Shape types


This section gives some background information about the available shapes.

 

Textured/colored polygon

PolygonA surface type can be assigned to a polygon: solid / transparent color or texture. Polygons are usually textured with 8-bit (256 color) bitmaps 256x256 pixels in size. Textures are usually opaque but can be made transparent using programs such as BMP2000 by Martin Wright. Polygons always lie flat on the ground. Inclined polygons cannot be made with GroundMaker. It is very important to define a flatten polygon on top of which you will draw your scenery. Otherwise you will experience visual artifacts in FS.

Textured polygons
Polygons should be textured. Using textured polygons really improves the look of your scenery. Colored polygons look very dull and unrealistic. First, lets have a look on how a polygon is textured in FS. There are two important things you should know: pixel size and texture repeat. Polygons - Poly() have a fixed pixel size. It can only be influenced with the polygon scale and texture size. The standard texture size is 256x256 pixels. When using such a texture, one pixel width/height = scale unit. For example, pixels would be 0.5x0.5 meters large at a scale of 0.5 or 1 x 1 meters at a scale of 1. If you use smaller textures, FS will 'stretch' the texture to 256x256 and handle it as a standard sized texture. A 128x128 texture would have a pixel size of 2 meters at a scale of 1. Note that smaller textures are not expanded in memory! they are only stretched 'mathematically'. Textures are repeated along their X and Y axis if the polygon happens to be larger than the texture... as you will notice, it is impossible to rotate or scale the polygon texture. Only the polygon - TexPoly shape can solve this problem...
Another interesting thing you can do with textured polygons are seasonal and night effects. GroundMaker lets you decide if another texture should be loaded at night or depending on the time of year. You will need specially named textures in addition to the original texture to have night and seasonal changes.

Colored polygons
It is not recommend drawing airport surfaces using colored polygons. With all these 3D cards available you won't improve frame rates by reducing the amount of textured polygons. Colored polygons can be interesting for night lighting effects.

When to use polygons
Preferably use polygons for grass airport surfaces, the tarmac and taxiways. With polygons you can make smoothly curved taxiways.

 

 

Texture mapped polygon

Texture mapped polygonTexture mapped polygons, also known as TexPolys are almost the same as normal polygons. What makes TexPolys different is the fact that you have full control on how the texture is applied to it. TexPolys must be textured and can have only up to 4 points. The reason for the point limit is because using more than 4 points leads to distorted textures in FS... The TexPoly settings dialog lets you drag the shape's outline on top of the texture, as shown above.

When to use TexPolys
TexPolys are for the advanced user... Use them for drawing parking lots, highways, texture tiles for photo-realistic effects. They can turn out to be very useful for lighting the airport's surface at night. It is not recommended to use them for surfaces with repeating texture patterns like concrete, asphalt, grass or water.

How to change mapping
You can set the way the texture is applied to the polygon. Click on the Mapping tab. Drag any point by left click-dragging. Be careful not to distort the shape's outline to much. As long the outline looks like the original shape no texture distortion will be noticeable in FS. Dragging the outline has no effect on the shape itself.

 

 

Lines/Roads

Lines/RoadsThe line tool lets you draw roads and taxiway center lines. Roads can be colored or textured and of almost any width (0.25 - 60 meters). The following effects can be added to lines:

When to use lines
Use lines to draw roads or taxiway center lines. It is not recommended to draw taxiways with the line tool. Use textured polygons instead.

More about lines
You will notice that lines cannot be layered in order to be pushed above the runways. This is due to a limitation in the new FS200 style roads... To add realism to your taxiway center lines, use one of the following textures: grm_taxiline1.bmp or grm_taxiline2.bmp. Those textures will add black borders to the line. Textures are repeated along their Y axis along the line's segments.

 

 

Dotted lines

Dotted linesA dotted line is not a continuous line. It is made made of lined up dots. You can set the dot's spacing by entering a value in the Dot spacing input box. Realistic values range from 15 to 60 meters. Dotted lines can only be colored. The color dialog lets you select one of the available palette colors. There are two types of colors available: short and long range. It is recommended to use short range colors for taxiway lighting. If you want full control on where the dots are, enable the Dots at shape points only option. This will only draw one dot at every shape point. The spacing value will be ignored.

When to use dotted lines
Use dotted lines for night lighting effects on taxiway center lines (green) and taxiway side lights (blue). Don't forget to disable dotted lines at daytime by pushing the appropriate buttons (Visibility tab).

 

 

Tree lines

Tree linesTree lines add a lot of realism to your scenery. They simulate forests around your airport. Specially formatted textures must be used with tree lines. Use grm_treeline1.bmp for example. You have the choice of 4 or 8-band textures. What are bands, you will ask? A band is a texture stripe that is repeated along the tree line. Select a band (Mapping tab) by clicking on the preview and set the the amount of bands (usually 8).

You can use custom or the build-in textures (grm_treelineXX.bmp). The build-in textures all feature seasonal textures. Enable seasonal effects by checking the boxes in the Texture options.

Note: It is not recommended to make night lighted tree lines. This will likely result in visual artifacts at dusk/dawn in FS. Build-in tree lines require the GroundMaker texture package to be installed in the main FS texture directory.

 

 

Forests

Forests are like tree lines, except they are closed and covered with a 3-D forest texture. You must select one of the build-in types or make of your own. To make your custom tree lines and forests read the documentation found in the ABOUT TREE LINES folder (GroundMaker directory).

Note: If you use any of the build-in forest types,  the GroundMaker texture package must be installed in the main FS texture directory.

 

 

Flatten polygon

You must create a flatten polygon for any airport or scenery you create with GroundMaker. That polygon is invisible, but it will make the inside of it flat in FS. This very important in order to get rid of visual artifacts. If you are designing a default FS airport (always flattened by default) make sure  your projects' altitude is identical to the default airport altitude in FS. Since you can't measure the ground altitude directly, you must try a little bit. To check that you've got the right altitude, make a flatten polygon and add a runway. Compile, install the scenery and run FS. Slew your aircraft to the ground. In exterior view, check   whether the wheels are stuck in the ground (flatten polygon too low) or if they float above the runway (flatten polygon too high).

Note: You can only create one flatten polygon for every project. A flatten polygon should be convex and have a max of 9 points.