Runways, taxiways, apron

  • I've gone through the awesome tutorial videos and started my first airport (ever) KERI. However, KERI is more complicated than the tutorials. It has two crossing runways which doesn't fit the single runway mesh modeling method of the tutorials. I'm assuming I can just model the runways anyway I can. There wasn't any info on how to do the taxiways or aprons in the videos. Can I model these using any method? As the final step, do I just merge all these objects into a single object and call it foo__airport__runway?

    I'm not sure what the difference is between __ground and __outside. Right now my plan is to model the runways/taxiways/aprons and then to add the ground I'll create a polyline around the whole thing, select all verts, and perform Vertex->Create 2D mesh. Then remove the unneeded surfaces. Is there a better way?

    Randy

  • Hi Randy,

    glad you took the chance to model an airport.

    You can model as many runways and taxiways as you want. The only rule for the object name is ...__airport__runway.

    Even the taxiways have to named as this. It also means you can place a texture and decals onto them.

    Do not merge them into a single object, keep the runways and taxiways as separate objects, but put them all into the _rwy group.

    See an example from my whidbey field with 2 runways and decals, but no taxiways defined yet.

    What are the differences between __airport__runway and __airport_outside objects:

    The runways are smoothed with a polynom of the 5. degree, the outside is not smoothed with the same intensity.

    The runways can be covered with textures and decals, the outside has no separate texture and displays the standard aerial image.

    You can use all functions of AC3D to create your mesh. Rules:

    Do not overlay __airport__runway and __airport_outside surfaces.

    Do not create gaps between these objects to avoid cleavages in your surface.

    Good success!

    Rodeo

    Whidbey: 2 runways and 2 decal objects. Respect the grouping for export.

  • Thanks Rodeo. How did you cut those runways out of a mesh? Did you extrude and then Knife them out? I tried that, but it didn't produce a good result especially with the runway that was on an angle to the mesh. I ended up drawing a polyline around everything and then generating a 2D mesh. Wasn't pretty and produced a lot of surfaces I had to delete. I've looked for AC3D tutorials on youtube, but the ones I found didn't help much with what I was trying to do.

    I saw mention of a __ground extension in the Scenery Tutorial Wiki. Is this specific to 3DS/Cinema4D?

    Fun stuff.

    Randy

  • I've placed another mesh for the second runway on top of the outside mesh.

    Deleted then all surfaces of the outside mesh below the runway.

    Selected in vertex mode 3 points each to create ordered surfaces.

    Merged all the new surfaces to the __outside mesh.

    I don't know whether there is a better method, but it works in a rather easy way.

  • I've placed another mesh for the second runway on top of the outside mesh.

    Deleted then all surfaces of the outside mesh below the runway.

    Selected in vertex mode 3 points each to create ordered surfaces.

    Merged all the new surfaces to the __outside mesh.

    I don't know whether there is a better method, but it works in a rather easy way.

    Rodeo,

    What do you do in the intersection of the runways? Let them overlap or do you make a cut in one of them?

    -coffeecup

  • @coffecup1978

    The idea is to have non overlapping polygons. So try cutting one of them.

    But as I have written before, in the example of NAS Whidbey I created 2 overlapping runways unintentionally.

    Nevertheless is it important, to avoid any overlapping with the __airport__outside, since they use different smoothing parameters.

    Cheers

    Rodeo

  • Thanks Rodeo,

    I'd love to see a video on how to do crossed runways with a tight _outside mesh in ac3d. The only way I have come with so far from reading the forum post would be to start with boxes as runway, use some boolean functions to cut one of the runways , flatten, and then build a mesh around that... Seems a bit convoluted...

  • For anyone else who is struggling with how to cut crossing runways, taxiways and aprons without overlapping, AND getting a tight fit on the outer mesh in AC3D, I created a video demonstrating a method using blocks and 3d boolean operations to avoid having to manually manipulate vertices to create 2d meshes. Hopefully might be of help to someone who are stumbling over this thread:


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