FA08 - Polk City - Fantasy of Flight - Development update

[Bomber_12th]

It's just getting better and better, Dimus! It's awesome to see everything done to such a high level of detail and accuracy, with all of the structures scaled so well besides. I love the recent details of the accurately recreated guard posts, fences, and outdoor eating area.

[WarHorse47]

Really beautiful scenery. We toured the museum back in 2007 between a business trip and visit with family.

Any chance this might also work with FS9??

Thanks
:ernae:
--WH

[mal998]

You Sir, are a true artist! Great work!

[Dimus]

Really beautiful scenery. We toured the museum back in 2007 between a business trip and visit with family.

Any chance this might also work with FS9??

Thanks
:ernae:
--WH

I have never made any scenery for FS9. I am creating all mdl files as FSX mdl and the airport bgls as FSX bgl from ADE. To be sure I would need to recompile all the models. I do have FS9 though, and I might as well test it at some point to see how it behaves.

Thank you all for your encouragement!

[WarHorse47]

And thank you for your talented work. Hope you can work something out for FS9.

--WH

[Dimus]

The auxiliary buildings had more work than expected and I am making a lot of corrections to the main one too, on the back and south side.

Does anyone know if there is a way to install a rotating red beacon on the top of that water tower?

[Dimus]

OK, I updated my ADE to 1.50 and realised that scruffyduck has added beacons to the objects that you can add in airports. I stuck a default one on top of the water tower. The problem is that the actual one flashes red and white (as the original WWII beacons) while the default ones for modern airports are green and white. Anyway, it will do for now and I will look at it again later.

I made a few enhancements on the back (east) and south sides of the main complex, before moving on to the rest of the buildings:

East side (back entrance)


South side:


Dusk:


Dawn:

[rdaniell]

Just keeps getting better and better...

RD

[Dimus]

One more building done. Now it's just that crummy old one in the back that is the last remaining from the default ones. Then it will be just adding stuff (like the new white maintenance hangar) and forming the surrounding area.

[papab]

Great pictures
Looking forward to this one
Rick

[Dimus]

Here is the latest update with the third building added and a few stuff in between (containers, garbage can etc):

















A static Connie is going to be needed at some point to go next to the main entrance. Any suggestions about that would be appreciated.

[Dimus]

We now have water:

Attachment 65964Attachment 65965

A looong solid fence/wall:
Attachment 65966

And a main gate which needs some work on the alpha channel of a specific texture but I do not have the courage to do today:
Attachment 65967Attachment 65969

I would appreciate anyone's suggestion about the static Connie. It looks like this:
http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/739240.html

[Dimus]

The gate was corrected:


But what is that in the distance?


Indeed a Connie with Lufthansa livery:




Thanks to Manfred Jahn who gave me permission to convert the FS9 AI version of the Starliner to FSX static object using the SAMM program by Don Grovestine. The textures will need to be slightly altered to show more faded, US registration and without LH wording.

Now moving to the big white hangar.

[papab]

Dimus,

This scenery is absolutely amazing!
It keeps getting better and better....


Great job Sir!

Rick

[nio]

Dimus

You are doing greater things here than i could ever imagine.

It is an absolute pleasure to see this project grow.

Thank you for sharing your progress with us.

best

nio

[Bomber_12th]

Dimus, it is just getting more and more incredible by the moment! The work you're doing is just superb, and so highly appreciated! As I've mentioned to you before, I've been longing for something like this since the earliest days of FS2004, and I could have never imagined someone doing such an excellent job recreating this airfield/museum. I love all of the details you have added into the "backlot" areas, and it is awesome that the airfield will be complete with the water features! Thank you too for continuing to share images of the progress!

Also, great news regarding the use of Manfred's Connie! It is a superb model, and it already looks great as part of the scenery.

[Francois]

Haven't had time to visit the forums for a while..... and then upon return I find this !!

Awesome! I've visited FoF a few times and it is the source of our Fieseler Storch of course! Looks amazing ! I mostly made pictures of what's INSIDE, so cant help you. But by the looks of it, you don't need any help .... LOL !

Wonderful stuff... will make sure Kermit sees it too ! He'll love it !

[Dimus]

Thanks guys! I've learned a lot of things in the process and I enjoy it. It is a great subject, as all the objects that I model are so fun and beautiful in their art-deco style. My concern is the FPS hit due to all the details but I do my best to minimize it. It is good that a lot of textures are shared between the buildings.

Actually, Francois, I must say that I have been contacted by the company who handles the social media for FoF and Kermit Weeks. Its president has offered me valuable assistance in the way of providing pictures from angles I did not have and other information. I understand that Kermit might have already seen some of the initial pictures of it. I have not mentioned this so far to not create a fuss and great expectations. Now that it has progressed past the major hurdles, I am confident that I can finish it.

More to come soon...

[Francois]

Cool. If you need any 'inside' contacts to the PR people at FoF itself, let me know.

[Dimus]

Connie paint adjusted to resemble the FoF craft. Registration is also correct:





This is indeed a great model. Thanks again Manfred!

[TeiscoDelRay]

Great job on this! I would not worry about frame rates too much please keep it complex and interesting.

Mr. Weeks is one lucky guy to own and fly so many great airplanes and from such a cool and interesting location. I just saw a special on hd cable about him and his planes and he flew an old Soviet biplane and the Duck around. He says the Grumman Duck is still his favorite plane.

[Bomber_12th]

Great job on this! I would not worry about frame rates too much please keep it complex and interesting.

Mr. Weeks is one lucky guy to own and fly so many great airplanes and from such a cool and interesting location. I just saw a special on hd cable about him and his planes and he flew an old Soviet biplane and the Duck around. He says the Grumman Duck is still his favorite plane.

Yep, "Million Dollar Collections" is the name of the show for which one of the recent episodes (originally airing several weeks back, and then again this past week) covers Weeks' collection. If you have the Velocity channel, be sure to look for it. Another great one, when it comes up on Velocity, is called "Renaissance Man", with an episode in particular called "The Engine That Won the War", which is all about the development and use of the Rolls-Royce Merlin - absolutely some of the best TV-viewing you can find.

Also, be sure to check out all of the videos that continue to be uploaded at the Fantasy of Flight Youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/FantasyOfFlight

And if you are on Facebook, you can follow Kermit Weeks and/or the Fantasy of Flight museum through their individual Facebook pages.

[Dimus]

Great job on this! I would not worry about frame rates too much please keep it complex and interesting.

OK, complex and interesting it is then:

These are going to be too many probably but I'm really proud of how this building turned out. It is good when you have good pictures to work out textures from.

Starting again from what one sees when entering the site:




Welcome to the Orlampa Conference Center, where east meets west:




The big white maintenance hangar details and as shown from across one of the water bodies:







Together with the Connie:




This building concludes the big structures. Now some more little details are left to model and then I will focus on the terrain. At the moment it is just landclass polygons, aprons and AFCAD. I'll try to see if a good photoreal background can be added.

[Bomber_12th]

WOW!!! This is just so cool! It's almost hard to believe that that hangar has now been modeled and in-place!

I like the various containers you've got positioned around the scenery - several aircraft have shown up to Fantasy of Flight in such containers - pulled out, and put together - shipped in from elsewhere, following restoration. There have been rumors over the years, of certain, complete aircraft, being stored at Fantasy of Flight in crates/containers, as future projects, such as a whole, complete, P-47, though I don't know about that for sure.

This is one of the aircraft that resides in the "big white hangar" (the collection's maintenance hangar): https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/se...9881181&type=3

It used to be airworthy, and flown not too long ago (at least as of the 90's), but has been static for many years. Unfortunately it sounds like it will take quite a bit of work to get the aircraft flying again. It is amazingly complete throughout (and came from the Indian AF). Also currently in the white hangar (amongst many other projects) is the collection's Spitfire Mk.XVI and B-25, with both receiving attention to be brought back to flight status again. Unfortunately, despite how large the collection is, only a certain amount can be kept in flight-ready status at any given time - with aircraft which were airworthy at one time, being 'pickled' until their time to fly again is chosen. Here are some photos of the Spitfire, looking a bit tired after resting so many years since last flying: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...9881181&type=3

[TeiscoDelRay]

Thanks, I think it will be much more fps friendly than some of those super complex and massive airports you can buy. But if you do slim it down please keep a complex version as well.

This is one grand job, amazing and beautiful. Thanks for the work.