Setting up a new project
GroundMaker is loaded, now how do you make a new airport? This section will show you how to set up a new airport anywhere in the world. What you need to know is where you want to place the airport in the world and at what altitude it is. You need to know the exact location of the runways in order to allow IFR navigation. Misplaced runways will lead to wrong ILS, DME, VOR, NDB approaches. You can find enough information on the internet or you can look up the runway locations and altitude when in FS.
Click on NEW in the FILE menu. A dialog will appear. The information to be entered in this dialog is important since it positions the drawing area at your desired location in the world.
In the General tab enter the airport Name. It will be used in the World Entry Menu in FS. You can add your name or text in the Copyright field. This information is added to the FS scenery file (.bgl). Use it as your own 'signature' to mark your sceneries. The Comment field is just for notes and does not have any influence on the scenery.
You enter the most important information in the Location tab. Altitude is in meters ASL (above sea level). Use the converter (menu: HELP | CONVERTER...) if you only know the altitude in feet. MagVar, magnetic variation is entered in degrees. As a matter of fact, the geographical and magnetic North are not the same. Groundmaker's Y axis in the drawing area points to the true North. The magnetic variation is the difference between true and magnetic North. It doesn't have a direct influence on the shapes and objects you design but is of importance when adding radio navigation (ILSs and VORs) to your scenery. If you want to know how to find out a location's magnetic variation, click here (FAQ).
Latitude and longitude define the location of the scenery in the world. Latitude is the angle in vertical direction on the globe and ranges from -90 (South) to 90 (North). Longitude is the angle in horizontal direction and ranges from -180 (West) to 180 (East). Both values must be entered in decimal degrees (e.g. -84.45674, not -84 23' 45.456''). Use the converter to get a decimal value from DD:MM:SS or DD:MM. The location you enter here is where the center of the map will be in FS. To learn more about the converter, go here.
Set the scales in the Scales tab. Scales can be a pretty complicated topic, especially if you are new to scenery design. First, a scale is the size of the smallest possible design unit (meters) in FS. GroundMaker's positioning accuracy is 0.5 meters ( 1 1/2 feet) by default. Using a larger unit than 0.5 may lead to slightly distorted shapes when these are very detailed. Second, scales have an influence on how a shape will look. It is recommended to use the default settings if you haven't experienced much with scales...
The pixel size of polygons - Poly() can be influenced with the Poly scale setting. 0.5 is the recommended value. For smaller values, the use of texture levels is required. When using a texture of 256x256 pixels, on texture pixel will be as large (width and height) as the scale unit. Pixels will be 1x1 meters at a scale of 1, 0.5x0.5 at a scale of 0.5.
The Line Scale has an influence on the minimums line width and on it's visibility range. The minimum width is the scale unit x 2 in meters. With a scale of 0.25 the minimum line width is 0.5 meters. The smaller the scale, the shorter the line's visible range. It is highly recommended to leave the settings to <Automatic>, especially when you have thin lines and roads in the same project. Setting a scale here will lead to roads popping up when getting close to them
The Dotted line Scale only has an influence on the visibility range. It is recommended to leave the value to 0.5.
Note: All shapes will make use of the scales specified here. If you want to make textured polygons with very large pixels use the Polygon - TexPoly() tool.
The Drawing area
Now that you have set up the project, the drawing area is ready to be used. The center of the map is at the location you specified in the LOCATION tab (FILE | PROJECT SETTINGS..., see above). You will notice the grid covering the drawing area. There are three differently shaded type of grid lines which you can assign a spacing.
Grid spacingThis is very helpful since you get a better idea of distances in your project. To change the spacing and the grid color got to FILE | PREFERENCES... and click in the GRID tab. These settings are stored along with the program's settings.
The drawing area is 10km x 10km in size (approx. 6 x 6 miles). This should be large enough to design your airport. It is very important to know that GroundMaker is there to design airports, not landscapes. Why airports only? Most airports can be considered as being flat. GroundMaker will only let you design shapes (polygons, lines, ...) that lie flat on the ground, sloped taxiways and runways cannot be made. The reason for that is because polygons are used to outline the runways and taxiways. It is merely impossible to make a sloped polygonal taxiway in FS. Only by using mesh design techniques you will be able to model the airport's surface as it is in real life. The only disadvantage here would be the huge amount of textures needed to render such an airport in detail. Polygonal design, the technique used by GroundMaker and most scenery design tools will give you the most satisfying results in the scenery's sharpness and detail.
The whole world in Flight Simulator 2000 is modeled using terrain mesh. That means that most part of the world are not flat, but sloped. Since GroundMaker can only make scenery that lies on a flat, horizontal surface, the area around the airport must be flattened. If you want to work on an already existing airport in FS, you must exclude the default scenery. Otherwise you will have double runways, taxiways or buildings...
Any of the items in the toolbar can be added on the map. Those items are separated into two categories: shapes and objects. Following shapes are available:
Polygon - Poly(): colored or textured.
Polygon - TexPoly(): only textured. Lets you assign a texture coordinate to every polygon point.
Lines/Roads: use them as taxiway centerlines or roads.
Dotted lines: usually for night effects. For taxiway side lights.
Tree lines: they give the illusion of woods surrounding the airport.
Voluminous forests: they look like tree lines, except they are 'closed' and covered with a 3-D forest texture
One flatten polygon: required in order to have a scenery free of visual artifacts in FS. Makes a flat surface at the airport's altitude.
Following objects are available:
Runways
3-D objects (API macros): use GroundMaker's objects or import your own.
Taxiway signs
Navigation: VORs and NDBs.
Exclude areas
Initial location: for world menu entry.
It is recommended to make taxiways and all other ground surfaces using the Polygon-Poly() tool.
Drawing shapes/objects
To draw a shape, click on the desired type of shape in the toolbar. The mouse cursor will change to a cross. Left-click somewhere on the grid. This will position your shape's first point. Move the mouse to where you want your next point and left-click again. Repeat the last step until all points are drawn. In order to finish the shape, double-click when positioning the last point. The shape's outline will be red and the its settings dialog will show. For more information on shapes settings click here.
Objects have to be positioned on the drawing area. Like shapes, first click on the object of your choice in the toolbar. The cursor will change to a cross with a symbol on the side. Then left-click on the map where you want the object to be. The object's outline will be visible and the object's settings dialog will show. For more information on object settings click here.
All shapes and objects can be edited. shapes can be moved, rotated, mirrored, scaled and changed. Objects can be moved and rotated.
Selecting
Selection is very important since it allows you to interact with shapes and objects. GroundMaker allows you to selecting multiple shapes and object. A selection can be moved, rotated, scaled, mirrored, copied, pasted, saved and imported into any other scenery project. There are three selection modes available:
- Selected (red): this is the default selection mode. When a new shape/object is added on the map it will be selected into that mode. In selected mode you can copy, save, rotate, scale and mirror the selection (EDIT menu items). If only one shape/object is selected, it's settings dialog can be accessed (SELECTION | PROPERTIES...).
- Edit points (green): This mode is only available for shapes. It lets you edit a shape's points. One or more points can be selected, dragged and deleted. Points can be added to the shape. All features from selected mode (red) are available in this mode. This mode is only available when one shape is selected.
- Drag (blue): In addition to the selected mode (red) features, the selection can be moved on the map.
Selection modes
The selection's color will change accordingly. So how do you select shapes and objects? Well, every scenery item has a handle (little square). In order to select a single item, make sure you are in selected mode (SELECTION | SELECTED) and left-click on the desired handle.You cannot select another shape when in drag mode (blue) or edit points mode (green). To select multiple items, press SHIFT, left click on the map and drag while keeping the left mouse button and SHIFT key down. A selection square will appear. All handles inside that square will be selected when releasing the left mouse button. Do the same if you want to edit points when in Edit points mode (green).
Exporting the scenery to FS2000
Now you have drawn a couple of polygons and added some objects, you are probably wondering how to 'see' your project in FS. GroundMaker will do the conversion to *.bgl format for you but you have to enter a path where to save the exported file.
Your scenery, including *.bgl and texture files must be placed into a specially structured folder that can be read by FS. Any scenery must have its main folder, usually named after the scenery itself. This folder must contain two additional folders, TEXTURE for the required *.bmp textures and SCENERY for the *bgl scenery files. The figure below demonstrates this folder structure. The scenery's main folder is named here 'MYSCENERY'.
The *.dat file in SCENERY is always added by FS and shouldn't be of any worry to you. A scenery folder can be placed anywhere on a hard drive. It is recommended to put it with the other ones in the FS default scenery directory (...\[FS_main_directory]\SceneryDB\Cities\) for two reasons: this will keep your sceneries organized and will help managing the scenery library.
To export a project click the FILE | GENERATE BGL FILES... menu item. A 'Save As' dialog will show. Save the file inside the SCENERY directory. GroundMaker will remember this directory so you do not have to browse every time you want to export. What happens is simple. GroundMaker generates a temporary *.sca file which is converted to *.bgl format by another utility: SCASM.
It is very important to copy all textures needed by your polygons, lines/roads, tree lines and 3-D objects (API macros) into the TEXTURE directory. If you don't, textured polygons and roads will be invisible!
If you are exporting the scenery for the first time, you need to activate it in FS. To do so, export your scenery as described above (don't forget the textures!) and run FS. Click on WORLD | SCENERY LIBRARY menu item. A dialog box will show. Proceed as shown below:
In the scenery library dialog click the 'Add scenery area' button.
An 'open file' dialog box should show. Browse your way through your folders until you found the scenery's folder and select it. The selected folder must contain the above described structure and bgl files. Enter a title for your scenery and make sure the lower option 'Use scenery directly' is selected. Click OK.
A small scenery area should always have a high priority (the top of the list has the highest priority). Make sure that it is activated.
Now your scenery is ready to be used! If you make changes to it, you have to exit FS, export in GroundMaker and launch FS again. If you keep FS running in the background, you will likely see no changes at all...