FA08 - Polk City - Fantasy of Flight - Development update

[Dimus]

Added some more stuff tonight:





These are the areas where they have now erected those climbing and rope sliding structures. I don't thing I will be adding those. Too complicated and not so "aeronautical" imho.

The surrounding landclass is also complete. I only need to add a few more stuff and will soon start testing this for release of an initial version, using landclass and FSX textures for the ground, as is seen in the screenshots (Actually what you see in my screens for ground is GEX NA). Then I might look into adding a photoreal background, if a good one can be found.

[Bomber_12th]

Dimus, that is great news, and I love all of those details!

[Greenhouse357]

Dimus, your scenery is looking perfect! I'm glad you're not putting the climbing structures in. I understand Kermit wanting these, I just don't understand why he put them right up front...kind of takes away from the view. I took a pic of my new car (what else ) a few weeks ago there and you can see what I mean. Keep up the great work and thanks!

[Dimus]

Nice car there!

A short break from development due to work but expect to restart next week. Getting close now.

I am considering adding some custom traffic in this to make it more lively and the easiest that comes to mind seems to be a default DC-3/C-47 doing circuits. I would like to have one painted as the collection's C-47. I tried to find some normandy repaints for the default DC-3 but could not find any. Does anyone know if any exist, olive drab, invasion stripes and all? If not I would have to make one and include it in the package.

[Bomber_12th]

Dimus, besides the examples of possibilities I mentioned to you in my last e-mail (Ford Trimotor, Sikorsky S-39), Kermit will be starting to fly his Gee Bee Z very soon again (first time in about 10 years). There is a freeware FSX native Gee Bee Z by Wozza, available at Flightsim.com, that would look great doing circuits at Fantasy of Flight, filename geebeez4.zip

Here's the aircraft undergoing a recent engine run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=ADpfLN3cDzQ

The collection's B-25, which I consider just as authentic as the Flying Heritage Collection's B-25 (for having everything in it, and the correct cowls/exhaust and intakes), is getting closer to flying again as well, having sat "pickled" for many years after only flying for a short time after being fully restored in the mid-late 90's (simply because there are too many aircraft in the collection, and not enough people to maintain them all at the same time, though that might be changing). There was a video recently posted to the FOF Facebook page of it having its engines run up. Also it seems that plans are being put together to get the collection's B-24 back in the air again in the future.

[Dimus]

Thank you John, the Gee-Bee sounds great. Perhaps I will have both buzzing around, a small one and a big one, they would make good contrast.

Any ideas about a default C-47 normady repaint? It seems I will have to make one from scratch. A repaint of the Stearman is also needed.

I am currently working on the static DC-3 that stands on the south end of the runway with the Fantasy of Flight logo under the wings.

[TeiscoDelRay]

How about the Duck? His favorite plane out of all of them. He flies it from a nearby lake that I think is very close to the grounds. There is a nice freeware one with a thread here.

[Dimus]

I thought of the Duck but it may be a bit complicated to have it take off from the lake. I'll look into it as I have Swingman's great freeware.

Meanwhile I installed the Gee Bee and buzzed the place. Art Deco overdose!!!:







Check out the signs and runway markers. I am also experimenting with some 3d grass lining on the edge of the ramp (not shown here).



It's great that Wozza includes the actual collection's paint.

[Bomber_12th]

I can't believe I forgot about his Duck! I think it would look just as great flying from the grass runways (which it does as well) as it would from the lake. One of the examples included by Swingman (and through Full's FSX native conversion) is the very same Duck that Kermit owns. (He also has another that has been under long-term restoration to flying condition, off-site)

With Full's conversion of the FS9 Ford Trimotor to FSX native, it too will look great (and proper) flying from Fantasy of Flight in this repaint: http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/conten...s&cm=LISTFILES
which is of the very Trimotor that is in the collection and flown.

Amongst so much great work you've put into this scenery, Dimus, I love the little details of the signs (just as they really are), and having a static B-25 out on the maintenance hangar ramp, just like the collection's B-25 has been for about the last year (during the day), getting ready to fly again.

[Dimus]

I like the Trimotor idea! It will save me making a repaint. So I will add the Trimotor and the Bee for AI but the user will have to manually install these planes and the repaint. I will just include the flightplan bgl in my scenery folder. Thanks again John!

I finished with the DC-3, a low poly static object painted the best I could to represent the one on the south side by the fence shown in take off pose with fake spinning props and a mannequin crew member hanging on the door. At least it won't eat up your FPS:

[Dimus]

I started populating the RV resort east of the fence, just to make it vaguely resemble what is there with simple RV models I made (some of them have outhouses).



Some overheads compared with Google images. It is the best I could do with landclass/waterclass polygons. Textures are GEX:





A good photoreal underlay would really make this scenery show much better. I have no such experience on this so may be later. Any offers on that respect are of course welcome.

[Meshman]

A good photoreal underlay would really make this scenery show much better. I have no such experience on this so may be later. Any offers on that respect are of course welcome.

In this area there is a combination of 3m mesh source and 30cm photo source available. The photo source is from 2008. File size for the photo shouldn't be *that* bad, depending upon how large of an area was to be included. The mesh would be a much smaller file, as that compiles down at a good %.

I know if anyone has been to Florida they might wonder about hi-res mesh for the state, seeing as it's max elevation is around 350 feet. But having finer terrain detail helps when fitting photo work on top.

I can grab and tweak as necessary any mesh. I could start the photo and then if someone (cough, Ed Wells) wanted to autogen it. Or I can just get the photo in the proper FSX format, if anyone wanted to do any cleaning, sharpening, color correction.

[TeiscoDelRay]

Fantastic work! It will be as incredible as that great freeware scenery Duxford and just as popular.

[Dimus]

Meshman, thank you very much for the offer.

I have no idea how to obtain the photo source but 30cm sounds OK, plus I guess it can be sharpened in places. For coverage area I believe that what is included in the "big picture" above would be enough. As for the mesh, I have applied a flatten to the whole area shown above but that can change of course, you obviously know better.

I would be very interested to work on handling the photo and autogen it once you have it in proper FSX format.

I think I will release a version as is and maybe work on a photoreal update later.

[Meshman]

Dimus, I've got a grab at the following boundaries, if you want to check in Google Earth; 28.18 x -81.84 - -81.795 x 28.15 (N W E S). It's at 120mb and will compile down to about 10%+- of that size. The imagery is a little brownish, as a lot of the airborne work is done just coming out of winter. But adding a little green to it should get it to match better.

If you need a different size area, LMK and I'll grab it. Otherwise I can get the source zipped and uploaded to my site for you.

[Bomber_12th]

Dimus, besides everything since (like the RV lot, which I think is yet another great touch of reality being added to the scenery!), I just wanted to make sure to tell you, great job on the static DC-3! For those that have not seen the real thing, Dimus has recreated it very faithfully, down to those special faux props which were designed to make the props look as if they were spinning. The aircraft is positioned as it is, to serve as a billboard next to the highway that is at the end of the main runway (it being the same DC-3 which used to be positioned next to the highway with the tail up and nose in the ground, looking like it had crashed - which resulted in a number of 911 calls over during the time it was like that, by people thinking that an airplane had really crashed).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdl_pho...n/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3801643...n/photostream/

[Stan V.]

Dimus, besides everything since (like the RV lot, which I think is yet another great touch of reality being added to the scenery!), I just wanted to make sure to tell you, great job on the static DC-3! For those that have not seen the real thing, Dimus has recreated it very faithfully, down to those special faux props which were designed to make the props look as if they were spinning. The aircraft is positioned as it is, to serve as a billboard next to the highway that is at the end of the main runway (it being the same DC-3 which used to be positioned next to the highway with the tail up and nose in the ground, looking like it had crashed - which resulted in a number of 911 calls over during the time it was like that, by people thinking that an airplane had really crashed).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdl_pho...n/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3801643...n/photostream/

Has anybody ever created southern tree textures with spanish moss hanging down? (see the background tree in the first photo.)

[Dimus]

Dimus, I've got a grab at the following boundaries, if you want to check in Google Earth; 28.18 x -81.84 - -81.795 x 28.15 (N W E S). It's at 120mb and will compile down to about 10%+- of that size. The imagery is a little brownish, as a lot of the airborne work is done just coming out of winter. But adding a little green to it should get it to match better.

If you need a different size area, LMK and I'll grab it. Otherwise I can get the source zipped and uploaded to my site for you.

Meshman, the area you grabbed covers even more than I planned. Would I still be able to crop it?

Thanks again for your help.

[Meshman]

Meshman, the area you grabbed covers even more than I planned. Would I still be able to crop it?

Thanks again for your help.

Dimus, give me the coordinates that you want and I'll trim it down. The image must be square/rectangular and from that you can create what is called a blendmask to crop out any area that you don't want to show. I'll be happy to offer any guidance to assist you on your efforts. It's terms and process that seems confusing, until you do it the first time and say "That's it?".

I admire the work done so far and try to go back into the memory banks because I know I've driven by this airport a few times when down in Florida, but the years tend to make things foggy...:isadizzy:

[Dimus]

Meshman, I looked at it again. If you can, just bring the east side to 81 49' 40'' to crop out most of Polk City as I don't wish to get into that. I will mask out the rest that I don't need.

I more or less know the theory behind it but just have never put it to practice. Thank you also for your kind words.

Last night was the first time I attempted to use the scenery and fly from it. I flew full's Ercoupe and John's "Twilight Tear" and tried approaches on both runways. It seemed to work OK on my old system with no hickups. Landing on the grass with A2A's Accufeel was fun.
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[Dimus]

Now working on repainting the Guy Diotte's statics to represent the collection's planes. There will be a B-25, a PBY and a Stearman. Here is the B25:



I have also added the new storage facilities north of the site:



Won't be long now. Just the statics and the AI traffic to do. I have Meshman's photo background (thanks again Meshman!) but will work on it for a later version. For the moment I will release a landclass polygon version only.

[Dimus]

The repainted Stearman and PBY. Guy's static is a normal, turret nose while the actual FoF one is turretless:

[TeiscoDelRay]

Gets better and better, thanks. Looking forward to the release and shooting some landings.

[Bomber_12th]

Incredible attention to detail - I love the repainted aircraft models, Dimus!

[Dimus]

Please forgive me for posting all the time but I'm relatively new to this and every new bit feels like another achievement.

We now have a dock for the Duck on lake Agnes plus working water runways (36W-18W), taxiways and parking by the wooden pier. There is also a ramp via which you can exit the water and taxi to the runway or the cement ramp. I also added a custom refuelling station next to the maintenance hangar. The AI Gee Bee is also working, starting up and making circuits: