GroundMaker homepage

<body link="#236287" vlink="#585858" alink="#83342C"> <p> </p>  <p> </p> <strong>[title.htm]</strong> <p> </p> <div align="center"><center> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="565"> <tr> <td width="100%"> <div align="left"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="512" height="25" bgcolor="#CFC8BD"> <tr> <td width="27" valign="middle"><img src="images/t_news.gif" WIDTH="27" HEIGHT="25"></td> <td width="485" valign="middle" bgcolor="#CFC8BD"><font face="MS Sans Serif" color="#000000"><small><small>September 25,  2001</small><strong> -</small> <small>Beta 4.0 available</small></strong></font></td> </tr> </table> </div><blockquote> <p><font face="Arial" color="#FF0000"><strong><small>GroundMaker beta 4.0 is available for <a href="download.htm">download</a> at last! Lots of changes and improvements have been made:</small></strong></font><ul> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small>Many small bug fixes.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small>Accuracy of TexPoly() mapping improved.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small><strong>Taxiway sign</strong> rotation bug fixed.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small><strong>LOD</strong> (level of detail) for polygons and lines implemented.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small><strong>Custom runway</strong>s added. Lines can be drawn on top of these.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small><strong>3D taxiway light</strong> feature added (dotted line tool).</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small>Improved <strong>interface</strong>: Easier selection, info in status bar added.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small><strong>Hot keys</strong> added: Drag selection by pressing arrows (use SHIFT to speed up). Switch to rotation mode by pressing R, to scaling mode by pressing S.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small>New <strong>help</strong> files.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small><strong>API preview</strong> on the map improved (fixes the hatched squares bug).</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small>It is possible to assign an individual <strong>scale</strong> to polygons (Poly and TexPoly).</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small>A new experimental 'TexPoly merge' feature has been added: Select TexPolys which you want to be drawn into one RefPoint (coordinate system). This will ensure 100% positioning accuracy for adjacent TexPolys (no gaps between these polygons). Great for <strong>photo realistic tiles</strong>.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small>Loading time of GRM project files shortened.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small>GroundMaker now gives you <strong>feedback</strong> on <strong>texture</strong> and <strong>scenery</strong> <strong>(bgl) files</strong> needed by your scenery.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small>Improved menu.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small>Ability to search for a missing backdrop.</small> </font></li> <li><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><small>Forest texture selection added (forests make use of a set of specially formatted textures).</small> </font></li> </ul> <p><small><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><a href="download.htm">Download beta 4.0</a>, view <a href="screenshot.htm">screenshots</a>.</font></small></p> <p> </p> </blockquote> <div align="left"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="512" height="25" bgcolor="#CFC8BD"> <tr> <td width="27" valign="middle"><img src="images/t_news.gif" WIDTH="27" HEIGHT="25"></td> <td width="485" valign="middle" bgcolor="#CFC8BD"><small><font face="MS Sans Serif" color="#000000"><strong>Magnetic variation update</strong></font></small></td> </tr> </table> </div><blockquote> <p><small><font face="Arial">Screenshots and examples have been added to the MagVar help topic for better clarity.</font></small></p> <p><small><font face="Arial">Read more on the <a href="help.htm">help</a> page.</font></small></p> </blockquote> <p> </p> <div align="left"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="512" height="25" bgcolor="#CFC8BD"> <tr> <td width="27" valign="middle"><img src="images/t_news.gif" WIDTH="27" HEIGHT="25"></td> <td width="485" valign="middle" bgcolor="#CFC8BD"><small><font face="MS Sans Serif" color="#000000"><strong>Custom runways</strong></font></small></td> </tr> </table> </div><blockquote> <p><small><font face="Arial">GroundMaker beta 3, build 12 will also feature new custom runways. They look and behave like FS runways except that you can assign your <strong>own surface texture</strong> in addition to the default FS textures. <strong>Dirt</strong> and <strong>skid-marks</strong> effects can be added on top of the surface and markings to add realism! In addition to that, the layer problem is solved. <strong>Taxiway center-lines</strong> are visible <strong>on top</strong> of the surface and markings. Dirt effects, if enabled, cover taxiway center-lines.</font></small></p> </blockquote> <p> </p> <div align="left"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="512" bgcolor="#F1EFED"> <tr> <td width="5%" valign="middle"><img src="images/t_news.gif" WIDTH="27" HEIGHT="25"></td> <td width="95%" valign="middle" bgcolor="#CFC8BD"><font face="MS Sans Serif" color="#000000"><small><strong>What is GroundMaker?</strong></small></font></td> </tr> </table> </div><blockquote> <p><small><font face="Arial">GroundMaker is a FREEWARE airport scenery design tool for the Microsoft Flight Simulator. Although it is still in beta stage it is almost a 100% functional. Interesting features such as a taxiway sign tool or support for OpenGL rendering (shows textured shapes on the drawing area) have been added recently.</font></small></p> <p><small><font face="Arial">The generated scenery can only be used with FS2000. This program is aimed at the average as well at the advanced scenery designer. Draw polygons, taxiway centerlines, roads, dotted lines and tree lines to create your airport. All these shapes can be copied, pasted, deleted, dragged, mirrored, rotated, scaled and edited. Furthermore you can place objects on top of your ground scenery: runways, VORs, NDBs and 3-D objects (API macros). Your scenery can be compiled and copied to your scenery directory with the click of a button...</font></small></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><a href="images/b3_big_utility.gif"><img src="images/b3_utility.gif" alt="GroundMaker" border="0" hspace="3" vspace="3" align="left" WIDTH="136" HEIGHT="101"></a><small><font face="Arial">GroundMaker is the perfect utility for creating small flat scenery areas (6 x 6 miles). If you want to design landscapes, there are other programs written for that purpose. With GroundMaker you get full FS2000 compatibility. There is no need to make any manual changes to CONFIG files in order to make your scenery work. All shapes and objects, including world menu entries (to access your airport in FS), exclude switches (to hide any interfering default FS airports) and flatten polygon (makes the airport flat in order to avoid visual artifacts) are complied in one FS scenery file.</font></small></p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p><small><font face="Arial">Why another airport design tool, you will ask? GroundMaker has advanced feature such as setting the <strong>order of appearance</strong> of polygons (allows you to make layered scenery), a <strong>user-friendly interface</strong> featuring selection of multiple shapes, special edit features (rotate, mirror, scale, edit single points, copy, paste), support for <strong>Level Of Detail </strong>(LOD, improves performance of complex sceneries in FS) that give you more freedom and flexibility in the process of designing.</font></small></p> </blockquote> <p> </p> <div align="left"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="512" bgcolor="#CFC8BD" height="25"> <tr> <td width="18"><img src="images/t_news.gif" WIDTH="27" HEIGHT="25"></td> <td width="494" bgcolor="#CFC8BD"><font face="MS Sans Serif" color="#000000"><small><strong>More about GroundMaker</strong></small></font></td> </tr> </table> </div><blockquote> <p><small><font face="Arial">Most of the features are implemented but need to be fine-tuned before final release. Here a closer look at how GroundMaker works and what you can do with it:</font></small></p> <p><small><font face="Arial">Two types of scenery items can be added to your scenery in the drawing area: shapes and objects.</font></small></p> <p><small><font face="Arial">A shape can be one of the following: standard colored or textured <strong>polygon</strong> (Poly),<strong> texture mapped polygon</strong> (TexPoly - polygons where you assign a texture coordinate to each polygon point), textured or colored<strong> solid line</strong> (use for taxiway centerlines or roads), <strong>dotted line</strong> (use for taxiway night light effects), <strong>tree line</strong> (gives the illusion of woods or buildings surrounding the airport) and <strong>flatten polygon</strong> (a polygon that flattens the mesh scenery under the airport so that ground scenery displays correctly). All shapes (except the flatten polygon) can have optional night switches enabled in order to be hidden at a desired 'time of day' (dusk/dawn, day or night) or to be illuminated for night effects. Shapes make use of the new LoadBitmap command that allows to use different textures depending on the time of day and season. The voluminous <strong>forest</strong> tool has been added recently.</font></small></p> <p><small><font face="Arial">Following objects are implemented: insert API <strong>macro</strong> (3-D object),<strong> VOR</strong>, <strong>NDB</strong>, <strong>runway</strong> (new FS2000 type), <strong>initial location</strong> and <strong>exclude</strong> (to exclude default or other scenery with a lower layer priority - only works with FS2000 patch 1 or higher installed). GroundMaker allows long file names and strings with blanks for use with macros and textures. Another interesting object is the <strong>runway sign</strong>. </font></small></p> <p><small><font face="Arial">GroundMaker makes use of a new 'intelligent' and easily accessible file format. A project is stored in plain ASCII text format. Each shape or object is 'described' as it would look in FS. This ensures high compatibility with future GroundMaker versions.</font></small></p> <p><small><font face="Arial">Other interesting features are the optimization algorithms that can be enabled when exporting the project to SCASM or BGL format. There is one that analyzes every shape (polygons and solid lines) to calculate the minimum amount of points needed for a given viewing distance. This greatly improves performance of the scenery because only shapes close to the viewer are drawn in detail in FS. This technique is known as <strong>Level Of Detail</strong> (LOD). This feature can be disabled if you want all your shapes to be displayed simultaneously at the highest quality.</font></small></p> <p><small><font face="Arial">The edit tools have been also improved, especially the selection tool. One or more shapes and objects can be selected, dragged, copied, pasted, saved, imported, rotated and scaled simultaneously. Multi-selection of points inside a shape is also possible when in point edit mode. Selected shapes can be converted to another type of shape. Great for giving different shapes the same properties.</font></small></p> <p><small><font face="Arial">Anyway, thank you for your patience and for being interested in trying out this product. GroundMaker will be FREEWARE and your <a href="mailto:webmaster@groundmaker.org">feedback</a> is very appreciated in order to make a quality product for the flight-sim community.</font></small></p> </blockquote> </td> </tr> </table> </center></div> <p> </p> <p> </p> <strong>[title_low.htm]</strong> <p> </p>  </body>