Whinging from a beginner

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old grey dog
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed May 04, 2011 11:06 pm

Whinging from a beginner

Post by old grey dog » Sat May 21, 2011 8:52 pm

I am relatively new to SBuilderX, but I have managed to do SOME things quite successfuly - others just don't seem to work.

When I created traffic using Freeway lines, I want the traffic to "go under bridges". To do this I thought I would be able to use a polygon for the bridge deck with properties set for it to exclude Freeway traffic. I have created polygons, set the properties, selected the polgons and executed the "Compile BGL". A BGL file is created but when loaded into the FSX Screnery folder it has no effect. What am I doing wrong?

Also I have attempted to create highway lines - my first attempts worked pretty well (though through my stupidity I put them in the wrong places). These were 2 lane undivided asphalt highways. However, when I attempted to create single lane dirt highways to access the turbines on a wind farm I had created, they managed to acquire altitude attributes of zero and dug big trenches in my terrain. Why is this?

And another thing.

I have bought the photo scenery for England and have created photoscenery for parts of Scotland from background satellite images. Many of the towns and cities have FSX default scenery in them. For Example; in Edinburgh - the Castle, Scot Monument, St Marys Cathedral, in York - York Minster. The FSX defaults are awful - how do I get them not to display?

I think that's quite enough moaning for the time being but I would be very grateful of some guidance.

meshman
Posts: 219
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2006 11:54 pm

Re: Whinging from a beginner

Post by meshman » Sun May 22, 2011 1:16 am

So many questions and I'm such a lousy typist. What to do... :lol:

I don't understand your wanting the traffic to go "under bridges". What bridges? Are these existing bridges or did you place them? If they are something that you placed with SBX, then there is a setting that makes the bridges "undriveable" and vehicle traffic follows the terrain, not the bridge. If you're trying to route traffic, say at a 90d angle to the bridge, then the traffic "should" not be affected. But I'd need to test that out to be sure. Trying to exclude traffic from an area might cause you to lose a larger area than you anticipated. Traffic is excluded in a QMID=15 area and might be more than what you wanted.

If necessary, you could stop the traffic line just before the bridge and restart it on the other side.

Wind turbines and a dirt access road? Sounds like what I did for Hawai'i Roads shouldn't pick up an elevation unless you specified one. Otherwise they will lay on top of the terrain.

For the scenery objects you can slew the plane to them and using SBX to connect to FSX, then make a small exclusion rectangle, excluding scenery objects. Just make sure that any BGL file that you make it at a higher level in the Scenery Library than for the scenery that you're working from.

Now excuse me, I need to go soak my fingers. They're tired... :mrgreen:
Lance

old grey dog
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed May 04, 2011 11:06 pm

Re: Whinging from a beginner

Post by old grey dog » Mon May 23, 2011 8:54 am

Coming from a CAD and Engineering background I was expecting to be able to "slice" across the freeway lines, but of course I see now that FSX doesn't work that way.

I didn't express myself very well in my initial post. The "bridges" I am referring to are the actual bridges shown in the photo scenery. Where there is an over-bridge I would like the freeway traffic to stop on one side and reappear on the other. Clearly I could stop the freeway line on one side and start it again on the other side. But maybe I'm picky, but I'd like the same vehicles going under and coming out again.

Presumably the solution to this is the one suggest, that I construct a bridge extrusion. (Haven't had a go at that yet!!) At the risk of seeming to run before I can crawl, is there a way to put the part of the photo-scenery showing the bridge on top of the bridge extrusion?

Just to give some background - I have been working on the scenery around Edinburgh and particularly the airport. There is a dual carriageway on the approach to runway 24 and complex highway interchanges on the approaches to runways 06 and 30. Having traffic on these makes these approaches considerably more realistic. I feel generally that putting traffic in the scenery brings it to life.

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luisfeliztirado
Posts: 436
Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 9:15 am
Location: Santo Domingo

Re: Whinging from a beginner

Post by luisfeliztirado » Tue May 24, 2011 12:36 am

Your custom textures are just a picture of the ground. You cannot have anything going over, then under them. All objects are always placed over the custom textures, whether they are static, such as autogen, or dynamic, such as vehicle traffic.

A "bridge extrusion" will, of course, display the default bridge textures that accompany FS X. If you wish a custom bridge with your own textures, then you will have to make one.

Perhaps you do not yet master the essentials of vector scenery design. If you have not yet, please do have a look at:
- Terrain Design for Flight Simulator X
in the Avsim library
http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?&DLID=141643
- Make photo-real ground textures in Flight Simulator X
in the Avsim library
http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?Ca ... LID=140539
- Illustrated Guide to Extrusion Bridges
in the Avsim library
http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?Ca ... LID=140542

The SBuilderX Help file also has a wealth of information.

Best regards.
Luis

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