Is there a way to autogen downtown buildings?

  • The Manhattan skyline is nice but when I browse the file folders I only see subfolders for the airports, bridges, and a few of the buildings. Where are all of the other buildings coming from?

    I'd like to create some airports and scenery for other areas of the US that don't have hi-res scenery yet but it appears the autogen cultivation of buildings is limited to short structures which makes any downtown areas look empty / undeveloped / unnatural.

    Does anyone have a solution? Big jets usually land in cities with big buildings.

  • Here is one thing you can do, it is a bit tedious but does work, and will give you what you are looking for.

    Using Google maps, locate a building you would like to increase the height of, and note it's coordinates. Open the cultivation file for your city, and do a search for the coordinates you noted. It is best to use no more than 4 decimal places. Search until you find the building that is closest to your listed coordinates; you usually don't get an exact match. Now change the the height to the actual number of floors for that building, save your file and test in AFS2.

    It sometimes takes some trial and error, and can be a bit tedious as I said earlier, but this method, while not perfect, will give you what you seek. Remember you will see a generic building, but it will match the height of the actual building you are trying to replicate. Hope this helps. 😀

    Ken

  • Here is one thing you can do, it is a bit tedious but does work, and will give you what you are looking for.

    Using Google maps, locate a building you would like to increase the height of, and note it's coordinates. Open the cultivation file for your city, and do a search for the coordinates you noted. It is best to use no more than 4 decimal places. Search until you find the building that is closest to your listed coordinates; you usually don't get an exact match. Now change the the height to the actual number of floors for that building, save your file and test in AFS2.

    It sometimes takes some trial and error, and can be a bit tedious as I said earlier, but this method, while not perfect, will give you what you seek. Remember you will see a generic building, but it will match the height of the actual building you are trying to replicate. Hope this helps. 😀

    I think in a previous post it was explained that there's a setting on the configuration file on which you can set a height parameter to allow buildings to look taller. If that is correct could someone post something about that?. It should be a quite tedious work doing this by each individual building.

    Cheers, Ed

  • I think in a previous post it was explained that there's a setting on the configuration file on which you can set a height parameter to allow buildings to look taller. If that is correct could someone post something about that?. It should be a quite tedious work doing this by each individual building.

    Cheers, Ed

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  • I think in a previous post it was explained that there's a setting on the configuration file on which you can set a height parameter to allow buildings to look taller. If that is correct could someone post something about that?. It should be a quite tedious work doing this by each individual building.

    Cheers, Ed

    Sure Ed you can do that, but do you want all of your buildings to be 20-30-40-x stories tall? I don't think there is a variable for the height setting to give you randomized building height. Since most cities are only going to have a manageable number of tall skyscrapers it isn't that much extra work to edit the toc file for them. Strictly your preference though. 😀

    Ken

  • I've been trying with this script to get taller buildings in my place (these days), on which taller and smaller buildings are sparsely located (not like a typical downtown where you have the tallest buildings concentrated in a single place). I think the problem is the limited number of textures available in AFS2, so the tallest structures will not show, even if they are processed by scenProc:

    # Create AF2 buildings for polygons that are almost rectangular

    # Make longer buildings industrial with a flat roof

    CreateAF2Building|building="*" And FAREARAT>0.7 And FLENGTH < 12|5|gable|residential

    CreateAF2Building|building="*" And FAREARAT>0.7 And FLENGTH >= 12 And FLENGTH < 18|20|gable|residential

    CreateAF2Building|building="*" And FAREARAT>0.7 And FLENGTH >= 18 And FLENGTH < 23|5|gable|residential

    CreateAF2Building|building="*" And FAREARAT>0.7 And FLENGTH >= 23 And FLENGTH < 30|10|flat|industrial

    CreateAF2Building|building="*" And FAREARAT>0.7 And FLENGTH >= 30|3|flat|industrial

    #

    Comments anyone?. Thanks.

    Cheers, Ed

  • Ed, do you ever stop and wonder "Why are we spending so much time and energy tweaking this program?" I know I have been having that thought lately. For me it probably comes down to the VR experience, but many of us who are doing this don't even have VR. I find it a real internal quandry.

    And yet here I am, systematically covering the US with photo scenery. It monopolizes hours and hours of my computer time, even with trying to run Geoconvert only at night. I'm making airports that I know can't compare to commercial ones. I am doing cultivation even though the buildings are very limited. What's the reason?

  • And yet here I am, systematically covering the US with photo scenery. It monopolizes hours and hours of my computer time, even with trying to run Geoconvert only at night. I'm making airports that I know can't compare to commercial ones. I am doing cultivation even though the buildings are very limited. What's the reason?

    Hi Oldar:

    The main reason for me is that with AFS2 I'm getting views of my cities like never before, with or without VR, even with my custom-built airports, the geoconversions pro and cons and the limited cultivations.

    I'm comparing with the graphics obtained with P3D and FSX, as I've never tried X-Plane before (and I don't think I will).

    While this continues to happen, I'll still be tweaking AFS2. And mostly, is really fun!.

    Cheers, Ed

  • I have photo scenery for the entire USA in two out of the three of those other sims, plus a fortune's worth of scenery and aircraft addons. And I get perfectly smooth views in those other sims in 2D use. The only thing they don't offer is decent VR performance.

    That is why I am still here, banging away trying to bring FS 2 up to where I can have a satisfying experience wherever I fly in VR.