos have some gaps in them.  I also know I deleted one tif by accident and the zip is gone.  So I know they don't really have the "same" photos to download it depends on where you zoom but adding a big overlay to cover up two or three missing shouldn't affect things too badly right?

[Redfisher]

Thanks perfect, just what I was looking for. 

 

I also realize that my USGS photos have some gaps in them.  I also know I deleted one tif by accident and the zip is gone.  So I know they don't really have the "same" photos to download it depends on where you zoom but adding a big overlay to cover up two or three missing shouldn't affect things too badly right?

 

That's the big thing to me that I learned the hard way while experimenting with different airports and imagery.  Go ahead and download more than what you THINK you need so you don't have to go back and do it again.  

[Sgt R Lee Ermey]

Well after messing around all day I was able to get most of the ortho done on an island I'm working on as a training tool,  but there are issues.  Was a good learning experience.  I did have a few issues though. Hope these pics are not too big I cut the size in half. 

 

I had issues with my painstakingly done shorelines in photoshop messed up by Xplane's shorelines.    I also have forests where there are non including on docks and other areas that don't have trees. 

 

Also since my area is predominantly farm land there are a LOT of ditches with LINES of trees that are thick.  I actually set some of my manual forests to 55 and still only got a few  popping up.  I think that can be controlled by the graphic settings.   But is there a way of making a "string" of trees like lights? So I can set manual densities that override the graphics settings?

Edited January 18, 2013 by Sgt R Lee Ermey