ADE - Ground Polys
Contents
1. Therefore it s a good idea to always call the GP editor after a copy paste operation Should you end up with unintended results you can click the Reset button and rework the texture placement Error Messages When you create or edit an object the GP editor checks for certain conditions that may prevent the object from being compiled or from being displayed properly in FlightSim If such conditions are found one of the two following messages is issued e Two or more vertices in this object are superimposed or e Two or more sides of this poly intersect Both are suffixed with It may not be drawn in FlightSim as you expect If such conditions escape earlier detection or you don t fix them the following message may be issued either by the GP Editor or by the compiler e The ground poly object bounded by Latitude min value max value Longitude min value max value 27 Aug 2014 12 Vertices not triangulated a D c da cannot be properly triangulated and may have to be simplified In the first two cases the error message explains the problem and the required action should be apparent In the latter case some investigation on your part may be necessary Except for unfixed errors detected by the editor this message likely will only occur for large irregularly shaped ground polys particularly if you have any superimposed vertices If you receive such a message and the cause is not immediately apparent a good first st2. 002 s 27 Aug 2014 2 3 Specify the texture to be used complete any necessary additional editing and close the GP Editor The finished poly will be displayed by ADE The tooltip will show its details For a custom ground line the process is similar 1 Click the Custom Ground Line button Button 2 above 2 Draw the line as shown below remembering to double click the last point to complete the line As before the GP editor opens 3 Specify the width of the line and the texture to be used complete any necessary additional editing and close the GP Editor The line will be displayed by ADE with a representative width The tooltip will show its details ter Chaindink with be Za K Ea Im concrete E a ADE GP Ground Poly Editor Version 0 0 55 Oded ayer 5 53 Line Width Hain Texture Wicth of Backing 40 1 ap Pattemedlines 40F Drag Resize Rotae Fip Chance Coor Hot mm QDA MXZ koi I l l i I j Main T ture Size U V Decimal Piels 512x256 x 244 Y 1219 Reset OK Canon 27 Aug 2014 3 Custom Ground Lins GP Layer 40 Line Width 1 0 Man Texture gp_PatternedLines_40F Type Double Yellow Back Texture Back Width 0 0 Drawing Layer Controlled by GpLayer In either case you may 1 Use Cancel in the Editor to cancel the addition of a poly or line 2 You can also use the Undo
3. g walkway crosswalk cross hatches aircraft parking designators and automobile parking lot lines and some useful text signs RESTRICTED AREA NO PARKING etc You may supplement these with your own textures see Texture Management near the end of this manual The GP Editor allows use of both dimensioned and un dimensioned textures A dimensioned texture is one for which the coverage in one or both axes is specified The enclosed texture gp_PatternedLines_40F bmp is an example of a dimensioned texture It is defined to cover a distance of 40 ft 12 m vertically Conversely an un dimensioned texture is one for which coverage is not specified for either axis An example of the latter is go Patterns omp This texture sheet includes a number of common patterns that may be used with both lines and poly and that may be resized to cover any area desired 27 Aug 2014 7 The texture definition files Textures _Def txt and Lines_Def txt define how each texture Is used The former defines the coverage of the textures while the latter defines the position on the texture sheet of various patterns They are described more fully in the Texture Management section Creating Polys All operation for polys are covered in the previous section Creating Lines Z y a ADE GP Ground Poly Editor Version 0 0 86 o S Layer 5 63 Line Width M 40 S T mmm ANG MX cwman Be New Line 27 Aug 2014 8 a
4. however since if the size of a ground poly exceeds the entered Group Size the bounding box will be based on the actual size and orientation of that ground poly For this purpose each segment of a line is considered a separate poly and for FSX and P3D ground polys that exceed 100m in any dimension are automatically subdivided into 100m or less chunks While technically it would be possible to subdivide ground polys into even smaller chunks the need to do so should be infrequent and in any case an obvious manual solution is available 2 The other type of autogen suppression is less well understood It can result in wide swaths of missing autogen in areas not even bordered by ground polys But it is definitely caused by the ground polys remove the ground polys and the autogen returns This type of autogen suppression can be avoided with the judicious use of the dummy Scale command i e a SCALE AGL command with all its fields set to O For further information on dummy Scale commands and some history on the topic please refer to this fsDeveloper forum thread To avoid this type of autogen suppression a dummy Scale command should be placed at the end of the code block called by each ADDCAT command just before the BGL_RETURN statement Unfortunately use of dummy scale commands can lead to flickering of ground shadows To avoid flickering add a block of data and code as if you planned to place additional ground polys The associated lat
5. its original name Otherwise should we update revise our textures you would then have to re apply your changes Textures used by ADE GP are standard FlightSim textures and must conform to all the usual requirements including in particular the need for texture sizes to be a power of 2 While a texture editor is provided manual editing of the definition files may be preferred by some users and indeed for experienced users will be faster Following is a description of the definition files The editor uses two text files to define how it should interpret use the textures namely e Texture _Def txt and e Lines_Def txt There is one entry in 7exture_Def txt for each texture to be used by the editor That entry is in the form texture_name horizontal dimension vertical dimension uniform texture flag Texture name and one of horizontal dimension or vertical dimension must always be specified e Texture name is the file name of the texture sheet do not include the file extension however case need not match e Horizontal dimension and vertical dimension specify the horizontal and or vertical distance covered by the texture You would make this these entries if you wanted the texture to be interpreted as covering only a certain distance in one or both dimensions If only one is specified the other will be calculated based on the aspect ration of the texture sheet If neither is specified the size assigned to the texture will be just suffi
6. line styles Texture names are displayed in the two texture combo boxes on the main Ground Poly Editor in the order set out in Jexture_Def txt which you may adjust to suit yourself However they are not displayed until they have been defined in Texture_Def txt either using the editor above or using manual methods described below If the new texture is for patterned lines an entry in Lines_Def txt is also required As before the sequence of entries in Lines_Def txt determines the order in which patterns are displayed in the pattern selector listbox You may resequence these entries as desired To avoid confusion or potentially conflicting displays in the Texture Editor textures should be saved in the Textures and Textures_Dpy folders before attempting to enter them into the definition files Likewise if textures are removed from the Textures and Textures_Dpy folders they should immediately be deleted from the Texture _Def txt either manually or using the Texture Editor Note however to permit easy experimentation every texture that exists in both the Textures and Textures_Dpy folders is displayed in the GP Editor s texture list whether or not it has been defined in the definition files Should this be the case the GP editor displays and uses it as a uniform texture with horizontal and vertical sizes of 0 Should you wish to modify the textures provided it is recommended you make a copy and modify the copy retaining the original under
7. on the ADE display You may be able to locate and delete them using ADE s list functions 27 Aug 2014 20 Using Helper Shapes ADE has a number of helper shapes that can be used to create objects like aprons or custom ground lines and polys To add a helper shape use Right Click gt Add Helper Shape Add Helper Shape ba I Add T Certer On ARF Certer on Tower Viewpoint Rotate Airport Reset Default Drawing Layers focom Helper Shape Shape l Width Rectange 50 0 guare Height Hlipse 50 0 Circle Triangle BE Heading 0 0 Degrees Save Cancel Sae A few things to know about ADE helper shapes e helper shapes can be turned into custom ground poly objects e most aspects of helper shapes including heading can be controlled by you when you save a helper shape you create a GP object of the same shape To edit the helper shape 1 When created a helper shape is displayed with a black border 2 Select the helper shape to move it or use the handle to change the heading If you have a ProKey then small handles around the object allow it to be resized Without the ProKey the helper can be re sized using the keyboard 3 Helpers can be edited in the same way as other objects and the Helper Shape property dialog You can change all the properties except the shape type In the case below the height and heading have been updated 27 Aug 2014 21 The shape is updated 27 Aug 2014 Hel
8. use DXTBMP or ImageTool These textures are delivered in the folders e Textures_Base_Mipped e Textures_Base_NonMipped and e Textures Dpy Base and the associated texture control files e Texture Def Base txt and e Lines Def Base txt These textures should be regarded as a starter set It s likely you ll need additional ones to make your airports like the real thing ADE_GP employs two working texture folders Textures which holds the DXT or 32 bit textures for FlightSim to use and Textures_Dpy which are what you see on the GP Editor when creating editing ground polys The reason for two folders is that you cannot see patterns on textures that use an alpha channel to create those patterns and in any case Windows doesn t display DXT textures So Textures _Dpy contains a 24 bit version of each texture in the folder Textures On the first execution of ADE_GP the corresponding working folders files are created using the mipmapped texture set If you would like to use the non mipmapped textures overwrite the contents of Textures with the contents of Jextures_Base_NonMipped To propagate the non mipmapped textures to any existing airport simply recompile the airport s Any updates to the original base textures will be delivered in updated _ Base files and folders You should review these folders following update and extract and add to your working folders files any new textures and control entries of interest In this ma
9. vertices with the toolbar controls or by entering the desired new value s here If more than one vertex is selected these controls only display common values If an entry is made into either text box all selected vertices take on that U or V value U or V values may be displayed in decimal form i e fraction of texture width height or in pixels in either case relative to the texture origin the bottom left hand corner It is unlikely you ll have much use for these controls other than when creating patterned polys such as cross hatched areas parking lead in lines parking lot lines etc There are two text boxes under Main Texture Size The coverage for each axis is displayed in these boxes You can adjust them by specifying in these text boxes coverage for either axis Across the bottom of the dialog is a series of buttons Reset the vertex positions revert to the position based on their latitude and longitude Any prior X Y and U V edits are discarded OK the current situation is saved and the dialog closes This button is not enabled until the layer texture and in the case of lines line width have been entered Cancel changes if any are discarded and the dialog closes Undo the most recent change is undone You may also use lt Ctrl gt Z to undo Textures ADE Ground Polys includes a number of textures used by the author for his airports Frequently encountered line patterns are included as are a number of other patterns e
10. 63 Line Width M Main Texture Line Pattem Style Backing Width M Backing Texture 40 2 gp_PattemedLines_40F v Apron Limit v v Change Color HHn fm ORAND HD iu i i Main Texture Size M Decimal Pixels 512 x 256 X 244 Y 12 19 R M Ho Hg I lt Reset ok Cancer Undo Line Pattern Selected Editing Lines and Polys with the GP Editor You may also move resize rotate and flip GP objects relative to the texture using the various buttons located just above the GP Editor display panel Vertices must be selected in order to be manipulated A vertex is selected by clicking in close proximity to it or by enclosing it in a select box depress the left mouse button and move the mouse The lt Ctrl gt key serves its usual purpose All vertices are selected when you double click on any one of them Once the vertices are selected left click on the function button and move them as desired Whenever vertices are being dragged resized or rotated the amount of the move is shown continuously in the upper left hand corner of the editor display Alternately right click on any of the resize buttons or the freehand rotate button and a small dialog box will pop up into which you may enter the amount of resizing as a proportion of the current size e g 2 0 0 5 or the amount of rotation in degrees Then click Continue Once you have made whatever
11. ADE GROUND POLYS USER MANUAL VERSION 1 0 ADE Ground Polys ADE_GP allows you to create ground cover and markings directly from the ADE display for use with FS9 and FSX Background By way of background FlightSim both FS9 and FSX displays objects by determining for each pixel on your screen the distance from your eye to the point on each object in view that pixel represents Hence the closest object is displayed fully while only those portions of objects further away that are not covered by closer objects are seen But if for example you have created a building and a sign mounted on it as separate objects so as to get higher resolution for the sign both objects will be the same distance from your eye and this results in Z fighting i e flickering To resolve such a situation you move the signa short distance a few inches cm away from the side of the building A similar situation exists when you attempt to cover the ground with for example a plane not an airplane a flat polygon to be textured as say asphalt for the base for a parking lot If the parking lot is away from where the user aircraft might venture you can place that plane slightly above the ground to eliminate flicker The further away the plane can been seen the higher it must be elevated because when viewed at shallow angles the benefits of its elevation are reduced think trigonometry But if that plane is right beside an apron its elevation unl
12. GP Ground Poly Editor Version 0 0 86 Se Layer 5 63 Main Texture Outline Width M Outline Texture 40 ap_Red_20F v 1 0 gp_White_20F v Drag Resize Rotate Flip Change Color Zoom Hoi Bim QA WX sao be i i Main Texture Size M U Vv Decimal Pixels 256 x 256 X 6 10 Y 6 10 R M Poly with texture applied Outline Texture For lines this title will be Backing Texture A combo box holding the names of all the available non patterned textures see Texture Management below from which you select the texture to be used for the outline or line backing As for the main texture list a tooltip showing the texture is displayed whenever the mouse hovers over an item in the list As for the main texture you may specify a RGBA color instead The next line of controls is a series of toolbar buttons for e manipulating the texture U and V parameters i e the horizontal and vertical location of the vertices relative to the texture origin by dragging resizing rotating and flipping e selecting the color of lines selected vertices unselected vertices and display background a left click brings a color dialog into view a right click restores the default color and e zooming the display you may also zoom using the mouse wheel 27 Aug 2014 6 Operation of the GP Editor is similar to the Gmax UVW Editor An image of the selected texture sheet is displayed together with the vertices of the object initially in posit
13. boxes around your GP objects see below But this option is also helpful if all your GP objects are not at the same elevation the elevation of the objects in each group is set as the ground elevation at the center of the group As well GP objects in a group are not processed by FlightSim until the group is in range improving FPS Line Visibility m Normally lines are processed from whatever distance Flightsim processes scenery objects e g the GP projects in a group If the lines are too far away to be rendered in a meaningful fashion this is a waste of processing resources which will adversely affect FPS This entry allows you to specify the distance beyond which the lines in the group are not processed Poly Visibility m Similar to Line Visibility but applicable to GP poly objects 14 There is a trade off in using groups however Groups themselves increase file size and processing overhead The smaller the group size the more groups created Also if line and poly visibility are different the number of groups generated may be as much as doubled So group size and the visibility entries should be as large as possible Some experimentation likely will be required for you to arrive at the best solution for you In very large and complex GP arrangements all GP objects in automatically generated groups may have a significant detrimental effect on FPS To minimize the number of groups and hence the FPS hit AFLT all
14. button to remove any poly or line that you add and do not want Edit Custom Ground Line or Object Custom ground polys and lines can be moved edited or deleted in the same way as any other ADE object However it is important to understand that the GP Editor will not automatically open when you add delete or move vertices In those cases you should manually open the GP Editor right click on the object to handle changes to the texture mapping that may be required Using ADE Helper Shapes ADE has a number of helper shapes that can be used to help create custom ground lines and polys Their use is discussed later in this manual The Ground Poly Editor It is essential to recognize that the physical location of a GP object is specified with ADE The purpose of the GP editor is to manage the application of the texture to the object When you move a vertex on the GP editor its physical location is not changed only its position on the texture sheet is updated The Ground Poly Editor is shown below as it would appear immediately following specification of the boundaries of a poly Across the top are two text boxes a button and three combo boxes in which you enter the parameters of the ground poly Layer The layering scheme is arbitrary ADE initializes this window at 40 but you may use any layer number between 5 and 62 63 is reserved for the avoidance of autogen suppression When rendered in Flightsim higher numbered layers are drawn
15. can edit or delete these from the list ab oP U HELLS E x J Tewure Teatiine Type 1 GF layer Commenta _Concrete _PattemedLines_40F Double Yellow gp_Asphalt medium op_PattemedLines_40F Deuble White Zoom Centeron Object a0 S 27 Aug 2014 27 A Few Words about Ground Poly Layers While FS9 does not support user drawn ground polys other than those with the fs8 tweak it uses the ground poly layering system extensively Following is a Summary of the layers used for FS9 stock airports Layer Description 7 Airport polygons 8 Shorelines 7 Parks golf courses etc 6 Roads 5 Railroads 4 Rivers streams 4 Utilities pylons Ultimate Terrain does things a little differently Layer Description 6 Road flattening all other roads 6 Road flattening major roads only 8 Coasilines 4 Cemetery land polygons 4 Golf course land polygons 4 City park land polygons 6 8 Minor roads in urban areas 6 8 Roads as bridges 6 8 All roads except minor roads in urban areas 6 6 Railroads 6 6 Roads as tunnels Any other FS9 add ons that supply roads and or terrain may use different layering again Your ground polys will be competing with those already in place Fortunately the worst that will happen is that your ground polys may unexpectedly cover or be covered by others in the scenery and that s now easy to fix FSX uses an entirely different scheme for roads terrain etc So you will only need to be conce
16. changes are necessary click OK to save them If you click Cancel any changes you have made in the GP Editor will be discarded but any prior changes in ADE will be retained except in the case of an object being created when the object will be deleted from ADE If you rotate or move a poly the previous texture application is retained If you add or delete vertices on the ADE display ADE _GP will attempt to adjust texture application to reflect the new situation If you simply move one or more individual vertices you will be asked if you want the texture application to be adjusted but there must be at least two vertices that have not moved If that object is a line that you have flipped rotated or resized an unlikely situation you ll have to 27 Aug 2014 11 redo those adjustment s In any case to be sure the result is what you want you may wish to examine the object in the GP Editor immediately after the operation Certain operations require that an object be edited before it can be compiled If you don t edit at the time of the operation the compile will be interrupted to allow you to do it later PLEASE REMEMBER When a line or poly is first created the texture is assigned so that it will appear naturally across the object If the object is larger than the texture sheet the texture will be uniformly tiled over the object when displayed by Flightsim If the texture sheet is larger than the object only that portion of the tex
17. cient to include all vertices preserving the aspect ratio of course The specification may be in feet in which 27 Aug 2014 18 e Uniform texture flag is to indicate which textures are suitable for use in poly outlining or line backing It should be either True or False If not True or is missing it will be deemed to be False Lines_Def txt tells the editor the patterns that are available on which texture sheet they reside and where on that texture sheet they are located This file includes an entry for each available line pattern in the form pattern name texture name offset for start width or height of line size of texture e Pattern name may be any unique name but should be descriptive since that s what you ll see in the line pattern selector list e Texture name is as in Texture _Def txt above e Offset for start is the number of pixels from the texture origin to the start of the line pattern The value must be preceded by U to indicate a horizontal offset in which case the pattern is assumed to run vertically and the offset is to the left edge of the pattern or V for a vertical offset in which case the pattern is assumed to run horizontally and the offset is to the bottom edge of the pattern e Width or height of line is the number of pixels from the offset to the other edge e Size of texture the number of pixels along the side of the texture sheet for which offsets are specified Should you wan
18. d other night textures All have been addressed to the extent possible in ADE_GP A workaround for the DX 10 issue has been implemented Avoidance of autogen suppression may however require some experimentation on your part For a fuller discussion of autogen suppression please refer to Appendix A Autogen Suppression by Ground Polys 27 Aug 2014 ADE Controls ADE supports creation and editing of custom ground lines and polys There are two new buttons in ADE s button bar 1 custom ground polys and 2 lines ngs EATREMELY_DENSE Help CONCRETE CONCRETE Me 8 Generic Tpart Blast Fence Generic part Blast Fence Blast Fence Fall JP Fa CONCRETE To add a custom ground poly 1 Select the Custom Ground Poly Mode by clicking button 1 2 Draw the polygon in the usual way remembering to double click the last point to complete the poly The GP Editor will open to allow entry of the required properties Please refer to later sections in this manual for instructions for using the GP Editor ploja 4 2 2 4 4 e Conce 20482 Meters EE E Meter Crainink wih be E E Genere spen Bea force O QPj 7 LA Coce 779429549 OOO A0deg a ADE GP Ground Poly Editor Version 0 0 55 Layer 5 63 ine Width Main Texture Width of Outline 40 7 Drag Resize Rotate Flip Change FHT Bm ABAD MA el fo decrease size Shift Z to increase size Alt 2 to set default size Drawing Layer
19. ed Start Fiel 465 Style Orientation Width Height 0 Horizontal Vert a Insert at Posn Update Definition Files Delete Line Style Cancel Texture Editor In the upper left hand combo box select the name of the new texture and specify e the distance in feet or meters the height and or width of the texture is intended to cover both entries may be left blank if the texture is not distance sensitive e whether the texture is of a uniform nature suitable for use as line backing or ground poly outlining and e where in the Main Texture list on the GP editor you want this one to appear Finally click on Update Definition Files Then if the texture is to be used for line styles in the text box near the center of the dialog enter the line style name it may be any unique name followed by lt Enter gt from the keyboard and then e the start pixel i e the lowest or leftmost pixel in the style note that the reference for this entry is the bottom left hand corner of the texture e the width of the style in pixels e the style orientation i e the direction in which a given line style proceeds horizontal or vertical and 27 Aug 2014 17 e where in the list of line styles on the GP Editor you want this one to appear As before when you are finished click on Update Definition Files The texture editor may also be used to modify the definitions of existing lines textures and to delete textures and
20. ep is to identify the line or poly of concern and open the GP editor which may give you further detail As well you are free to move add delete vertices of GP objects without going to the GP Editor However if you don t open the editor at the time you make such changes move of the entire object excepted and you attempt to compile the file the following message may be issued e The ground poly object bounded by Latitude min value max value Longitude min value max value must be edited before it can be compiled in its current form location Do you want to edit it now If you decline that object will not be compiled You also have the option of cancelling the compile operation Triangulation is a processing intensive activity involving complex math Such problems are usually due to loss of precision as the triangulation proceeds To accommodate this possible loss of precision the compiler ignores positional differences of less that 1mm This could result in a triangle with O area in which case it s absence will not be noticeable but you ll still get the error message Sometimes just wiggling a vertex in a complex area will solve the problem Or you may have to split larger objects into two or more adjacent smaller objects Unfortunately there s no one size fits all solution and so experimentation on your part may be unavoidable Compiling the Ground Polys The ground polys are compiled whenever you compile your airport la
21. ess very small will be apparent when viewed from the user aircraft on that apron As well you cannot draw place planes directly on top of runways taxiways or aprons you must elevate them Elevating only a mm fraction of an inch works fine up close but you ll get flicker when viewed from a distance If you elevate enough to eliminate flicker that elevation will be readily apparent up close FS8 FS2002 provided a mechanism to place planes directly on the ground ground polys for short without causing flickering As well planes could be placed directly on top of runways taxiways and aprons Fortunately both FS9 and FSX utilize FS8 style ground polys Previously creation of ground polys was a time consuming complex process involving the use of Gmax or other 3 D editor FS8 MakeMdl which was not generally available or a substitute hand tweaking of the resulting assembly code submission of that tweaked code to FS9 s BGLC_9 compiler and finally copying of files to the destination scenery folder Even a minor change required repeating the entire process Until now that is Neither FS9 nor FSX has any inherent ground poly processing capability Their processing of FS8 style ground polys while generally adequate is subject to e flickering of shadows cast on the ground by scenery objects and aircraft e suppression of autogen and e for those of you who use the DX 10 Preview mode with FSX an aversion to displaying ground poly an
22. format in order to be displayed If a incompatible format is encountered the texture is not displayed and a beep is issued Immediately the line is straightened and redrawn as shown In this example selected a double white line pattern As you can see below the vertices have been adjusted so that the texture will be applied properly at the corners of the line Un Dimensioned Line Textures Often you will want to display something in a perfectly rectangular area for example a crosswalk or area of vehicle parking lines You could create a poly for this However a single segment line can be used as well and has the advantage that its sides will always remain parallel even if a vertex is moved Just create a line along the centerline of the area to be covered and select the texture and line pattern to be used ADE_GP will do the rest But remember this only applies to single segment lines a ADE GP Ground Poly Editor Version 0 0 86 Layer 5 63 Line Width M Main Texture Line Pattem Style Backing Width M Backing Texture 43 1 0 ap_Pattemedlines 40F v Double White v 2 0 gp_LineBase X Drag Resize Rotate ST mmmn QANAD MI kia Zoom 3 Main Texture Size M Decimal Pixels 512 x 256 X 23 0 Y 11 50 R M I lt Reset a Concel T e a a Line Straightened 27 Aug 2014 10 a ADE GP Ground Poly Editor Version 0 0 86 a eo Layer 5
23. i ADE GP Ground Poly Editor Version 0 0 86 att aao Layer 5 63 Line Width M Main Texture Line F t Backing Width M Backing Texture 40 2 v Drag Resize Rotate Change Color Zoom Slt memm ARAN MX Em EG Line after Width Entered When the editor opens for a new line the display will be similar to the illustration above Other than layer number which may be entered at any time all controls remain disabled greyed out until you enter a line width ft or m Once entered the display becomes Next select the texture C IRA ADE GP Ground Poly Editor Version 0 0 86 roe x Layer 5 63 Line Width M Main Texture e Pattem Style Backing Width M Backing Texture 40 2 ap_Red_20F X X Drag Resize Rotate Change Color HST mw AnAP xX eo aa Main Texture Size M Pixels 256 x 256 X 6 10 Y 6 10 aS Ga Line with Texture 27 Aug 2014 9 lf the selection is a uniform texture you are now done Just click OK However if you select a texture that supports patterned lines the Line Pattern Style combo box will be dropped down and will display all the line pattern styles available on that texture Select the one you want Please note as you scroll down the list of textures in the textures combobox the texture is displayed beside the combobox However as mentioned elsewhere textures in the Textures Dpy folder MUST BE in 24 bit or other Windows compatible
24. ions determined by their lat lons Textures may be specified as covering a certain distance When a texture is first selected if coverage is specified see Texture Management the image of the texture is scaled according to the dimensions of the poly or line object Except as described for single segment lines below if no coverage is specified the texture is drawn so as to just enclose the line or poly and coverage is deemed to be whatever is necessary to do so On the Flightsim display if the coverage of a texture is inadequate to cover the whole object the texture will be tiled as required When an object is first created its vertices are displayed in their natural position relative to the selected texture For most polys this is what you will want and no further adjustment is necessary If you do move vertices it is important to remember that in doing so you are not changing their lat lons this can only be done on the ADE display you are simply changing their position relative to the texture Stated another way you are stretching or compressing the texture as it will later be applied to the object Adjustment of vertices with the GP Editor should only be necessary when applying a pattern in which case the vertices must enclose the desired pattern In the lower left hand corner of the dialog are additional UV controls When a vertex is selected its U and V values are displayed here Those values may be changed either by manipulating the
25. ition of the vertices comprising the triangles as generated by Gmax and MakeMdl and the sequence in which it encounters those triangles So what you created as a single large poly may be imported as several smaller components And what you considered to be a line may be imported as a poly and vice versa As well sometimes when you create a 4 or more sided plane with GMax Gmax will handle it or some portion of it as individual triangles When this happens unless Gmax keeps them 27 Aug 2014 19 sequential in its output the ADE_GP importer will not be able to re establish their relationship and they will be imported as separate triangles Finally very complex objects may be imported in a manner that cannot be compiled because the order of the vertices resulted in a poly that overlaps itself This situation will be detected on your first compile and you ll have to unwind the poly on the ADE screen before it will compile Sometimes it may even be necessary to delete and replace a few vertices ADE_GP considers any rectangular object two adjacent right angle triangles with an aspect ratio of at least 3 1 and a width not exceeding 5 ft 1 5 m to be a line Also any series of adjacent 4 sided objects each with two parallel sides separated by not more that 5 ft 1 5 m is considered a line Otherwise the imported shape is tagged a poly These idiosyncrasies are only of consequence if you intend to edit the object and want the individual e
26. itude and longitude references should reflect the entire area covered by ground polys The layer argument of the ADDCAT command must be a number higher than any layer used by the ground polys This implies 62 as the maximum useable GP layer The code block called by the ADDCAT command should contain nothing but a BGL_RETURN statement i e no dummy scale command This autogen suppression prevention block my be placed in the same file as the ground polys or in a separate file What s important is that it specify a layer number higher than any used by the ground polys ADE Ground Polys 2013 2014 Don Grovestine and ScruffyDuck Software 27 Aug 2014 29
27. lection an image of the texture will appear centered in the display window Textures that should satisfy most generic requirements are supplied You may add your own custom textures See Texture Management below As well instead of selecting a texture you may specify a RBG color for the object as lt red green blue aloha gt where each component is an integer 0 255 The angle brackets are an integral part of such specification If you enter simply lt gt a color dialog will appear from which you may select the 5 color The alpha value will default to 255 If you want some other value you ll have to enter it manually Once a valid entry has been made the background color of the combo box will be changed to that color Width of Outline For lines this title will be Width of Backing You may specify polys be outlined in which case a line of the specified width and texture next control below will be drawn around the poly_one layer higher than the poly its outer edge coincident with the outer edge of the poly Often for better visibility lines at airports painted on lighter surfaces will have a dark backing wider than the line itself When specifying a line if a value is entered into this textbox a backing line of that width will be drawn one layer lower than the line itself Outline backing line widths are specified in feet or meters depending on the setting of the dimension radio buttons ail ADE
28. lements to be handled as a single object Then you must first combine them into a single ADE GP object Otherwise the individual elements will be rendered in FlightSim as they were before Also if you edit lines you will have to re establish their placement on the texture So long as you don t edit a line the previous texture placement remains intact Before you attempt to change any aspect of an imported GP object e g add delete or change the position of individual vertices it is important that you open the object in the ADE_GP editor first and save it before making such changes Otherwise the ADE display of the revised poly may be distorted Not doing so will cause no permanent harm A simple reset in the ADE_GP Editor is all that is required to recover but you likely will have to touch up the texture placement is using a non uniform texture An unedited unmodified imported object will compile and be rendered properly in FlightSim Occasionally ADE will report an imported object that cannot be compiled and identify its bounding box latitudes and longitudes While its possible ADE_GP may be unable to handle certain complex polys it s more likely they are tiny artefacts Which is the case can easily be determined by checking the ADE display in the vicinity of the reported location If the display is as you intended it s an artefact and can probably be deleted or ignored Often these artefacts are so tiny that they cannot be located
29. low The dialog offers three basic compile options e Single Ref Point ARP Elevation Full Visibility compiles all ground poly objects using the elevation of your airport s ARP the default situation If you have only a small number of ground poly objects well away from your airports boundaries this option should suffice It is the most FPS efficient and generates the smallest file e Single Ref Point Local Elevation Full Visibility compiles all ground poly objects using the elevation of the ground at their geographic center If you have only a small number of ground poly objects well away from your airports boundaries but in a flattened area not at the ARP elevation use this option a Compile Parameters cae oC fama Single Ref Point ARP Hevation Full Visibility Single Ref Point Local Hevation Full Visibility 1000 Line Visibility m 000 Pohy Visibility m 500 Group Size m Enter 0 or clear text box to exclude parameter Compiler Dialog e Line Visibility Poly Visibility GroupSize For complex GP arrangements where FPS efficiency must be improved or where unacceptable autogen suppression results from using either of the preceding options O O 27 Aug 2014 Group Size m Instead of processing all GP objects as a single entity ADE_GP breaks up your GP objects into groups of the size you specify Primarily this is a mechanism to minimize autogen suppression by reducing the size of the bounding
30. nner you working files will not be affected by updates to the base set unless you want them to be If you wish to use dds textures with FSX you may do so by making dds versions of the textures in the Textures folder where required and saving them there in addition to or in place of the omp textures To propagate the dds textures to any existing airport using omp textures simply recompile the airport s However you ll have to delete the previously existing omp textures from the airport s textures subfolder by hand 27 Aug 2014 16 It s important you understand the ADE ground poly textures scheme so as to be able to successfully add your own custom textures To add you own textures place a copy of the DXT or 32 bit version of the texture in the Textures folder and a 24 bit texture showing whatever you want to see in the editor in the 7extures_Dpy folder See the two versions of gp_PatternedLines or gp Patterns for examples If your texture has an LM version save it too in the Textures folder Do not reduce the texture size of the files in the Textures_Dpy folder Then from ADE s Tools menu open the GP Texture Editor For new textures the bottom portion of the dialog will be disabled and the fields blank not as shown below ao ADE GP Version 1 0 00 Texture Editor E E Texture Definition KOES Uniform gp_PattemedLines_40F Yes No Width Height 0 40 Pos inin List 1 Line Style Definition Double R
31. o other than the reference point elevation the poly will not be visible if where the elevation of the ground is higher than the reference point or it will be floating if ground is lower 27 Aug 2014 15 As well during testing it was noted that when a single poly was placed distant from the Airport Reference Point it may not display on some FSX systems at all On other systems the same object may be visible in Top Down mode only when the eye point is quite high in this latter situation the poly generally displays properly in other View modes The cause may be as discussed above Or it may be due to earth s curvature We don t know for sure Should you experience this placement of another ground poly object near the ARP may offer relief or use a local center Texture Management ADE includes a number of textures used by the author for his airports The most frequently encountered line patterns are included as are a number of pattern for polys walkway crosswalk cross hatches aircraft parking designators and automobile parking lot lines and some useful text signs RESTRICTED AREA NO PARKING etc Most of these textures have a alpha channel to allow prominent characteristics of any underlying textures e g cracks in pavement rough surface to show through If this is not to your liking adjust the aloha channel using image editing software be sure you edit the textures in the Textures folder or delete the aloha channel altogether
32. over lower numbered layers If you make use of the line base or poly outline features see below you should use layer numbers separated by three or more to avoid backing and outlines inadvertently overwriting or being overwritten by other ground polys Otherwise layer numbers can be sequential 27 Aug 2014 4 Make Default Group A button not shown to make the current layer number the default for new ground poly objects This button will be disabled greyed out if the number in the Layer textbox is already the default An arbitrary group number textbox not shown This field will normally display Auto and should only be changed if necessary See Compiling the Ground Polys Layer 5 63 40 Drag PIII Line Width Main Texture 27 Aug 2014 a ADE GP Ground Poly Editor Version 0 0 86 _ i ie _ N lll sl Main Texture Outline Width M Outline Texture X Rotate AAL Resize mmg Change Color oo m x ao The Ground Poly Editor As the name suggests here you specify the width of lines The width is specified in feet or meters depending on the setting of the dimension radio buttons in the lower right hand corner of the dialog A combo box holding the names of all the available textures from which you select the texture to fill the line or poly A tooltip showing the texture is displayed whenever the mouse hovers over a name After se
33. ows the bounding box that was used to create it In this case we can see that the arc is drawn over just 45 degrees 3 The arc properties can be edited as for other helper shapes my This arc has been edited to give an arc of 135 degrees at a heading of 210 degrees 27 Aug 2014 24 Create Custom Ground Line from Arc 1 Select the Helper 2 Right Click and Make GP Line Edit Ubyject Hide Object Lock Object Show XML Center On ARP Center on Selected Object Center on Tower Viewpoint mn are gt o lets Layer 5 63 Line Width Main Texture Width of Backing Backing Texture e O E a a Drag Resize Ben AKAD x Main Terhire Site 27 Aug 2014 25 The Custom Ground Line is created based on the properties set in the editor View GP Objects Custom Ground Lines and Polys These can be shown or hidden in the display via the View Menu View Lock Un Lock Lists Airport Backgrounds Edge Lights Exclusions Generic Buildings Guidelines and Markers Hald Shot Norde limits Jetweys Land Class Library Objects Navaids Nearby Arports Parking and Taxiways Taxi Signs lerram Exclusions 27 Aug 2014 List GP Objects Use the List menu and select GP Objects Tools Settings Comms Exclusions Helpers Images Jetway Models Navaids Nearky Airports Farki ng The list displays all the custom ground lines and polys in the project You
34. ows you to override automatic grouping for GP objects that don t interfere with autogen To utilize this capability on your ADE display visualize the largest X Y oriented rectangular area using a helper or rubber band that does not extend into autogen that you don t want suppressed Then edit each GP object lying entirely with the rectangle and assign them all the same group number Any positive integer may be used as a group number Repeat as necessary on other sections of the airport You may find certain GP objects lie in two or more such rectanglar areas If so it doesn t matter which you assign Do not include any object that extends outside these rectangles since even after partitioning the entire object is assigned to the specified group Only the remaining GP objects i e those not assigned to a specific group are automatically collected into small groups Judicious use of this capability should reduce the FPS hit to the absolute minimum The DX 10 checkbox is only enabled when compiling for FSX and when any night _LM textures are used If the checkbox is enabled and you use DX 10 Preview Mode check it Otherwise unless you are using custom shaders during dusk night and dawn those ground polys to which a _LM texture is assigned will be displayed as solid white Of course whatever effects were to be created by those _LM textures will not be rendered by FSX when this box is checked Other than as noted in the previo
35. per Shape Width 50 0 Me Height 50 0 Heading 000d Drawing Laye Fohgan Polyg Helper Shape Rectangle Width 50 0 Meters Height 75 0 Meters Heading 045deg Drawing Layer 017 22 Create a Custom Ground Poly from the Helper Shape 1 Select the Helper Shape 2 Right Click 3 Select Make GP Poly Delete Ohject J Edit Object Hide Object Lock Object Shuw AML Cerner On ARP Center on Selected Object Center on Tower Viewpoint MMuwe Forward Rims te Creat The Editor will open so that you can set the required properties a ADE GP Ground Poly Editor Version 0 055 Layer 5 63 Line Wicti Main Texture 40 Pg Drag Resize Rotate 27 Aug 2014 Flip Width of Ov Poll Pim Dd DX 23 Create Custom Ground Line from Helper 1 Use the right click menu to add a helper shape 2 There is currently only one shape available that will create a line the Arc 3 The size properties are changed to allow you to enter the sizze of the major and minor axes For an arc based on a circle keep these the same 4 Anew property is displayed to enter the degrees of arc 5 Click Save to create the helper or Cancel if you change your mind Helper Shape 0 Shape Maor Axis Rectange 50 0 SLE Minor Axis Ellipse 50 0 Circle Degrees of Arc Triangle 450 Hail Heading ore 00 lt Save Cancel The helper is drawn as the arc you define 2 A selected arc sh
36. rned about your own work Higher numbered layers cover lower numbered layers Line backing and poly outlining use the layer immediately prior and following the layer assigned to the line or poly respectively Ground polys that do not intersect may use the same layer The ADE ground poly feature allows you to use all layers between 5 and 63 inclusive so you ve got lots of flexibility Happy ground polying 27 Aug 2014 28 Appendix A Autogen Suppression by Ground Polys Autogen suppression by ground polys is unavoidable But it is controllable Since autogen suppression played such a significant role in the testing of ADE_GP felt some discussion was warranted There are at least two types of autogen suppression by ground polys 1 The first and easiest to understand is suppression within the bounding box Whenever a scenery object is placed in FlightSim autogen is suppressed within its bounding box that is the smallest rectangle oriented in the cardinal directions that can contain the object In the case of ADE_GP the object is one or more ground polys Obviously if your ground polys are not oriented in cardinal directions the bounding box will be larger than if they were and extra autogen will be suppressed To combat this ADE_GP will divide your ground polys into groups for which the largest dimension of the bounding box will not notionally exceed the Group Size you specify The descriptor notionally is important
37. t to make lines that exactly match the stock taxiway markings copy the texture taxiway_marks bmp from your FS9 Textures folder into the ADE Textures folder or make a DXT5 omp version of taxiway_marks dds from your FSX Textures folder A 24 bit version of this texture is already in Textures_Dpy and the Lines_Def txtand Textures_Def txt entries already exist Importing Ground Polys Those of you who have previously created FS8 style ground polys for your airport using Gmax and FS8 MakeMDL or some other set of tools may now wish to integrate those ground polys into your airport AD3 file ADE allows you to do this using the Import Ground Polys function under the File menu First ensure that all required textures are available in your Textures and Textures _Dpy folders ADE_GP won t import any objects from a file unless all required textures are available in those folders It will however list the texture files that are missing Then for each file to be imported click ADE s File Import Ground Polys menu item navigate to the asm file not the _0 asm file tweaked or un tweaked containing the ground polys and click Open on the File Open dialog lf un tweaked you ll be asked to specify the layer number to be assigned Your ground polys should immediately appear on your ADE display The importer is not perfect It attempts to re create lines and polys from individual triangles However it has no reference for doing so other than the pos
38. ture lying within the object outline will be applied When editing objects please appreciate that when you move individual vertices what you are actually doing is stretching or compressing the texture The physical location lat lon of the vertex is unchanged Usually you should only need to move individual vertices in the editor if you are attempting to texture the object with only a portion of the texture sheet e g a sign parking lines etc Rotating or dragging all vertices simultaneously may be required to properly align the object to the texture but does not result in stretching or compression of the texture Resizing will of course stretch or compress the texture but does so in a manner so as not to distort the application of the texture lf you want to change the physical location of a vertex i e its lat lon you must do so in ADE Copying Lines and Polys ADE allows you to copy ground poly objects and paste them into other locations Copies will have the same texture placement as the original However until you call the GP Editor after pasting an object elsewhere it will still contain some data referenced to its old location This is not a problem so long as you don t make any adjustments to the object When you eventually compile your project these obsolete references will be updated However if you make any other adjustments before calling the GP editor the rendering of you object by Flightsim may not be as you intend
39. us section you should never receive an error message from the BGLC_9 compiler unless you attempt to do something very unusual and even then any problems should be detected before you compile But should there be a compiler error unless you are experienced in asm coding and the inner workings of BGLC_9 exe the message is unlikely to be meaningful to you and even if it is there s nothing you can do about it Just report it in the support forum Occasionally you may notice a ground poly disappearing at certain viewing angles This is thought to be due to slight differences between reference point elevation and the elevation of the ground at the location of the ground poly The difference need not be large a fraction of a millimetre is sufficient Posts at fsDeveloper com suggest this difference can be avoided by including an elevation stub that reflects your flatten elevation in Flightsim s Scenery World scenery folder You should first ensure any flickering is not due to an existing elevation stub that is not no longer required Alternately lowering your flatten elevation slightly may also help As well the author has noticed ripples near the edge of flattens which have resulted in ground polys being suppressed So enlarging your flatten may also help As noted above ground polys will only display properly when placed in flattened areas If you place a ground poly at a location that has not been flattened or that has been flattened t
40. yout The compiled ground polys are saved to the same folder as the compiled airport file in a file named as the airport bg file suffixed with _ GP As well all required textures are copied to e the companion texture folder if the compiled files are placed in a folder named scenery or otherwise e ina folder named Textures at the same level as the compiled files Compilation involves converting your ground poly objects into a series of triangles at the elevation of a reference point saving that converted data tweaked as usual for fs8 style ground polys in a file in your ADE folder named ADE_GP asm and then submitting that file to FlightSim s BGLC_9compiler Following successful compilation a list of the textures used by the ground poly objects can be found in a text file in the ADE folder names ADE GP_TexturesUsed ixt The most troublesome aspect of ground polys is autogen suppression As with any scenery object autogen is suppressed within the bounding box of the GP objects This is a fundamental aspect of FlightSim and has nothing to do with ground polys per se The bounding box of a group of GP objects is the smallest X Y oriented rectangle that holds the objects On your ADE display use the rubber band to visualize it Thanks for that idea Tom 27 Aug 2014 13 When you select ADE s Compile Airport function after specifying the destination folder you are greeted with the ADE_GP s Compile Parameters Dialog shown be
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