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Are hard mud flats possible?

aeromed202

aeromed202

SOH-CM-2014
I tried a freeware Barra UK scenery only to get an unrealistic strip added to the terra firma, instead of the real mud flat area that is or was used for the actual landing area. Is there a way to create something that would look and act like a wet beach hard surface? I made some attempts using a flatten tool to make a hard surface on open water that would allow the waves effect to wash over it with no success. All it did was change the height of the water or land without affecting the waves. Should such a tool work? I noticed that some shoreline sceneries allow waves to march way inland and thought it was a matter of deducing the exact land surface height to draw them in. On a couple of experimental AC I added float points along side wheel points and was able to get a workable replica of landing on a water surface as if it was just an inch or two deep but was looking for the visual of a tidal flat too.
 
Basically..YES!

This is definately possible aeromed202

For the textures and waves you'll work in SBuilder - freeware scenery program.

Create a poly, the same size as the area: slew-mode in fs, to get things right in SBuilder (already open).

Then choose a suitable texture from fs main texture file, or a landclass texture from scenery/world/texture.
SBuilder will give you the option of making this both seasonal and night-textures.

I did something similar once using the beach-shoreline textures in fs, resulting in the animated waves over beach. NO water!

If you don't like what fs has to offer, you'll have to be more creative/prepared for extra work/willing to learn.
By doing a little searching around, being a little rescourceful, I'm sure you'll find a suitable photo as a basis for creating a custom texture.

There are many exellent step-by-step tutorials related to SBuilder. (it comes with its own comprehensive manual, and its helpful author has a help/support-site too). Scruffyduck's tutorials on using SBuilder are very readable, precise and easy-going.

You won't make your area 'hard' with a flatten. It doesn't work that way...it just flattens.
For quickly making your 'hard' surface, make an afcad with an invisible taxi-way/runway.

Afcad can make a hard surface anywhere...even way up yonder!

You can even make you planes 'walk on water'...but that's near blasphemy!...so I'm outa here...:running:
 
Where did you find a freeware Barra scenery?

I'd love to have it even without a realistic beach runway.

(But if you make a good runway for it I'll probably ask you for a copy...

I love to fly in that corner of the world!
 
Thanks for the encouraging words Nigel, might have a try at that. The only freeware was an FS2000 by Jim Grobe so it really has that 2000 look. It alters the landscape to provide some buildings, some eye candy that mostly does not show up and the three converging strips charts show as being the desired orientation of traffic on a given day. Of course the actual strips are not there in the real place but are only seen in the pilots imagination under homogeneous tidal flats. That is what I'm after and I can imagine how fun it would be to operate there with good water spray effects to boot.
 
Ah Ha! Found an FS9 scenery for Barra:

http://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=162234

"[SIZE=-1]FS2004 Scenery--Barra Airport (EGPR), Scotland, UK. Design With FSDS v3 No night building textures. By Bramantio Chandra Dwi Putra.[/SIZE]"

The screenie included with the zip file looks as though the runway still looks like a runway rather than beach sand (though at least it seems to be about the right color).

Don't know how it looks installed - I have no idea when I might get the time to install it and check it out - definitely not any time soon... :(
 
if we figure it out might want to sort Saunton Sands and Pembrey out, they're low tide beach landing strips for the RAF used mostly for C-130 training :icon_lol:
 
That 2004 scenery just came out, wish all wishes arrived that fast. I will try it out in a day or so but the screenies didn't seem to show the actual ops area as big and sandy. Great to have a current scenery though.
 
I wonder if one might just open the AFCAD file and reduce the runway width to zero? That should visually disappear the runway while leaving it there digitally for AI planes to find and use. That works for water runways.

I seem to recall that it can't be zero feet wide; it has to be something like 0.00001 feet.

One of these days I'll get a working installation of FS9 into my not-so-new-anymore confuter and be able to try stuff like this myself...
 
I think czech Jesenicko scenery package use Mick's idea, if i remember correctly i tried to set ai traffic on both airports there and ai durring taxi begin to jump on runway and crash.
 
Jesenicko AI works fine for me...
It's an amazing bit of scenery, it's an illusion but looks as if the airfield is sloping!
(which of course it cannot using AFCAD rwys)
 
Joe Binka's Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome uses AFCAD and has a sloping runway.

I have no idea how he did it.
 
Mick said:
Joe Binka's Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome uses AFCAD and has a sloping runway.
I have no idea how he did it.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't be for the AI-usable part. AFCAD runways are unfortunately level, no matter what.
I have a brilliant Courcheval scenery, complete with landable ramp, but alas no AFCAD and thus no AI.
It was always on the wishlist for a future sim to have realistic up-and-down runways...
 
Well, I headed the team that made the ORA AI Project, so I know that AI works fine on Joe's sloped AFCAD runway.

The runway at the virtual ORA is down in a hollow at one end, and it rises up onto the level of the main part of the airport around mid-field.

The runway at the real ORA is more complex than that. It starts down in a hollow, climbs up to the top of a hill, drops down again and climbs back up again. That was a bit more than Joe could manage!

At the real ORA I have stood by the side of the runway and watched planes come in to land, disappear behind the hill on the runway, become visible as they crest the hill, disappear again, then finally come back into sight. I have landed on that runway and watched the upper part of the field become visible, then invisible, then visible, then invisible again before finally coming into view as we rolled out towards the high end of the runway. And it's a short runway!

Joe said that there was no way he could replicate that roller coaster ride in FS9!

But still, Joe's AFCAD runway has a definite slope to it, and AI uses it without any trouble.
 
ORA was released on AvSim:

http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=rhinebeck&CatID=fs2004scen&Go=Search

The AI package was released here and on FlightSim in multiple zip files. I can never find anything in the library here, so these are the links on FlightSim:

Part 1: http://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=98341

Part 2: http://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=98342

Part 3: http://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=98343

SPAD Update: http://www.flightsim.com/kdl.php?fid=98343

Also, if you search "Rhinebeck" in "All FS2004 Files" you'll get a selection of additional repaints for some of the planes.

There's a reason why the scenery was released in one place and the AI Package was released in two different places but not the place that hosts the scenery. But it's a long story and it's boring, so I won't tell it here.

Note that it's the AI "Plus" Package, so check out the "Plusses" too. You might find some of them entertaining.

Thank you for making me think about this old project! People from all over participated, and it was so much fun!
 
Actually it's always been a museum. It was started as a flying museum. I haven't been there in years, but I look forward to visiting there again.
 
Mick said:
...Joe's AFCAD runway has a definite slope to it, and AI uses it without any trouble.
Click to expand...
Firstly, thanks for those links.
I can remember this scenery now, it goes back half a dozen years or so, and I wasn't too involved with the fabric and string planes at the time...
It was fairly ambitious to try running a dozen AI with a P4, too!
A lovely scenery

Orafs92012-01-1119-01-05-26.jpg


There is a hump at the end of the runway, but it is outside the airfield. That's probably what makes one think it is up 'n down...

Orafs92012-01-1118-57-00-60.jpg


Flat and level as a billiard table

Orafs92012-01-1118-58-35-45.jpg


While we are meandering from the OP, it might be useful to know that an AFCAD cannot be sloped in FS9.

Aside: The scenery has an AI "dude" who is an invisible cylinder, great for TrackIR spotting!
In fact I am going to transplant his FDE into the Real Dude, as it is much smoother.
 
Now this is really strange - in your screenie there is a hump showing where on my system - and on the real ORA - there is a hollow.

There are start points and even a parking spot or two down in the hollow at that end of the runway, so it is definitely part of the AFCAD.

I can't begin to understand why your confuter renders a hill where everyone else has a hole!

I've known of sceneries and planes that wouldn't work on someone's system but seemed to work fine for most folks - but I've never seen something like this, where it works but doesn't show up the same. Very, very strange!

Even stranger - I just noticed that in your top screenie, the aerial view, it looks like a depression down at that end of the runway, as it should be. But in the ground shot looking towards that end of the runway, it's clearly a hill. This makes no sense at all!
 
Hmm, if I'm not mistaken the new Barra scenery is on the West side of the peninsula instead of the East in Traigh Mhor Bay, as maps show it. Or have I got the chart upside down? I think the default scenery had something in that area which might have been misleading but I'd have to install fs9 again somewhere to be sure.
View attachment 56152View attachment 56153

Like the snails.
 
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