How the Easter dynamic scenery was made

 

easter5.gif (17855 bytes)

This is a map view of the Easter Island. Points1 to 4 are four starting/ending locations of airplanes that will use the same recorded flight pattern EIF1.CDF. You can also see the location of the TAG01 and TAG90 in the scenery. TAG01 and TAG90 are located in the main recorded flight pattern EIF1.CDF.

 

easter1.gif (3238 bytes)

The scenery has a main recorded flight, file name is EIF1.CDF and I have placed 4 TAGS to allow different planes use the same recorded flight path. All aircraft will take off from point placed at TAG01 and will loop until TAG90, just before the end of the recorded flight. To allow to use the same path by more than one aircraft, I have checked on the RETURN ON TAGS flag on DOD.

easter2.gif (2061 bytes) easter3.gif (3766 bytes)
This is a detail view of aircraft 01, that will use the complete recorded file EIF1.CDF, placed on pattern 01,   from the start to the end and all the commands I have made to make the flight. As you can see, the airplane will fly and  loop all the time in the scenery
easter4.gif (4666 bytes) The left picture shows the airplane placed at sequence two in the scenery that will use the recorded file EIF2B.CDF from the starting position to TAG01 and the recorded flight EIF2A.CDF from TAG90 to the end/start point in the scenery. There is different ways to make a recording like this one, the one I used is to start to record the flight from TAG90, then start taxiing and stop in the desired point, this will be the ending/start point and finally continue to record until TAG01 position. I converted the file and I splitted in two files or *.CDF files to have a full control of the aircraft  in the taxiing stop location, like stop propellers, hold position for a period of time, and so on.
easter6.gif (3480 bytes)

This are the commands issue for the airplane placed at sequence 02. This airplane will start flying at location TAG02, will continue to fly up to location of TAG03, then it will continue with the recorded pattern EIF2S.CDF, which is the file path from the TAG90 location to the Point 2 location in the scenery. The propellers will be stopped , the airplane will hold its position 120 seconds, the propellers are switched on, the aircraft will hold position for 15 seconds, and it will start to move following the recorded flight EIF2B.CDF up to the TAG01 position, and will take off and loop all over again and for ever.

Notes about the main recorded flight EIF1.CDF: This is the longest recorded file in the scenery and is used by more than 5 airplanes to simulate a constant air traffic over the airport location. I have included in the file some comments, so you can see how I have inserted some internal DOD commands, like USE1, USE5 and GOTO. You should load this file and see all the important notes I have included in this file.

Merging 2 or more recorded flights: Since you can convert the recorded *.DAT files in a text file *.CDF, you can easily also merge or place one recorded file after another one, even in the same file. In fact, you can do all the modifications and editions you can imagine to reach your goals. The best and easy way to merge two files is by placing the end position of the first file as the beginning position of the second file, or viceversa, of course, you must record your flight as closer as possible when reaching the merging point. You can also add some records or make some interpolations between two lines to get a much better smooth move.

Using the events command in the scenery: The best way to control moves of aircraft is quite often using the events command, but you must use it with caution...The Easter scenery has some examples of this command. The event commands are Sleep, it will make the aircraft to stop for ever in a given position, until is awaken by another object. Here are two examples used in the scenery:

Example 1:

easter7.gif (3618 bytes)

This is sequence 16. The airplane is placed in sleep mode at the beginning with the propellers stopped. The airplane will remain in this state until is awaken by another. Once is awaken, the propellers will start to move, the airplane will hold its position 15 seconds and start to move following the recorded flights indicated in the picture.

easter8.gif (3874 bytes)

This is airplane sequence 04. The plane will hold position 180 seconds, propellers are switched on, it will follow the recorded file EIF4B.CDF and it will awake object 16, that is, object 16 will be activated at this very same time and continue to fly.

Example 2: This example is quite more complicated than the first one. Here is the detailed steps to perform: