Failing To Create The Most Basic Runway Possible In Max

  • Thanks, yes it's a good tutorial. Like Hartman I was curious what steps are essential vs what steps were just done that way.

    A "let's create a runway in as few steps as possible" Max tutorial might be a nice addition.

    For anyone else reading this in future, my trial and error showed that the bare minimum for "ground" objects in the TSC is:

    • A ground poly larger than the runway to allow for mesh smoothing
    • The ground poly needs to be transparent at the edges as it will merge with the terrain texture and look ugly if visible
    • No overlapping vertices
    • Ambient texture present (50% grey bitmap if you don't want an ambient)
    • Vertex coloring applied to everything (control of transparency between black and red). Can be done with the Edit Mesh modifier
    • Material maps must be suffixed with _color or _specular etc
    • Material names must be one of __airport__apron, __airport__runway, __airport__outside
    • UVW Map applied

    What isn't strictly essential

    • Multi-materials and material channels
    • Naming Max objects anything special
    • The Vertex Paint modifier
    • The Edit Poly modifier
    • Chamfering edges of cut outs

    Hi Nick,

    If you look at FSCloud AD, they're only featuring a lonely runway without much mesh smoothing outside, as the case may be Spit40 could help you in automated generation of runways, taxiways and aprons.

    Example of FSCloud runway following the mesh in Montserrat : IRL the ground has been flattened to build this AD, the previous one has been totally destroyed by the volcano.

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • If you look at FSCloud AD, they're only featuring a lonely runway without much mesh smoothing outside, as the case may be Spit40 could help you in automated generation of runways, taxiways and aprons.

    Thanks Antoine.

    In a nutshell the issue is that the more features you want in the ground poly (multiple runways, taxi ways etc) the harder it gets to automate because AFS really needs a single poly with sufficient vertices. If it could cope with separate objects for those features it'd be relatively easy.

    I'll keep messing around with it as I get time and compare notes with Spit40 at some point.

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • Thanks Antoine.

    In a nutshell the issue is that the more features you want in the ground poly (multiple runways, taxi ways etc) the harder it gets to automate because AFS really needs a single poly with sufficient vertices. If it could cope with separate objects for those features it'd be relatively easy.

    Exactly. Even doing it by hand is quite tricky in 3DSMax when you start having not just a isolated runway like in the tuto, but also taxiways and apron...

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.