Parking Ramp Markings

[crashtruckchuck]

I have a question to pose, and I'm sure the answer is simple... I just haven't figured it out yet. Does anyone know how to place warning lines and intake warning and such on a parking ramp. There are usually white boxes about 50 to a 100 yards off the nose of the aircraft, usually reserved for maintenance or fire crews to park their vehicles. And there are red or red striped semi circles for intake warnings. I have tried using taxi lines, ice runways set to like 2 feet, and even dabbled a bit with FSDS to try and create on simple polygon for it. All look kinda silly. I've tried to use the brick taxiway set to about 2 feet for the red line boundry, and that too seems alittle hokey. I was just wondering if someone has tried it with success or and I just gonna have to deal with it. I'm just trying to dress up my usual AO and though it would add just that much more realism. Anyway, any help would be great. Thanks.

Scotty

Edited to add examples
http://www.airliners.net/photo/USA---Ai ... 57fd7fb189
http://www.airliners.net/photo/USA---Ai ... 57fd7fb189

[KevinJarvis]

You can use AFCAD or ADE to place large areas like in the photos. Just change the texture to concrete I believe.

[MIKE JG]

Scott you can do it in FSDS using a flat sided polygon and making whatever shape or markings you want using just the texture file. If you want an example, I can send you some that I've done in the past.

The only drawback is that you have to elevate them just slightly off the ground or the underlying surface flickers through. So when an aircraft taxis over them, it looks a bit weird.

[crashtruckchuck]

Kevin- Thaks for that tip. That helps in trying to make the different textures under the aircraft.

Mike- I tried your technique when you made the VIP carpets. All I end up with is a solid square. I'm trying to make a box, maye 25 x 50 to place at the nose of some of the C-5's I have. I used to be stationed at Dover, and then as a civilian firefighter at Westover and they had them. My result is a 25 x 50 white square. I tried to tweek the alpha a little bit, with no avail. Do you guys think that maybe changing the color texture of one of the gound textures would work. Like take the ice texture, turn it white, then lay out a bunch of lines to match the effect I am looking for like in the first picture. Or would that add way too many polygons and kill the FPS? I wish I had the time and patience to play with SBuilder and add some background pictures. Anyway, thank you both for your responses... back to the testing!

[MIKE JG]

Scott you could certainly do that. But you have to make sure you alter the correct texture files. That method sort of ends up being a one off on your system only because if you wanted to share it, you'd have to have every other user make those same changes to their taxiway line textures and apron texture files.

You can do two things when making these flat polys with FSDS. You can use an alpha channel for the texture to make the bits you want transparent AND you can make the polygon and assign it a transparent material inside of FSDS. Remember the default material for FSDS objects is that light shade of gray. You have to go into the materials property box and for the top most set of numbers, change the material properties to all zero's. You don't HAVE to do that but if the user selects "ground scenery casts shadows" then the polygon will cast a shadow and it looks a bit weird.

[MIKE JG]

Oh yea, don't forget in the "part properties" box to check the tick box for "uses transparent textures".

Here I made you a quick sample for you to look at along with a texture to use. Try this FSDS source file. Open it up and press F2 to bring up the parts properties. Select the "Materials" button and look at the new material called "Trans". Also note I've checked the "uses transparent textures" box.

Put the texture file in your main FS9/Texture folder for it to show up in FSDS. Try this out, compile it and see how it looks in game. If it works, all you have to do is go back and scale it or stretch it until you get the exact dimensions you want.

[MIKE JG]

I was bored so I compiled it just to see how it looked in game. Looks exactly the way it should.

[MIKE JG]

This is one of the things we will create during the modeling tutorial as it's a good lesson on working with transparency.

[btaylo24]

Mike

Do we have any of these object in the MAIW scenery lib, with text on them?

Looking forward to the tutorial....

Barry

[MIKE JG]

Not that I'm aware of.

[crashtruckchuck]

Mike, I don't even know where to begin to thank you. What took you a few minutes took me hours of confusion and frusteration. That is exactly what I was looking for, it fits perfectly into my airfield and I am just that much more happier. It also gives me alittle more insight into much more, like the possibility of parking numbers and such. AWESOME!!! Thank you so much, and please keep the work that not only yourself but the entire MAIW team do. God I love this website!

[MIKE JG]

The real question is did you get a chance to look at the source file so you could see how it's done? You can also control the "thin-ness" of the outline of the box by redefining the texture a little bit in from the edges.

[crashtruckchuck]

Mike, I did get to play with it alittle bit. You should concider this your first tutorial because from this I have figured how to make the intake warnings for some fighter bases and next I'll be working on a marshaling cordon for my "special cargo" parked out at a far off hot pad. My original box was made up of four flat rectangles. needless to say it looked bad. Then I tried just a flat polygon and tried to alpha out the middle. I am gonna fire up FSDS when I get home and disect your creation(with your permission of course) to try and see what else I can come up with. I can not wait for your tutorials. I've always wanted to create my own scenery. This is just a baby step. Thanks again

[MIKE JG]

The nice thing is that by adjusting the alpha channel you can make your intake warnings look like they've been painted on the ground by making their color just slightly see through, so that the underlying ramp texture shows through a bit. Once you get the basics of it figured out, I'll show you how to do that.

[eli]

I'm in need of intake warning markings (see attached photo).
I have FSDS, read this thread and for the life of me I can't seem to design this marking sucessfully (I'm new at scenery design).
Anybody designed this and willing to share it or lead me through the steps to do it myself?

Thanks

[MIKE JG]

I made you an example to look at. Put the texture file into your FS9/Texture folder, then open the source file up in FSDS.

The key to these types of parts is really the texture and the texture's alpha channel.

Have a look at that and then hit us with any questions you have about how it was made.

Intake_Warning_Example.zip

(5.03 KiB) Downloaded 34 times

Note: To use it in game, you will need to compile it into a .mdl or .bgl file for yourself.

[eli]

Thanks very much Mike.

I will play around with it and let you know how I make out.

Tom E.

[eli]

Mike:

I told you I was a novice! I was expecting the background to be transparent so that only the red jet warning lines would show up on my parking apron.
I had downloaded the file you posted, opened it in FSDS and saved the part to a bgl file. I'm sure it has something to do with alpha channel stuff (which I am not too knowledgable about).

[MIKE JG]

Eli this is what I get when I compile the model from FSDS, into an object and place it.

Not sure what's going on on your end but obviously the alpha transparency is not being applied to this object in your sim.

[supernova48]

Hey Mike,
I just purchased FSDS and downloaded both of the files you made. I know nothing yet about FSDS, I did open your two files and compiled them as mdl files. I then created a library file with those two objects. The box looks and works perfectly but the red semi circle still shows the black box. Any suggestions??

Thanks,
Ken