Simviation Forum - ***New Idea***

Jan 9^th, 2004 at 1:37am

Katahu Offline
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I think I have an idea on how to create road traffic without Microsoft having to put it in for us.

Instead of using Macros, Scasms, and such, why not use the AI traffic as road traffic as well?

Just simply have many low-poly car models riding around on the roads. And since AI traffic can be affected by you in a certain way, it would seem realistic. Not only that, the AI ground population can be controlled in the same way as the air traffic.

The downside to this is that you need plenty of patience. This is because you need a lot of ground plans [better than saying flight plans] for the AI car models and certain number of streets. But it's best to just start off with the highways.

Since we have the latest version AFCAD, we can build our own road ways.

The only streets we need to make are the highways.

And since we have plenty of scenery-addon developers who make scenery for free, we'll have all the help we need.

This is how it goes.

Just make the road system for your city while other developers make the road system for their own city as well. Just by using the taxiways in AFCAD.

I guess Microsoft never thought of this method. Wink

What do you guys think? Crazy, huh? LOL

But think about it. We want FS to come alive, don't we? Wink

Don't forget about the Mercedes [released] and the Porsche [not yet done] you can drive around with.

We got everything we need in order to do this. AFCAD, FSDS, GMAX, TTools, and FSSC. Cheesy

And we have the know-how.

PS: Pardon me for being a wierdo. LMAO!!!!!

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Reply #1 - Jan 9^th, 2004 at 3:45am

Travis Offline
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Well, its a good idea, but I see a problem.

AI traffic follows courses laid out by what nav aids are available in the area. So any traffic would have to go through those, which would negate the possibility of having roads that curve or make sharp turns. Of course, the roads could be made in such a way that they corresponded to the directions taken by the AI traffic, but that would negate the possibility of of having roads that correspond directly to maps of the area.

I think the only way of doing this would be to make dynamic scenery and have the cars move through that. Sad

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Reply #2 - Jan 9^th, 2004 at 6:41am

Han Offline
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Although I'm not into scenery, I know of some guys that have boats working on AFCAD's in the harbour..they go out to sea and suddenly take off...hehehe...

Pilots are the best computers we can put aboard aircraft, and the only ones that can be massproduced with unskilled labor..

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Reply #3 - Jan 9^th, 2004 at 9:36am

RollerBall Ex Member

Hate pouring cold water on things but I'm afraid that's not how this sort of thing is done.

Originally the software used for this sort of animation was DOD (Dynamic Object Designer) which I think is still excellent. I've used it for a few dynamics in my FS02 Kai Tak scenery (and it also works in 04 although I haven't uploaded the dynamics for that yet). The problem is that there is no support for it and although I've asked everywhere for help, I've found it impossible to discover how to successfully get new, modern objects into the necessary dynamic object libraries.

The modern alternative is BusyObjects which requires a pretty detailed knowledge of GMax to be able to use. It's not an easy program to master which I guess is why you don't see that many sceneries with dynamic objects.

However, if you want to see what you are talking about being used to what must currently be THE level of perfection, get and install the scenery file zshc_v2.zip for Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport, China by Jiangwei Shen. I picked it up from Avsim.

The streets surrounding the airport and the airport itself are full of moving vehicles. The effect of taxying out to the active with vehicles passing your aircraft on the road next to the airport has to be seen to be believed. ALL of the vehicles in the following shot are moving at 'normal' speed on the roads.

I emailed the author to get details of how he did it but never received a reply unfortunately.

Roger

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Reply #4 - Jan 9^th, 2004 at 12:22pm

Katahu Offline
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I think it is possible. You might never know until you try it.

I'll give it a try. I believe it can be done.

As for flying cars, the best way to avoid SEEING the flying cars is to make them invisible when they take off. This is possible because I use to fly a Mustang in CFS1 and it disappears whenever the gears are retracted.

And to avoid seeing cars taking off, just simply place some camoflaged runways in plases in places where you don'e normally visit. Then build the taxiways in a way so that the cars are guided there.

Then have them land in either another system of roads or on the same system.

I'll start off by just using the visible roads that are already there in the default scenery and just apply the taxiways over them.

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Reply #5 - Jan 9^th, 2004 at 1:44pm

RollerBall Ex Member

he he

But don't forget all your AI in that scenery will want to use those taxiways if they are a route to the runway. If they're not, AI won't use em because AI ONLY taxies to take off or park after landing.

You can't make AI drive from one part of an airport to another.

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Reply #6 - Jan 9^th, 2004 at 2:08pm

Dan Offline
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Sounds real cool. You didn't mention which sim though.
Dan
Fs2002 pro

&&3DMark01 || OCUK - The best UK shop

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Reply #7 - Jan 9^th, 2004 at 2:37pm

Katahu Offline
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FS9

I found out it was a little too difficult for me to accurately place the taxiways over the existing roads of FS.

So I started off by making road traffic around my home airport.

There was many autogen houses and trees in the way. So I went to the scenery.cfg file and added an exclusion area around my home airport [KTMB].

But after adding the area, I found out that it excluded not only the autogen objects, but also the entire airport. Shocked

How can I add an exclusion area without excluding the existing airport?

I modified the airport in AFCAD [v2.21] and saved the modification in the following directory.

c:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\Addon Scenery\AF2_KTMB\Scenery

I then enabled the modification in the Scenery Library.

But still, the airport is still excluded. How do I keep my airport visible?

PS: The AI air traffic is there, but not the airport.

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Reply #8 - Jan 16^th, 2004 at 12:26am

Daz Offline
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would exluding the area remove afcad files??? or add on scenery??

what im thinking is open your airport and then make a slight change and then save it now the bgl is in the addon scenery folder and when you exclude it its still there apart from any visual elements of course but taxiways and what have you will be there Cheesy

am i right.. its getting late and my brain is starting to fail on me lol

EDIT ::: SILLY ME FORGOT TO READ THE WHOLE POST STATING THAT YOU TRIED THAT Cheesy

sorry

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