My Humble Scenery Request for Christmas

[Crusader]

I didn't ask for anything for myself this Christmas but for all that are feeling the terrible blunt effects of the economy and those who are sick and depressed(especially the children) I wish you a Happy and Merry Christmas and good health ahead for the sick . Now , my only simple , humble request to any of the scenery guru's out there : a control tower at Ford Island that FSX left out .

Below taken from Wikimapia :

http://wikimapia.org/1774740/Ford-Island-Control-Tower

Rich

[gera]

If you are using the default Ford Island or a freeware one PM me, and I´ll have a crew go out there and set you up with a control tower.:wavey:

Merry Christmas..

EDIT: Please keep your political comments out of here!

[Crusader]

If you are using the default Ford Island or a freeware one PM me, and I´ll have a crew go out there and set you up with a control tower.:wavey:

Merry Christmas..


Thanks gera . Guru is a poor choice of words , sorry . I actually meant anyone who is very proficient in making scenery . I envy your talent .

PM sent

Rich

[Crusader]

Attached is a top down pic of a (very) estimated location . I sent an additional PM with Lat/Lon info not visible on the attached pic here .

Thanks again ,
Rich

[gera]

Got it------:salute:

[gera]

Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas Ho, Ho, Ho!!!!! wherever you are......EU or America, North or South!!!! Ho, Ho, Ho....

[Crusader]

Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas Ho, Ho, Ho!!!!! wherever you are......EU or America, North or South!!!! Ho, Ho, Ho....

Hay gera : You hav'nt been in the Christmas cheer(:ernae:liquid) have you ?

Rich

[gera]

Not yet....!!!!, I have several champaign bottles in the fridge all set for the 24th and the 1st....but I do have good old Italian Vino Rosso during supper each night, :jump::jump: it keeps your insides pickled and puffing!!!!:kilroy:...............have you seen a political comment around here??? Ho, Ho, Ho.......

[jdhaenens]

Gera, first, let me say I'm sorry for working on this, but I saw the tower, and fell in love with the thing.

I've got the iron tower made and will start on the building and the lower tower forthwith. It really is a cool tower. In order: Dawn, day, dusk, night (i brightened the night picture so you could see the light beams).

Worst case, crashaz can use it for the FSX Pearl Harbor he's (supposedly) :jump: building.

25809

25808

[falcon409]

That's just amazing Jim. Beautiful job, great detail.:salute:

[crashaz]

Heck ya!! Great work!!

Been doing more research lately and think we do Ford Island first as a concept piece.

In the meantime I got distracted by the 1/200 scale Trumpeter USS Arizona.

[Cag40Navy]

Looks really good Jim!

[jdhaenens]

I need to stop looking for pictures once I start a project.

Now I need to rip out the back half of the control cab, and redo it right.... oh well.

[crashaz]

I will have a peek at my stuff too.:wavey:

[jdhaenens]

OK found a good enough picture of the back. A bit different.

25844

[gera]

Gera, first, let me say I'm sorry for working on this, but I saw the tower, and fell in love with the thing.

I've got the iron tower made and will start on the building and the lower tower forthwith. It really is a cool tower. In order: Dawn, day, dusk, night (i brightened the night picture so you could see the light beams).

Worst case, crashaz can use it for the FSX Pearl Harbor he's (supposedly) :jump: building.

25809

25808

Dear Friend...... Great!!!!! with your talent am sure that will be a beautiful object!!!...I'll burn down the stuff I started and go on to some statues I need for a Mission out there in Mongolia or nearby!!!!.....By the way, Thank YOu very much for the airport lights!!!! just what I was looking for....Amigo you saved the day again!!!!!!...are you sure you are not one of those from Krypton??????:salute::salute::salute:

[wantok]

Looks good, Jim. Just add a little grunge/rust to it and it should look like the pic here:

http://www.airport-data.com/airport/photo/007102.html.html

[Crusader]

OK found a good enough picture of the back. A bit different.

25844

Thanks jdhaenens for your interest in this great piece of history at Ford Island . To have a master scenery builder as yourself and others show such interest in this project is great . Really looking forward to the finished product . Depending on how you look at it , Pearl Harbor was the beginning of the WW ll in the Pacific(excluding the US's involvement in China) . This tower was such an icon . Only guessing , but I would imagine the Japanese used this tower as some sort of a reference point in their attack as quite a few ships were docked to the NE of the tower . From what I've read , The Pacific Aviation Museum located close to the tower has started (or is going to start ) a restoration of the tower .

Rich

[crashaz]

Just need Jason Robards and we have a winner. :icon_lol:

[crashaz]

Good pic of the bldg and observation deck.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=411847

Back of the building...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/army_arch/4420308168/

I had the opportunity to walk inside the building back in 2006. The lock was unlocked on the gate so I walked in.... needs a lot of TLC. Had a buddy in the Navy there and so I got the free reign to walk around seperate from the tour areas.

Also a good link about the restoration.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20101018_Federal_funds_to_fix_famed_Ford_Isle_towe r.html

[navychief8]

Crashaz

Could you please give us an update on your PHP? I have been following your project for years and would love to be able to fly around all your old Battlewagons.

Thanks
:salute:

[jdhaenens]

Here's the new/newly refurbished Ford Island tower. I'll get it out...probably as a library object as there are a number of different iterations of Ford Island. It will probably take a month or so to break the model and textures sufficiently to make it look like the present day version :)

Crashaz: I'll email you the .mdl file and Textures.

Crusader: what version of Ford Island are you using?

25985 25986

Jim

[crashaz]

WooHoo!!
Beautiful work Jim!!

Chief.... found the project files last night. The battlewagons are really done for CFS2... ie 7000 polys per LOD100 models.... so I could put them together great for CFS2... but with FSX... the details would leave something to be desired.


Going to compile the CFS2 versions.... and take my base Tennessee and see if I can get all the railing and details done in time for Christmas as a preview model.:wavey:

[Cag40Navy]

I look forward to the project being finished.

[Crusader]

Here's the new/newly refurbished Ford Island tower. I'll get it out...probably as a library object as there are a number of different iterations of Ford Island. It will probably take a month or so to break the model and textures sufficiently to make it look like the present day version :)

Crashaz: I'll email you the .mdl file and Textures.

Crusader: what version of Ford Island are you using?

25985 25986

Jim

Beautiful job on the towers Jim . Here is a top down view . As far as what version(?) , I have MegaScenery Island of Oahu . The buildings look stock , the only changes I see are the surrounding terrain .

Rich

[jdhaenens]

Got it. You have a PM Crusader.

For everyone else, the tower should appear on flightsim dot com today some time.

Merry Christmas!

Jim

[huub vink]

Looks beautiful Jim!

Huub

[wantok]

Nicely done, Jim. Btw, who did the Ford Island photoreal?

[Meshman]

Nicely done, Jim. Btw, who did the Ford Island photoreal?

Not me, yet...

I have source for O'ahu at 30cm and could cut out Ford Island if anyone wanted to annotate it (cough, Falcon409, cough).

Cleaning up the source is on the list of things to do, along with removing the clouds. Should see the light of day "some day" as a freeware release.


Excellent work, as always Jim. Look forward to adding it in-sim.

[jdhaenens]

That's Megascenery Oahu in the photo real background. It's on sale right now at PC Aviator for $4.95! The airport ends up on a mini-plateau but it makes the island look gorgeous. The Ford Island buildings are removable with instant scenery, so it'd be pretty simple to make a custom scenery out of it....

Jim

[crashaz]

I am going to go Internet wide to be begging someone to teach me the dark arts of photoreal textures... I want 1941 Oahu. The current photoreal textures just drive me nuts.

Have been working with a major scenery designer to modify their source file for the DEMs so we can get 1941 shorelines. That is going to be sweet.

Just need to find a way to get Orbx-like textures for 1941 Oahu. :icon_lol:

[jdhaenens]

Dean and I did the whole island of Guam about 6 months ago. I just moved around the vector data and he gave me all the roads in a .kml file. You can actually modify anything including the photoreal background in Photoshop. I have Global Mapper so I just save a metafile before photoshopping it so I can get it back auto-georectified. The technology is available to regress the scenery to any time if you've got the info available.

[crashaz]

Hehehe we use the same source I see LOL!!

Will track him down as he is headed to Baguio for the holidays with the wife's family I guess. :wavey:

[jdhaenens]

For those that are using Megascenery Oahu, there is a patch available that will move the current buildings around a bit so you can get it in the right place.

26042

26043

[crashaz]

Dean and I did the whole island of Guam about 6 months ago. I just moved around the vector data and he gave me all the roads in a .kml file. You can actually modify anything including the photoreal background in Photoshop. I have Global Mapper so I just save a metafile before photoshopping it so I can get it back auto-georectified. The technology is available to regress the scenery to any time if you've got the info available.


Any specific version of Global Mapper? I found someone who wants to sell their version 11.

[jdhaenens]

Buy it. I'm on 9. I know quite a few folks that are using 11.

Jim

[scott967b]

Got me thinking...

scott s.
.

[crashaz]

Hmmm looks like you have correct coastlines and modification of Hickam to complete runway and removing Honolulu Intl and readding John Rodgers.

Question is... are those poly modification for the shoreline or is that real mesh?

Pics are from PHP v2 for the oooooold sim... CFS2.

Guess I will call the next PHP-X :icon_lol:

[Cag40Navy]

Its looking really good guys! A dumb question but would it be possible to still have Honolulu Intl (FSdreamteam) work with this project? Just wondering. Also, were did you get that aircraft scott?

[crashaz]

My feeling is if you set the year to 1940.... then you should have this conditional scenery be showing and not PHNL.

[scott967b]

Its looking really good guys! A dumb question but would it be possible to still have Honolulu Intl (FSdreamteam) work with this project? Just wondering. Also, were did you get that aircraft scott?

I have FSDT, and it's giving me problems. The way they do their scenery, the scenery objects are actually misc simobjects. I guess they use simconnect to place them. So normal "excludes" don't work. I then edited the sim.cfg to remove the fltsim.xx sections and that worked, except the sim pauses every second and it takes another second or so before it starts again. I put in a post at FSDT to see if there was any way to disable it completely (temporarily).

For PHNL, the problem is that much of the airport (except the reef runway from later) was made with fill when NAS Honolulu was built after 1941. The fill was taken from the area where the water runways are. All I did was modify the water bodies/shoreline. The elevation is only 3 m so I don't think there is any significant mesh changes, except maybe around Salt Lake and Mapunapuna. The one thing I couldn't determine is when Sand Island was filled in. It seems like maybe the project started in 1935 but I don't know how it progressed. The data I have is for 1943, except that I have a plan of Rodgers Field from Oct 1941. It needs landclass fixing -- I don't think mega Oahu photo is that useful unless you figure out a way to photoshop in cane fields in most of the area west of Honolulu proper. I have an aerial of pre-war MCAS Ewa, but it isn't really geolocated at all and I'm not sure yet how it relates to the final wartime Ewa configuration which is more easy to locate.

scott s.
.

[Cag40Navy]

ok, makes sense. Now, were did you get that aircraft from your last screen?