ajurt 3 Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 Hi, I am considering purchasing AES. I have been doing FS since 1986 but only recently bought a computer capable of running fancier add-ons. I am running FS2004 and design any airports I fly into. I use AFCAD, SBuilder, SceneGenX, ADE, EZ-Scenery, Lago's FSE, Bglcomp and Scasm among others. I have a fair amount of experience with XML files but haven't really done anything with GMax. FSE creates all the dynamic traffic and the other tools are used to create new buildings, jetways, lighting and static airport objects. I am interested in AES for the following reason: having a movable jetway and having the various vehicles servicing the plane. I would only create one moveable jetway per airport (the one I will dock into). RC4 will guarantee the gate won't be used by an AI plane (I have 1.8 million weekly legs...!!) I need to know if these things could get done with relatively little effort. I am very familiar with compilers, interpreters and tools as I have been a Systems Developer / Analyst for more than 25 years. Any help is appreciated. Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beat578 32 Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 Hi ajurt If I understand you correct, you intend to implement AES into your own created Airports? That won't work. AES is an Enhancment of dozens of existing Freeware and Payware add-on Airports (listed on the AES Site). But its not intended to be implemented by yourself. Oliver Pabst has to modify it for each and every airport by hand. Then the new airport will be included in the next release and can be used by adding credits and assigning them to it. So, there are dozens of new airports that are used by many people, I think Oliver Pabst would not be albe (or interested) in adding airports only used by single users, the effort and work to add them into AES would be way to big. There are still lots of airports used by many people that are waiting to be added to AES. Hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajurt 3 Posted October 23, 2012 Author Share Posted October 23, 2012 Beat578, Yes, except I would do my own work. Also, I wouldn't do the whole airport but only the gate I will be using. All other gates have already been created with SceneGenX. Even without the gate (not crucial for me), it would be nice to at least have the service vehicles. One thing I am not clear on is, when somebody designs freeware scenery, how does AES recognize it? Are there some elements within the BGL file that makes it distinguishable as an AES file, do the developers contact Aerosoft for inclusion into a library or is there a way to get it included by yourself? Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deputy Sheriffs Herman 1591 Posted October 23, 2012 Deputy Sheriffs Share Posted October 23, 2012 Andre, while I think you're well meaning, Beat578's last two last two sentences pretty much say why you shouldn't expect much if any help and are good advice. Oliver is a commercial developer, and AES has to fit in around the rest of his life. I honestly don't think a commercial developer is interested in sharing any techniques or hints that could be used by someone else not well meaning to compete with him, or that benefit only one user. The question you ask about how does AES recognize a scenery suggest there's more you would have learn about FSX to accomplish what you want. In case you don't know how the recognition looks to the end user, each update to AES (free of course) contains the ability to parse through the airports you have installed, compare them to a table of AES-aware airports and offer you the choice to activate the airport in AES, deducting credits where appropriate. Since Oliver knows how to assign a property to an airport that allows it to be activated without using credits, I can't see any chance in the world that he would explain how to make that happen. Pirates would instantly use the knowledge to make all the airports now requiring credits to be credit free. By the way, in your first sentence, you wrote about "purchasing AES." AES itself is free and includes many airports that do not require credits. Taking a look at the list here will show you all the currently supported airports. Those requiring credits that you want to activate require you purchase a "credit pack" of 10 credits, which are then assigned as needed to activate the airport. To pre-answer a common question, you only need to use the credit(s) once for the airport and they permanently activate it. However, they can't be moved to another airport. I hope you take this as a polite reply to your polite request. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajurt 3 Posted October 24, 2012 Author Share Posted October 24, 2012 Herman, No offense taken. I just figured since other people design AES compatible scenery freeware, it would be something I could do too.. In the meantime I have installed a few of those freeware sceneries and some are quite elaborate. I like a little bit of ambiance at the airport but have no need for intricate details. I spend about 1 hour max at the airport before a flight (usually including taxiing) and most of that time is spent in the cockpit, going through the checklists, charts, entering data into the FMS etc. Viewing the airport scenery is usually only done while taxiing to to runway or going to the gate after landing. That's why I do not spend a lot of time placing static or dynamic objects at an airport. Some of it helps though, as it gives you a better feel how high you are above ground. The service vehicles would have added a bit more ambiance, but I can easily do without it. I would gladly spend some money if they work in every airport in FS2004, but I can't ever see that happen. Thanks for your help! Andre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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