Cheaters method to putting in single sky scrapers.

  • So, I have been pondering on how to add a single sky scraper or two into cultivated areas I have created. It probably can be done in AC3D, but never having used it, I figured it would be a learning curve. So I figured a cheaters way of doing it. Still not super easy, but not too bad.

    Is there any interest in this, if so, I can take some pictures and do a quick tutorial of some kind.

    Andrew

  • I've done a few 5 storey buildings and planned to add some skyscrapers by making 10 or 20 storey versions of those commercial buildings, but have you noticed that multistorey cultivation flickers in the lower 2 layers? My method was to make a kml using google earth and use it to add a 'tallbuilding' attribute to treat certain buildings differently. Guess it would be nice to introduce randomness but i didn't work out how to do that. The flicker has put me off progressing on this.

  • Andrew,

    that's interesting. I may guess how you do it for single sky scrapers. So we are alle curious for your solution.

    I thought about doing it for Frankfurt, the only German city with an american style downtown.

    Here are 2 shot of OSM data without single selection, just playing with the overall SPC values.

    Rodeo

  • Have you seen the flicker Rodeo?

  • Good morning fellas...

    A quick rundown of what I did. Please take it and tweak it, a lot of you are far smarter than I, and may be able to refine the method, or if there is a better easier way, please pass it along.

    The area I am doing does not have many sky scrappers, the few tall buildings are kind of land marks, and the landscape looks strange without them. So I was figuring how to add just a few, in real locations, without learning AC3D and stuff. This is what I came up with, and it works for the most part.

    First, the side effect. It puts a blue dot on on the Location and Moving Map.

    Basically I created a false airport, and then populated just the area around the building, to include that building. That area had already been populated by a real airport I had added, so there was a building there, but wrong height, too short.

    I located the lat/long of the building using Geoposition. Took an airport TSC file, removed the irreverent data such as names, parking areas, tower location, and other animated and non animated things. Simply put in "main" location, then a dummy location for the runway and thresholds. I used a location where the building stood, but it probably does not matter much where it is, as long as it is in the region that you will use for the TOC.

    For the runway ends I just used a single point, and changed the last digit by one number. It does not matter the length since it is a fake airport anyway. Width probably does not matter either, probably could null it, but I used 1.

    Once that was saved, I went into OSM and downloaded the data for just the area around the building itself. It took a couple trys, the first couple times did not show a building converted when I ran it thought Scenproc. Not sure why that was, after enlarging the area a little, it got the building. If buildings are super close, it may be an issue, not sure.

    Whit the OSM data in hand I edited aerofly_rodeo.spc, to change the height of the building. Converted it to the TOC, put it in the fake runway directory I just called "building" with the building.tsc, runway.tmb, and textures directory.

    Load up AF, and boom, now have a sky scraper in the correct location.

    I did notice the blinking at the lower levels. I think this is because a short building was put there by the main airport TOC. The overlaying of another building is what is causing the blinking, at least I think.

    A theory on getting rid of this would be to "exclude" the location of the building/s in question from the main airport TOC when you create it. That way it is not overlaying one building over another.

    Thoughts? Improvements? Other methods?

    Andrew

  • Yes,

    an interesting method, many thanks for your detailed description.

    I can provide another method, but only usable for single skyscrapers you want to make dominant in your scenery.

    1.Go to Google Maps and locate the coordinate of the building.

    2. Open the TOC file with notepad++

    3. Search for the first coordinate, I start with 5 decimal places and reduce it to 4 when I don't have hits.

    Notepad++ offers a special feature: Find all in current document, so you get a list of hits.

    Now compare the second coordinate to find your building. Click in the list onto it and notepad zooms to the selected TOC entry.

    Finally you enter a new level value for this building.

    Same for me, thoughts? Improvements? Other methods?

    Regards

    Rodeo



  • Hmm... Interesting. I did not even realize that you could open a TOC file. It looks like it might be easier than my cobbed together method. Thanks for sharing, I will give it a try in a little bit!

    Andrew

  • Ken