My current project is to create a temporary winter airfield on a frozen lake (altitude ~3000 ft).
As in MSFS 2024 ‘water’ does not freeze over for landing in winter. I do some terraforming steps to replace the water with a landable ground and airfield surfaces.
Steps are:
- Place a WATER POLYGON around the lake area to exclude all ‘LAKE’ water, having no priority (altitude set at ~1043.50)
- Place a ‘Ground’ POLYGON where there was water with a custom made snow texture, having priority 0 (altitude at ~1043.50
- Place a RECTANGLE with HEIGHTMAP around the area where the intended runway will be located. Flatten and smothing the area, having priority 1 (altitude set by sim at ~1044.95!)
- Add a APRON (polygon) around the airfield perimeter with a custom made ice texture representing GROUND cleared of snow, having priority 1 (altitude at ~1043.50)
- Add some elevated POLYGONS for snow patches placed around and onto the cleared ground where the ground should not be visible, having priority 2 (altitude at ~1043.70)
- Add the RUNWAY inside the flattened rectangle area, having no priority
Because the resulting terraform does not match what I expect, I have two questions:
Q1: Although the altitude for the heightmap rectangle is set (by the sim) at 1044.952~, the secondary heightmap altitude values are way above (e.g. at 1094.313~). What are those values? Why don’t they approximately match the other surface altitudes?
Q2: The runway surface is by no means flattened. It seems to still follow the original terrain. I have to apply a runway profile to flatten it out, as if no secondary heightmap is there. What am I missing in the terraforming steps?
Any advice is appreciated.
Paul