FAQ

 

General questions

What exactly can I do with GroundMaker?
GroundMaker allows you to design airports for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 (or simply FS2000). It's strength lies in the design of ground polygons and lines but 3-D objects, called macros can be imported. You can also use GroundMaker to design any kind of scenery, as long as it's boundary does not exceed 10 x 10km (app. 6 x 6 miles).

Who is it made for, do I need any special knowledge to use it?
GroundMaker can be used by anyone. It is a fully visual scenery design tool. What you draw is what you get in FS2000. If you're confident with scenery design you will find many advanced feature like multiple levels of complexity, night switches and more made available to you. GroundMaker generates ASCII (plain text) SCASM code which is formatted in a very readable way in case you want to 'hand code' extra features yourself. In order to be run in FS2000, your scenery must be compiled, which is made with the click of a button.

How much does GrounMaker cost?
Nothing. It is freeware.

Can I use GroundMaker to make commercial sceneries?
No, GroundMaker is freeware. You can only distribute any scenery you make as long as it's freeware.

What is SCASM?
SCASM is the utility written by Manfred Moldenhauer that made scenery design very accessible to the public. SCASM stands for SCenery ASeMbler. GroundMaker uses SCASM in order to convert a project to BGL file format, which in turn can be read by FS2000. A non-commercial version of SCASM is included with GroundMaker. If you're new to scenery design, you shouldn't be worried about how it works. GroundMaker has a feature that automatically compiles scenery files with SCASM and copies them to your scenery directory.

What kind of scenery items can I include in my scenery?
GroundMaker lets you draw the following shapes: textured or colored polygons (Poly and TexPoly), solid lines, dotted lines, tree lines and flatten polygons. Following objects can be added to your scenery: runways, VORs, NDBs, 3-D objects (macros), Initial locations for the world menu entry in FS2000 and exclude areas.

What is a texture?
A texture is a bitmap (image) which is used to 'fill' polygons or lines. Usually, textures are tiled in case they are smaller than the polygon they must 'fill'. A texture can be of one of the following size in width or height: 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 or 512 pixels, 256 x 256 being the most common. You should only use 8-bit palette bitmaps as textures in FS2000.

Can I use GroundMaker scenery in older FS version (98 or older)?
No, GroundMaker makes FS2000 only scenery. The generated scenery is optimized for FS2000. Had Groundmaker supported older FS versions, it would have been cumbersome to use, not been 100% compatible with FS2000 and had less features.

 

 

Display related questions (GroundMaker)

The drawing area renders so slowly. What is wrong with my computer?
There are different reasons for this. GroundMaker is a graphics intensive application and runs fine at a resolution of 1024x768 or lower. If you use a larger screen resolution simply make the GroundMaker window smaller. It has been reported that performance drops when another graphics application is running simultaneously. Close any other running applications and resize GroundMaker's window and you should get the full performance back. In some cases, your system settings or graphics card may cause GroundMaker to render slowly. This may happen to you if you have the Windows desktop motives enabled. GroundMaker has been programmed with Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 which is known for compatibility problems (what else did you expect from Microsoft?).

I've heard GroundMaker supports OpenGL rendering. How do I enable it?
Click on the File | Preferences menu item. On the General tab enable the OpenGL box. Close and restart GroundMaker.

What is OpenGL?
OpenGL is like Direct3D. It allows you to see your ground scenery as you would see it in FS. What you see is what you get, including textures and transparency!

Shape or object outlines do not overlap with the rendered items in OpenGL mode. What is wrong?
GroundMaker uses two different renderers in OpenGL mode: OpenGL and the default renderer for outlines that are currently edited. OpenGL doesn't always position its windows corners accurately, in other words the two renderers use different coordinate systems. Try to solve the problem by resizing the window. It is recommended to use the default rendering mode since it gives you 100% accuracy.

My background bitmap doesn't show in OpenGL mode.
The background feature is currently not supported in OpenGL.

I get an error message or experience constant crashes when running in OpenGL mode! What can I do?
It is very important to install the right video card drivers. Sometimes, the driver shipped with your video card are not 100% OpenGL compatible. Try getting your card's latest drivers.

 

User related questions

I'm tired of setting the same properties over and over again every time I'm done with a new shape.
Well, you are not supposed to go mad because you want to design scenery the way you want it. GroundMaker has just the right feature for you: simply set your default shape settings in the preferences menu item (FILE => PREFERENCES => SHAPES). These will remain unchanged until you change them again.

Why can I only select one shape at a time? It will take me a thousand years to drag all these polygons...
No, you're wrong here... Multi selection has been available to you just to shorten your scenery production time. Simply SHIFT-click-drag (press SHIFT, click left mouse button, keep it down and then drag). You will see a selection rectangle on the screen. Drag over all shapes/objects you want to select. Remember: only visible shapes/objects can be selected. If you only want to select polygons deactivate all other shapes and objects (VIEW=> SHOW).

I drew a shape but I don't like the way it looks. Is there some way to edit every single point?
Yes, you need to select the shape and go into point edit mode (SELECTION menu item or CTRL + E.  Only one shape must be selected)...

I can't get lines to show above runways! But I want to draw these taxiway centerlines on runways too.
Default FS runways always cover lines. Use the custom runways instead. In the runway settings dialog click the SURFACE tab. Select CUSTOM in the SURFACE TYPE drop-down box. Don't forget to select a texture too... The custom runwayshave a layer of 12, the dirt effects a layer of 24. In other words, lines cover the surface, but the dirt effects still cover lines.

When I compile my scenery to BGL format I get an error message: "SCASM.EXE not found or corrupted". What's wrong?
Make sure that you downloaded and installed SCASM v2.5. SCASM.EXE must be copied to the GroundMaker directory.

When I compile my scenery to BGL format I get an error message. What happened?
There are various reasons for that. Read the VIEW button to read the SCASM error feedback. Usually, badly coded 3D objects (macros) generate errors. Remove these macros or debug the macro code... If the error is not linked with macros, please send an e-mail to bugreport@groundmaker.org.

 

 

Display related questions (FS)

Why are my textured polygons/lines only colored?
The answer is simple: FS cannot load the texture. There are various reasons for that, the main being the texture has simply not been copied to the scener texture folder. Also note that FS cannot open 16 color and 24-bit bitmaps. Read the texture topic for more help.

Although textures are visible at daytime/ in summer, some presumably textured polygons are colored at night or in Winter/ Fall/ Spring. What is going on?
You enabled seasonal or/and night effcts on some polygons/lines and forgot to copy the night/seasonal textures to the scenery TEXTURE directory. Maybe you enabled these effects by accident.