oldpropfan
May 13th, 2013, 02:24
or - How the Mooney Air Force came to be. A little excursion into scenery design brought about by a simple post in a forum.
Was on the front page of the frenchvfr.free site and saw a note about a new tool at fsdeveloper to help create hangars in Sketchup. Went through the thread about the One Click Hangar plugin, downloaded, installed and gave it a try.
Came up with a set of hangars and section of covered parking, exported then imported to ModelConverterX. Exported a mdl file from ModelConverter then used LibraryCreatorXML to create a bgl file that I could place in my scenery folder.
Turned to ADE9x to place my hangar set at a test airport, fired up FSX, and there they were but looking lonely with no planes parked in the area. Went back to ADE and linked it to FSX so I could add parking in the hangars and under the covered parking area.
Needed some AI for my new parking so opened up AI Flight Planner and generated some local flights using Tim Conrad's M18 in military style paints.
And what did I get for a couple hours worth of work:
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/mooneyairforce1_zps607a1987.jpg
Hangars and covered parking with custom AI getting ready for the afternoon sortie.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/mooneyairforce2_zps7fdf1bca.jpg
Another view, first aircraft already taxing out. Big hangar block in background is from an unrelated project.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/mooneyairforce3_zps6fae4dc9.jpg
And the next group taxies out.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/mooneyairforce4_zpsf56919c1.jpg
And off they go!
For all my fellow simmers out there who think like I did for a long time, "I could never do that, I'm not smart enough, don't have the time, etc." With a little effort, time, reading, some hair pulling, you can do things to make your FS what you want. The tools are out there, they're really not that hard to use, and amazingly they're free!
And my main reason for posting this? Just my own way of saying thank you to all the developers out there, free and payware, your hard work is used and appreciated. Our little hobby wouldn't be the same without it.
Al
Was on the front page of the frenchvfr.free site and saw a note about a new tool at fsdeveloper to help create hangars in Sketchup. Went through the thread about the One Click Hangar plugin, downloaded, installed and gave it a try.
Came up with a set of hangars and section of covered parking, exported then imported to ModelConverterX. Exported a mdl file from ModelConverter then used LibraryCreatorXML to create a bgl file that I could place in my scenery folder.
Turned to ADE9x to place my hangar set at a test airport, fired up FSX, and there they were but looking lonely with no planes parked in the area. Went back to ADE and linked it to FSX so I could add parking in the hangars and under the covered parking area.
Needed some AI for my new parking so opened up AI Flight Planner and generated some local flights using Tim Conrad's M18 in military style paints.
And what did I get for a couple hours worth of work:
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/mooneyairforce1_zps607a1987.jpg
Hangars and covered parking with custom AI getting ready for the afternoon sortie.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/mooneyairforce2_zps7fdf1bca.jpg
Another view, first aircraft already taxing out. Big hangar block in background is from an unrelated project.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/mooneyairforce3_zps6fae4dc9.jpg
And the next group taxies out.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll279/oldpropfan/mooneyairforce4_zpsf56919c1.jpg
And off they go!
For all my fellow simmers out there who think like I did for a long time, "I could never do that, I'm not smart enough, don't have the time, etc." With a little effort, time, reading, some hair pulling, you can do things to make your FS what you want. The tools are out there, they're really not that hard to use, and amazingly they're free!
And my main reason for posting this? Just my own way of saying thank you to all the developers out there, free and payware, your hard work is used and appreciated. Our little hobby wouldn't be the same without it.
Al