Posts by svdm

Quote from ApfelFlieger

I have already tested whether the toc-files can be transferred to the tap-files : Yes, it works in principle.

However, there are some boundary conditions that have to be taken into account:

• Designation of the individual data fields
  - With FIND&REPLACE I have changed the FS2 designations into the FS4 designations.
• Lower case of the xref objects:
  - With FIND&REPLACE (one after the other for a, b, c, ...) I changed all upper case letters into lower case letters.
  - If you don't do this, the FS AirportCrationTool shows every wrong spelling of an xref-object during import.
• Orientation adjustment:
  - This is the most time-consuming part, because no FIND&REPLACE can be used here, but you have to go through object by object. When converting, it should be noted:
  -- FS2 has its own orientation:
  ---- 0° is at 3 o'clock
  ---- counting counter-clockwise
  -- FS4, on the other hand, is "normal":
  ---- 0° is at 0 o'clock
  ---- clockwise counting
  
  This results in:
  - if the FS2 orientation is in the range 0°-90°, the following applies:
  -- FS4° = 90° - FS2°
  - if the FS2 orientation is in the range 91°-359°,
  -- FS4° = 450-FS2°.
  
  This can also be easily calculated in Excel with a small formula.

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Dear Ipac,

Thanks a lot for the hard work and the nice progress!

I was wondering if it makes sense to import a TOC file. This would speedup creating airports that existed already in FS2 with the new improved
ground textures, runways, lighting etc.

I am trying to avoid editing the .tap file too much and keep everything inside your new tool.

Thanks.

Stefan

Dear Mr Wünsch,

Thanks a lot for the additional info.

Please find attached some roadsigns:

Rgds

Stefan

Dear Wünsch,

Every sign is one object. Of course I have multiple sign objects in the scene. As suggested I have combined all individual objects (250 pcs) to one big combined TGI file all nicely leveled at ground and added it to the tap file. I noticed some buildings where partly hidden in the ground as well until I added a road (tarmac) in front of it..... The complete scene used to work perfect in AF FS2 added as auto-leveled individual objects.

I have added the sign object as an example. (just remove the txt extension)

The complete scene unfortunately is too big to be uploaded.

Is there asle a reason why the new FS4 converter complains about non square textures? eg. 1024 x 512.

I hope this helps.

Rgds

Stefan

HI ipacs team,

I managed to get my custom objects of the EBUL airport as one big block in the scene however certain objects are flying really high in the sky.

When I check these items the are made at ground level.

As they are road signs, they are located next to the runway in the grass. That might be the reason why the auto height calculation might get confused. Anything I can do about this on my side? On the other hand the trees seem to be at correct height....

I have added the modified tap file. Other files are too big

Thanks for any feedback!

Stefan

Hi ipacs team,

I managed to add a first custom object to the scene however the orientation seems to be off.

In the FS2 tsc file you could specify 'orientation':

Example :

<[tmsimulator_scenery_object][element][1]

<[string8][type][object]>

<[string8][geometry][EBUL-Loods_1-2]>

<[vector3_float64][position][3.4585207332 51.1379625391 0]>

<[float64][orientation][-142.489357]>

<[int32][autoheight_override][-1]>

>

So I added the following to the tap file using 'direction' I found in the helipad description.

<[tm_airport_pd_custom_model][element][1]

<[string8][type][object]>

<[string8][name][EBUL-Loods_1-2]>

<[vector2_float64][position][3.4585207332 51.1379625391]>

<[float64][direction][-142.489357]>

<[string8][coordinate_system][lonlat]>

>

Is this the correct way?

Is the sequence of lines of any importance?

Apparently, the new FS4 converter has problems with converting non-square textures where as the FS2 converter didn't complain.

I also noticed the converter generates only one (big) tmb file with a the name of the airport. Correct?

Thanks for your help.

ApfelFlieger : I got the converter perfectly running using parallel Windows 10 virtualisation. Unfortunately it converts to FS 4 (FS2 is the only version that runs on my iMac late 2013 ... I tried )

Update: I now succeeded in getting FS 4 perfectly running on my old mac using native Windows 10 on an external fast SSD. (Bootcamp could work as well)

I am surprised to see how good it runs on a rather 'old' iMac ! No I can continue with airport creations and check them.

Dear Ipac team,

I have just took my first steps with this new tool (EBUL Ursel) and I can tell you, it is a big step forwards compared to the ac3d approach!

Adding tarmac and lines is quite easy and fast. This tool, once finished, could make a huge difference to the Aerofly community.

Thanks for looking into this!

I am familiar with both Xplane and Aerofly and I strongly prefer to fly Aerofly. The ground scenes are much more realistic and it flies smooth

On te other hand Xplane has a very good finished airport modelling tool called WED (World editor) I would strongly advise to take a look at it.

Many suggestions given above are all available in this tool. Just to name one :

1)object positioning.

- Objects are selected from libraries which you an easily create yourself. Just a make a folder structure and make a library.txt with the content.

- Objects are shown with the real image (top view) on scale.

- Once selected you can move it or easily rotate it by pulling the arrow.

2) Adding lines.

You typically add a taxi line on top of a tarmac surface which makes it indeed very hard to select.

Ideally you should be able to select the Line type before you start drawing. Now you have to edit each line (with the difficult selection)

What about the lights along the runway, taxi lines etc?

3) It would be handy to get a list/folder structure at the side with all objects, surfaces you have created. Just clicking them could make it 'selected'

It could allow changing the properties such as name, coordinates, rotation ...

4) Sometimes it would be very handy to import ortho photo's with more details (eg.geotiff) This would make it much easier to draw.

(see my second airport EBBL)

I am looking forwards to see my creation (after conversion) in the real simulator.

Good to see progress. I hope to see many more nice airports now.

Regards,

Stefan

Hi,

I have been creating Belgian airports for Aerofly FS2 for now using WED for layout purpose and MCX to translate it to Aerofly. (EBBR,EBFN,EBFS,EBBL, EBUL..)

Combined with the different conversion tools I was able to achieve decent results. The new web tool seems to be promising and I would like to give it a try and give feedback.

Thanks for your support.

Lately, I have started to cultivate some Belgian airports in FS2. I was looking for some realistic buildings and found many nice ones made for X-plane... This made me start using Worldeditor which is really the best ‘ all in one’ tool I have seen!

I managed to use it for adding buildings in FS2 with ModelconvertX (MCX) as intermediated step.

WED (worldeditor) exports as .dsf which Modelconvert X reads and exports a complete FS2 scenery file with the objects and textures and .tsc file. The later you can edit as you wish as it is a text file.

It would be great and of great benefit for IPAC to make a similar editor. Such a petty we have to keep on working with small SDK tools , script files etc.

I prefer to import the .dsf file using the object importer of MCX as it will export all individual objects in stead of one big object holding all buildings. This can cause issues with the position height in the scene...

A petty, though you can’t use WED to create the runways as this cannot be imported in FS2.

- objects are positioned on a googlemaps alike background, no need to generate it yourself

- easy access to objects in library with 3d preview

- objects are postioned with real top view render and not a simple block. So you see immediately the right position

- easy to rotate and move.

- a lot of additional tools ( unfortunately not for use with FS2)

Note: you need to have x-plane installed (eg. demo version) to make use of WED. Also ask permission to the owner of the objects if you can share them.

Hi, any idea when we can expect an update on mac (app store) of aerofly FS2 similar to the steam version? It includes eg. the EC135 helicopter and others...

It seems we are lacking behind here

Cheers,

Stefan

Hi , I agree the basic FS2 version is rather poor, especially if you are living in Europe. On the other hand there are already quite some good tools around when you start looking around Especially the Aeroscenery tool is great ! It allows you to create your own texture based on bing or google maps with different resolutions.

Secondly, you can create your own elevation maps using geoconvert which is part of the SDK tools.

Last but not least you can get access to quite some ready made airports using the following link: https://www.fscloudport.com

I recently gathered/created most data for Belgium. It makes already quite a difference. I will share it the coming weeks.

Cheers,

Stefan (also new to FS2)

Great thanks for the update. Keep me posted

Please find attached the latest data from my TM.log during the Apache loading procedure.

28.72-tmsimulator: loading model 'apache': name='apache' folder='/Users/stefanvandemaele/Library/Containers/com.aerofly.aerofly-fs-2-mac/Data/Library/Application Support/Aerofly FS 2/addons/aircraft/apache/'\

28.72-tmmodelmanager: model: (name='apache') (directory='/Users/stefanvandemaele/Library/Containers/com.aerofly.aerofly-fs-2-mac/Data/Library/Application Support/Aerofly FS 2/addons/aircraft/apache/')\

28.72-tmmodelmanager: loading configfile '/Users/stefanvandemaele/Library/Containers/com.aerofly.aerofly-fs-2-mac/Data/Library/Application Support/Aerofly FS 2/addons/aircraft/apache/apache.tmc'\

28.73-tmmodelmanager: contact points 3: (-9.748 -0.000 -2.203 r=0.165) (1.126 1.031 -2.051 r=0.320) (1.126 -1.031 -2.051 r=0.320)\

28.74-tmmodelmanager: option folders 1: (/Users/stefanvandemaele/Library/Containers/com.aerofly.aerofly-fs-2-mac/Data/Library/Application Support/Aerofly FS 2/addons/aircraft/apache/)\

28.75-tmmodelmanager: filename apache.tmb\

29.72-tmmodelmanager: loading dynamics begin 'apache'...\

29.74-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: property 'GPSNavigationSystem.OutputNextWaypointElevation' not found\

29.74-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: property 'NAV1Frequency.Set' not found\

29.75-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: property 'NAV1Frequency.Set' not found\

29.75-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: property 'NAV1Frequency.Set' not found\

29.75-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: property 'NAV1Frequency.Set' not found\

29.76-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: property 'LightingPilotFlood.Output.Output' not found\

29.77-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: property 'LightingPilotFlood.Output.Output' not found\

29.77-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: object 'HSIDistanceStrength' not found\

29.77-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: property 'HSIDistanceStrength.Output' not found\

29.79-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: object 'APUN1' not found\

29.79-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: property 'APUN1.Output' not found\

29.79-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: object 'CoPilotDoorPosition' not found\

29.80-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: property 'CoPilotDoorPosition.Output' not found\

29.81-tmmodelmanager: ERROR: error loading tmd file 'apache'.\

29.88-tmmodelmanager: model: (name='c172') (directory='aircraft/c172/')\

29.88-tmmodelmanager: loading configfile 'aircraft/c172/c172.tmc'\

29.89-tmmodelmanager: contact points 3: (0.240 1.268 -0.923 r=0.212) (0.240 -1.268 -0.923 r=0.212) (1.924 0.000 -1.079 r=0.193)\

29.90-tmmodelmanager: option folders 1: (aircraft/c172/)\

29.91-tmmodelmanager: filename c172.tmb\

30.89-tmmodelmanager: loading dynamics begin 'c172'...\

31.17-tmmodelmanager: loading dynamics end: (id=1) (692 dynamics) (738 graphics) (172 sound) (ny=761) (nz=220)\

31.17-tmmodelmanager: \

31.17-tmmodelmanager: mass: 985.0 ( 0.682 0.000 0.151 )\

31.17-tmmodelmanager: 1 multibody joints / 1 components\

31.34-tmrigidbodygraphics: creating threaded tmpaint instance for 'DisplayTexture' and texture 'display_light'\

31.35-tmrenderer_font: loading font 'texture/fontdisplay.tff'=(512x472) (h=45) (nc=25992) ok\

31.36-tmrenderer_font: loading font 'texture/hud.tff'=(512x196) (h=48) (nc=123) ok\

31.36-tmrenderer_font: loading font 'texture/fonthelp.tff'=(512x415) (h=57) (nc=188) ok\

31.37-tmrenderer_font: loading font 'texture/segment.tff'=(512x196) (h=48) (nc=124) ok\

31.44-tmrigidbodygraphics: creating threaded tmpaint instance for 'LcdTexture' and texture 'lcd_color'\

31.45-tmrenderer_font: loading font 'texture/fontdisplay.tff'=(512x472) (h=45) (nc=25992) ok\

31.45-tmrenderer_font: loading font 'texture/hud.tff'=(512x196) (h=48) (nc=123) ok\

31.46-tmrenderer_font: loading font 'texture/fonthelp.tff'=(512x415) (h=57) (nc=188) ok\

31.47-tmrenderer_font: loading font 'texture/segment.tff'=(512x196) (h=48) (nc=124) ok\

31.53-tmsimulator: done loading model c172 (repaint=)\

31.53-tmsimulator: \

31.53-tmfile_properties: ERROR: (tm2file::LoadFile failed. error loading file '/Users/stefanvandemaele/Library/Containers/com.aerofly.aerofly-fs-2-mac/Data/Library/Application Support/Aerofly FS 2/addons/aircraft/apache/copilot.tmc')\

31.54-tmterrain: creating terrain landmark class begin\

31.54-tmrenderer_font: loading font 'texture/landmarks.tff'=(512x512) (h=45) (nc=8365) ok\

}

Hi I have just installed on my mac FS 2 (non steam) in the add-on airplane directory. I can select a flavour of the Apache. It even tells me loading apache helicopter but when it starts I have a cessna plane :-(... Any idea what goes wrong? I have used the latest 1,0 version