BDL - Hartford, CT

[M.D.Miron]

Do you plan on doing a LGB scenery?

Long Beach KLGB? Definitely a fantastic idea I second that.

[martin[flytampa]]

Are you referring to aprons or grass textures?

I mean the perimeter line and engine-shell marking at each parking position.

http://library.avsim.net/sendfile.php?L ... eID=191331

[FlySanJose]

You ever consider teaching a class? You know, the more people that know how to do this stuff, the less requests you have to deal with.

On second thought, just teach me everything you know.

[martin[flytampa]]

You ever consider teaching a class? You know, the more people that know how to do this stuff, the less requests you have to deal with.

On second thought, just teach me everything you know.

There is much less to it then you may think I know virtually nothing about scenery design that isn't already explained at places like fsdeveloper & co.

Once a dev knows all that, the only thing left is his ability to draw textures, which is also quite learnable by looking outside the FS world.

[FlySanJose]

Actually my biggest obstacle is jetway polygons. Right now, my jetways are 128 polys each. Were I to use them on an airport the size of SFO for example, I wouldn't get nearly the user friendly frame rates that FT-SFO gets. Any tips there?

[martin[flytampa]]

Polygon count used to the big thing to worry about just 2 years ago, not quite anymore That doesn't mean you can be reckless but...

128 polys for a jetway is nothing. Maybe you have seen our little TNCM. jetways there are 1000 polys each and the Max source file for that Aiport contains no less then 125.000 polys total. That includes Hotels, cars, taxilines, everything within a few 100m of the airport. Added to the island mesh, autogen, AI and other things you see by default it is safe to assume that FS is easily rendering 200.000 polygons.

Depending on location you can't take it that far, but I would say that 50.000 polys is a completely normal budget for an airport addon nowadays. It hasn't always been like that, just a few years back my older stuff ranged in the 20.000 count.

PS: In FS2004 the tools you use to build your polys can make a huge difference. Make sure the models are Gmax (or anything that compiles with BGLC/MakeMdl), some of the very old tools that compile in SCASM can also generate good results but there is a very old SCASM branch that creates extremely slow content.

[FlySanJose]

Good God... well, maybe its the LOD then or something. I try to keep my airports under 15k polys if I can, but I dont use mips or LOD. BDL for example is only 6,050 polys.

Of course another plausible option is that my computer is just too old by todays standards. AGP motherboards are dinosaurs now.

[martin[flytampa]]

Another nugget... I never ever have built an actual LOD model for scenery. The only by-the-book LOD I ever did was with TNCM's AI ships, which btw isn't even accounted in the 125.000 number.

I'm not saying LOD is useles, it is a very good thing to have... but for me it is too much work. I can see the point for objects that you must see at all times (such as aircraft). Within scenery I go a more simple route and let objects pop-away completely by using the max-view distance. It is the same thing as a 2 step LOD basically, you just avoid all the work having to build the same model over and over for several view distances. It is useful for some things, but I have lived fine without it so far.

[keithh233]

Now I have a question for either of you two, how do you get the pictures, maps, etc. for making the sceneries? How do you get the dimensions of buildings? These two things have really brought me to a stop in beginning my stab at scenery.

[martin[flytampa]]

Now I have a question for either of you two, how do you get the pictures, maps, etc. for making the sceneries? How do you get the dimensions of buildings? These two things have really brought me to a stop in beginning my stab at scenery.

Depends on what you're building. For large airports there is often enough photos to be found on airliners and jetphotos.net. For smaller and odd locations you have to contact owners, clubs or go there yourself. Buildings' sizes you can see within aerial imagery and their height you can eyeball from photos most the time. There are developers who do things in a more schematic way, I haven't had many problems using just "vision".

[FlySanJose]

Well, length and width is easy with google earth because it has a ruler on it. Just remember to set it to meters for working in gmax. Height is trickier but if you can get a good side shot of a terminal, you can compare the roof line with the tail height of an airplane near by. For example if the roof line is the same height as the tail on a 737, you can go to airliners.net, look up the 737's dimensions, and there you go. The default scenery is notoriously bad for oversizing their buildings. OMA and ATL are especially bad, although I'm sure there are others.

[MidgeyMidget2]

Do you plan on doing a LGB scenery?

Long Beach KLGB? Definitely a fantastic idea I second that.

Yeah. I remember one for FS2002 but none for '04.

[FlySanJose]

Wasn't really planning it, but I can take a look.

[deltaboeing84]

Watch out, they'll start attacking you for requests.