RCNAS Shearwater - my first addon

[delta_lima]

It's time to give back ....

So many of you have enriched this hobby. A couple of you have even undertaken a few personal repaint requests. I don't have Photoshop, so I can't repaint. Airfields, though, seem like a bit of a simpler place to start, so it's time to get rolling.

You all know how much I love Naval Aviation - Canada's in particular, so since this Shearwater was the cradle of Canada's naval aviation effots, that's where I'll start. No custom GMAX buildings, just working with some of Ted Andrews' objects, and what I can do on my own.


So, of course, ex-army officer here - have to make a plan ... :)

Objective: RCNAS set around 1955.

It's set in a universe where our Navy maintained it's post WWII prowess. Yes, it will have a slightly fictional feel - but that's just how I'd like it. So, if you want a place to fly your Banshees, and hopefully one day, Sea Furies, this could be for you.

I see this as 4 part exercise:

1) ASSEMBLE TOOLS. I have downlowed ADE 1.47. Will use that to do up the AFCAD. What do I need to place Ted (or other) objects? How much can ADE do insofar as these objects go?

2) AIRFIELD LAYOUT. If anyone has photos or diagrams, that will help. Will use ADE to execute that phase.

3) OBJECTS. Add era-appropriate towers, hangars, radar, etc. This part is what I'm most apprehensive about.

4) AI. I've got some nice AI RCN Chippies and Harvards ready to roll. I'm working on seeing if my FS9 Vertol H-25s will work here or not. There's a nice AI Venture from Alphasim that might work nicely-need a repaint for that, though. Yes, in this set-up, young naval aviators will start in Chippies for basic, conduct intermediate training in Harvards, and then move on to jet, maritime patrol, or helo pipelines.

So phase 2 started tonight. I gutted the default FSX CYAW, and am building up the layout. Wish me luck, and any help - especially with object placement tools/techniques would be helpful. I know most of you are pros, but you've inspired me, so here's goes my first wee step.

Cheers,

dl

[calypsos]

There are some free object placement tools, but I have never found them worthwhile.

If you want to enjoy making scenery (it can be addictive), I strongly suggest that you buy something like Instant Scenery (v.2 now available) http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=instscen2 from Flight One. It really is as simple as select, drag and drop totally 'in Sim', now just using a mouse. Also check out the FS.com library for anything 'scenery object, you would not believe what is available!

[IanP]

What you need to place the Ted Andrews library objects, you already have - it's called ADE.

There are only two things that I cannot do with ADE, when I am building an airfield. Both of those I resolve by using Luis Sa's SBuilderX (apologies for missing the accents off your name, Luis!):

- ADE will not allow you to change the altitude of a water poly from 0, so you can't use it to create lakes above sea level.

- ADE does not presently directly import images from Google Earth, Virtual Earth (Bing! Maps), etc. so if you want to use one as a backdrop for accurate placement, you'll need to get it from SBuilderX, save as a GeoTIFF and then import it into ADE.

Instant Scenery, as calypsos suggests, is a very useful tool, but it is very hard to accurately place objects (particularly large ones) using it. Therefore, I only tend to use it for less well-ordered "bush bases" and for scattering details like barrels, benches and support equipment around. The vast majority of what I do is simply done using ADE9x.

Hope that helps!

Ian P.

[mmann]

Best of luck in this endeavor!!

For placing scenery I just use ADE, but sometimes you may have to rotate the object 45 or 90 degrees from your initial placement because ADE just gives you a yellow box to represent your object not an image. The other thing that must be done if placing scenery with ADE is updating its object library with the objects you wish to place. This is not difficult, but a step that must be remembered.

I find creating for FSX one of the most addictive of all the aspects involving this simulator! I hope you find it as pleasurable.

[delta_lima]

Thanks gents.

As objects (stage 3), I tried importing Ted's objects - that's where I'm struggling. I used the "add library function" - added in the 4 RAF building bgls, but I need to know where those files, the xmls, and the textures need to "live" with respect to either my ADE or FSX install. That's the real issue right now.

Also, regarding airport layout, all I have for material around the period in question are these two shots:

1940s:

http://www.shearwateraviationmuseum.ns.ca/images/shearwater_40s.jpg

and 1950s:

http://www.shearwateraviationmuseum.ns.ca/images/shearwater_50s.jpg

The trouble is the orientation of those runways doesn't seem to map to the current runway layouts, as seen in Google Maps, etc. I'm thinking of only modelling the two darker ashphalt runways seen in the 40's picture, at least for now.

Thoughts?

dl

[IanP]

I can't help with the airfield layout, unfortunately, but can help with adding objects to ADE...

The first thing is that the object libraries you are linking to can be anywhere - what I do is install the bgl libraries and textures to a directory in FSX\addon scenery (mine's called "Ted Andrews" for the Ted Andrews stuff, amazingly), then call that directly from ADE.

To add the library objects, as you say, it's simply a case of going to Tools, Library Object Manager, Add Objects. I, personally, add them one library at a time, saving after adding each library, then reopening the Library Object Manager, lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. That's because I had problems with only the last added library being recognised in previous versions of ADE, so I don't know whether or not it works now.

However basically, you add library objects and textures exactly the same way as any other scenery to FSX (i.e. bgls have to be in a \scenery subdirectory and textures in a \texture subdirectory that FSX can see) and then just call the libraries from ADE - you don't need to install them anywhere specifically for ADE.

Hope that helps?

Ian P.

[delta_lima]

YES!!!

That was perfect. I now see them in the ADE library list. One small thing: is it possible to have the thumbnail that Ted created for each item come up with appropriate object? I pointed the thumbnail folder for each type (eg: RAF Control Towers) to img/Control Towers.... doesn't come up.

thanks,


I can't help with the airfield layout, unfortunately, but can help with adding objects to ADE...

The first thing is that the object libraries you are linking to can be anywhere - what I do is install the bgl libraries and textures to a directory in FSX\addon scenery (mine's called "Ted Andrews" for the Ted Andrews stuff, amazingly), then call that directly from ADE.

To add the library objects, as you say, it's simply a case of going to Tools, Library Object Manager, Add Objects. I, personally, add them one library at a time, saving after adding each library, then reopening the Library Object Manager, lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. That's because I had problems with only the last added library being recognised in previous versions of ADE, so I don't know whether or not it works now.

However basically, you add library objects and textures exactly the same way as any other scenery to FSX (i.e. bgls have to be in a \scenery subdirectory and textures in a \texture subdirectory that FSX can see) and then just call the libraries from ADE - you don't need to install them anywhere specifically for ADE.

Hope that helps?

Ian P.

[IanP]

Yes and no. It is possible - I did it for some of them - but it's a bit of a pig.

There are two ways to achieve linking the object with a thumbnail image, the first is to go through and manually add an image to each item (I've never got this to work), the second is to rename each image to match the GUID of each object.

Neither are particularly easy, so I've never bothered, I just learned which objects are which.

Ian P.

[delta_lima]

Rgr. both approaches seem painful. I'll just refer to the img/ folder until I get to recall what is what.

cheers,

dl


Yes and no. It is possible - I did it for some of them - but it's a bit of a pig.

There are two ways to achieve linking the object with a thumbnail image, the first is to go through and manually add an image to each item (I've never got this to work), the second is to rename each image to match the GUID of each object.

Neither are particularly easy, so I've never bothered, I just learned which objects are which.

Ian P.

[delta_lima]

OK - trialed most of the features of ADE, it's slowly coming together.

I'm working from the stock CYAW as my starting point. It comes with a standard airport background. I need to know how to edit it to conform to what I want the airfield to look like.

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17834

I'm starting realize this could have to do with excludes ... I found this post on the fsdeveloper site - I think it's the same as my issue, but doing this only got rid of part of the background, and instead, allowed all the autogen to crop back in.

Then, I thought, ok one big ass exclude to rule cover it all! Well all that did was exclude the background. I would have thought that "exclude everything" meant that ... now I'm really befuddled ... because even with that big exclude, I now have autogen trees and houses everywhere inside the polygon. Here is the shape of the "exclude everything" polygon ...

20806thanks,

[IanP]

Disposing of Autogen in FSX isn't done using an exclude, it's done using an "AB_Flatten" (Airport Background, Flatten).

To create one of those, place a poly around your airfield where you want the autogen excluded and select "Type" Airport Background and "Tag" either simply Exclude AutoGen if you just want to get rid of autogen, or one of the flatten, mask types if you want a flat surface to build your airport on.

If you are changing the shape of the airport background, you will probably want to exclude the default background, which can be done by creating a small polygon that crosses the edge of the default flatten, then setting it as "Type" Exclude General, "Tag" Airport Backgrounds.

If you want a couple of my ADE files to take a look at and compare with what you are doing, drop me an e-mail to ian at ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk and I'll send them over. There are plenty of other people around here who have done better scenery than me, if they're prepared to let you play with theirs, however. ;)

Ian P.

[gera]

May I suggest you join " FSDeveloper.com - a community for Flight Simulator addon developers"
there you will probably get all your questions answered by many who are experts in different specialities of addon developing, needed tools, techniques etc.....