71 replies to this topic

[IBtheSarge]

scavers, on Mar 6 2005, 01:59 PM, said:

Sarge, your're definatly taking this seriously, can't wait to see the final beta

There's an FB-111A Association reunion this year in New England (maintainers and jet jockeys that flew the Aardvark out of Pease, Plattsburgh, etc.).  A flight is going to flown to/from KPSM in FS2004 and recorded for playback at the reunion.  This scenery will be the KPSM that is used in FS9 for that flight.  Instead of flying out of the Pease Intn'l Tradeport KPSM, the flight will be recorded to/from Pease AFB (SAC) KPSM.

It's got to be as "right" as it can be .....

[IBtheSarge]

Got the Mole Hole building texture and exit texture .... latest construction:

Now, just waiting on some shots showing the north end and east side to get the exits and tube placement correct, then this macro is finished.

Edited by sarge, 07 March 2005 - 02:54 PM.

[Tasmanet]

(Moderator's Comment:  Edited, off-topic for this forum and this thread)

Edited by sarge, 08 March 2005 - 08:24 PM.

[IBtheSarge]

Tasmanet, on Mar 7 2005, 09:49 PM, said:

Small World
This was shot from the top of Pan Am's Hanger.
I had to remove the background for a reason I will not
go into ;-]

And this relates to Flight Simulator Development, Scenery and Terrain Development, Project: Pease AFB, New Hampshire ... how?  Or are you just trying to hi-jack a thread?

(As a moderator, I can "assist" you in finding the correct forum .... We have a special forum for posts that are "Off Topic" ... this isn't it.)

Edited by sarge, 07 March 2005 - 09:02 PM.

[IBtheSarge]

AFCAD revised after a discussion with Col McWilliams (USAF, ret), a former maintenance officer at Pease AFB, NH.  Just need to add some transient fighter parking spots to main ramp in front of base ops, place the Pease Tower, Crash/Rescue, and Base Ops, and assemble second (and hopefully, final) beta test package.  Two more days and we should be ready to continue beta testing and assemble for publication.

He was also assigned to Plattsburgh prior to Pease, so he's got a wealth of info on KPBG, too.

[IBtheSarge]

Mole Hole for KPSM complete

[notadrater]

Nice sarge, what's the poly count?

[IBtheSarge]

notadrater, on Mar 11 2005, 08:15 PM, said:

Nice sarge, what's the poly count?

By rights, it should have come in between 600 and 750 polygons.  It's 291 polygons.  

The macro (singular) consists of four separate Mole Holes, each with its own seasonal texture; so the whole macro file contains data for 1,164 polygons.  But FS9 only reads the data it needs for the season it has to draw the macro in, so it only puts 291 polygons in memory.  Using XML placement, FS9 only uses the parts of the data it actually needs to put the object in the scenery.  It doesn't need all four, it only needs to read the conditional pre-set and select the 291 polygons for the season that the flight is occurring in.  So, minimal framerate hit (if any).

[IBtheSarge]

Roadblock.  In designing the fence and T-hangars, I'm having to make the textures for them.  Running into problems keeping precise tints in converting 24-bit sections of photographs to 8-bit for the hangars; may have to go to extended bitmaps, but hate to do that because they require more resources.  The fence is giving me fits on the Alpha channel for the gaps between the chain links; may have to redeisgn the fence and put fewer strands of wire in them.

[norwegian_hawk]

sarge, on Mar 14 2005, 04:44 PM, said:

Roadblock.  In designing the fence and T-hangars, I'm having to make the textures for them.  Running into problems keeping precise tints in converting 24-bit sections of photographs to 8-bit for the hangars; may have to go to extended bitmaps, but hate to do that because they require more resources.  The fence is giving me fits on the Alpha channel for the gaps between the chain links; may have to redeisgn the fence and put fewer strands of wire in them.

If there's one thing that texture fiddling has taught me it's that alpha channels are a pain in the ######. Half the time FS doesn't even render them as water/transparent

[IBtheSarge]

norwegian_hawk, on Mar 14 2005, 04:24 PM, said:

If there's one thing that texture fiddling has taught me it's that alpha channels are a pain in the ######. Half the time FS doesn't even render them as water/transparent

Finally had to admit that I'm going to have to use extended bitmaps for the T-hangar textures; here's a partial ....

Still have a few sections to go, but I should be able to extract the applicable parts of the photos to get them.

The fence texture is a !!!!!  I've tried both black and green alpha channels .... may have to out-source the work and I HATE to do that, because that's letting myself get beat.  Maybe a few more tries .....  

[Skydvdan]

Sarge,
Thanks for all the help through the PM's.  I just about done with the first building (which is the one I work in.)  We don't call ours a mole hole but it could be one.  I anxiously await your next XML tutorial so I can start exporting in xml instead of bgl like I've been doing.  BTW, I'm at 135 poly's with only a few finishing touches left.







The Davis-Monthan AFB project is on it's way!!

[IBtheSarge]

That's lookin' REAL good!!!!!  I want your D-M in my Scenery Library as soon as it's finished!!!!  (Check your email)

[IBtheSarge]

The Pease t-hangars will be a mix of closed doors and open doors.  Just completed v1 of the open door configuration:



Each of the doors was texturized individually with the applicable part of the front texture used for the "closed door" version, especially the two inner most doors with the diaphragm to go around the tanker fuselage.

In this configuration, the usable opening is approx 190' wide -- more than enough for a -135 (wingspan 131') or two -111's (combined wingspan -- wings fully extended -- 126').

Since the full (usable) depth of the hangar is 100' the Varks will fit completely inside; a tanker (137' long) will have approx 47' protruding through the doors with a 10' clearance between the nose and the rear wall.  That may be a bit more than real-world, but it's a close approximation within the space and scale constraints of what Microsoft has given me to work with at Pease.

[IBtheSarge]

Three of the taxi-in T-Hangars and one closed door T-Hangar placed .... framerates included in each capture:









I have to adjust the taxi lines; the FB-111A taxi lines are too far towards the sides of the hangars.  (If you can see the taxi lines in the shots, each hangar has three taxi lines to it.  The middle one is for the KC-135 to follow; Aardvark taxi lines are either side of the tanker taxi line.)

[Folgers]

Dude, I should strangle you.  If you get into commercial scenery, you'd whipe the plates.

AWESOME  

[IBtheSarge]

Douglas Buis, on Mar 21 2005, 02:57 AM, said:

Dude, I should strangle you.  If you get into commercial scenery, you'd whipe the plates.

AWESOME 

You obviously haven't noticed the addition to my sig ..... Check Six! Designs begins 1 Jan 06.      I'll still be making freeware, but the complicated stuff like Pease, Plattsburgh and Loring will be payware (reasonably priced so everyone can afford it, not just a few .... I'd rather sell 5,000 copies at $5 than 500 copies at $10   ).

Edited by sarge, 21 March 2005 - 02:45 AM.

[Folgers]

sarge, on Mar 21 2005, 02:44 AM, said:

Douglas Buis, on Mar 21 2005, 02:57 AM, said:

Dude, I should strangle you.  If you get into commercial scenery, you'd whipe the plates.

AWESOME 

You obviously haven't noticed the addition to my sig ..... Check Six! Designs begins 1 Jan 06.      I'll still be making freeware, but the complicated stuff like Pease, Plattsburgh and Loring will be payware (reasonably priced so everyone can afford it, not just a few .... I'd rather sell 5,000 copies at $5 than 500 copies at $10   ).

Need a web-designy?

[IBtheSarge]

Douglas Buis, on Mar 21 2005, 03:56 AM, said:

sarge, on Mar 21 2005, 02:44 AM, said:

Douglas Buis, on Mar 21 2005, 02:57 AM, said:

Dude, I should strangle you.  If you get into commercial scenery, you'd whipe the plates.

AWESOME 

You obviously haven't noticed the addition to my sig ..... Check Six! Designs begins 1 Jan 06.      I'll still be making freeware, but the complicated stuff like Pease, Plattsburgh and Loring will be payware (reasonably priced so everyone can afford it, not just a few .... I'd rather sell 5,000 copies at $5 than 500 copies at $10   ).

Need a web-designy?

Distribution arrangements in work .... website taken care of.  But thanks for the offer.

[enterprise134]

Wow looks excellent.