Scenery "How To" Question

[acourt]

All,

I've taken everyone's advise, purchased a copy of Instant Scenery, trolled the Web for the likes of AFCAD, TTOOLS, ExcBuilder, etc., and thrashed head first into scenery designing again. I worked at it several years ago, and let me tell you things are one hundred percent easier now with all these wonderful tools available. Thanks to everyone involved.

Now I have a problem.

My fictional "starter" airport sits in Central Florida. I'm using the FreeFlow Florida scenery combined with FSGenesis's freeware terrain for the Southeast US. The airport has a single north/south runway with one ramp and "turn-around" taxiways at each end.

Here's the problem. I used FSSC (Flight Sim Scenery Creator) to build the flatten at 90 feet MSL. In AFCAD, I set the airport elevation to 90 feet MSL also. Now, on certain parts of the airport, all paved surfaces tend to flicker and disappear at close viewing ranges (i.e. spot view zoomed in, sitting on the ground in the Schweizer glider) as if the paved surfaces are disappearing under the ground.

I tried removing the FSSC flatten and purely using AFCAD's flattening abilities, which cured the problem. There was still an area on the runway that needed flattening, so I again used FSSC to create a simple rectangular flatten to cover the runway. Bam! The problem is back.

I don't know if the problem is with FSSC's ability to create flattens, the fact that my original flatten with not rectangular, some inherent glitch with the FreeFlow or FSGenesis scenery, or if Pluto is still mad about being downgraded and is messing with my scenery mojo.

Any ideas?

Al

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

Congrats on getting into scenery design! It's a lot of fun.

The simple way to fix this is to create an Apron area in AFCAD and slide it under the runway. This will flatten the ground under the runway without causing the visual problems that a flatten file can cause in certain cases.

Just make it slightly smaller than the runway and slide it underneath - I would create one for the entire runway (or more than one if there are more runways). That way you know the entire runway is flattened properly.

BTW, I saw this flashing at Haneda (that has a flatten file), and opening the AFCAD file, changing the altitude of the airport (or the altitude of the runway) by 0.1 feet, saving it, and then changing it back to the original (correct) altitude fixed it. This causes the altitude to be reset to the correct value - it strays from the original value each time you save the file due to number rounding errors. This is also why runways and black taxiway lines tend to "stray" from each other.

Hope this helps,

[acourt]

Thanks, Tom! I tried the apron under the runway, and it worked just fine. BTW, what are some of the certain conditions under which flatten flies are problematic?

Al

[Tom/CalClassic]

If the elevation of the AFCAD vs the flatten file is off by even a tiny amount, you will get the flashing you saw - that's the major problem. If it is off by a larger amount, things will appear to "slide" around at the airport. The other problem with flatten files is they often generate "cliffs" at their edges.

Hope this helps,