F-35 Variants (FS9, FSX and P3Dv4)

[Firebird]

So Woog, are advocating that Luke be built again from scratch to satisfy P3D standards or are you advocating that two versions be done for FS9 and one for everything else?

Think carefully before answering as it is a trick question. You mention altering things to match photoreal scenery but we have never done that before. We build for vanilla installations and assume no addons.

I remember that our Nellis happened to be produced so accurately that you could use the Bluesky scenery with it but it was not done to match the Bluesky scenery.
In essence we use the vanilla base purely as you can get differences in each version of addon and no builder can spend time, and money, ensuring that their scenery lines up perfectly with each one out there.

I think you can see why we do it a certain way.

[John Young]

Sorry Woog - just a few constraints to what you are asking. It's hard enough designing stuff to be usable in 3 sim versions, without trying to cater for additional terrain add-ons that people might or might not be using. For a start I don't have either of the two you are referring to, so how could I possibly design for them and see how they fit? Brent, who has updated the existing AFCAD doesn't have them either, or for that matter, FSX, never mind P3D. Apart from that, the existing objects are buried in library/placement files that we have no control over, nor a licence to alter even if we did.

John

[Woogey]

I will try to answer both John and Steve's Trick question. I get what your are saying. I understand the Standard process by which you have developed in the past Steve. I also know that John and ACG have utilized PR in most of their previous releases. As far as Firebirds statement goes, I am amazed at how detailed that Luke, Hill, Yuma, and Eglin (In relation to the subject matter) are considering the fact that PR is NOT used. I do NOT expect anything from anyone. I simply posed the question to see if it was a possibility. I do not see anything wrong with being accurate, as it is the driving force behind EVERY SINGLE MAIW package. If an AFCAD is accurately aligned to Satellite Imagery, then it is still accurate without the Satellite imagery, No matter which Sim Platform it is plugged into. Hence one version. The difference would only be in the Object Libraries, which is already the route that MAIW has chosen to support.

BlueSky PR Imagery is Free/Donationware. Anybody can use it, and delete it later if they have limited storage space.

Sorry to fire you up Steve. I know how much work is involved with re-doing a scenery, I have be working on a P3d update to Hill AFB for a couple months now. The AFCAD is now aligned, but parking is nowhere near complete. I also still have to re-align and Re-scale the Buildings in most locations. The question has been posed, and you guys have drawn a clear line in the sand. I thank you for the quick reply. It gives me a direction to go from here.

-Preston

[TheFoufure]

I've find a Queen Elizabeth scenery (for FSX I think) for the UK F-35

You cn find it here : http://www.mspgsimulations.com/hms-queen-elizabeth.html

[John Young]

Good find. It looks a bit basic and since we still need an FS9 model, I think I can do a better job and cover all 3 sim versions.

John

[Firebird]

Woog,
You haven't fired me up at all. I was simply explaining our way of doing things. Apologies if I gave the impression that you did.

We have to have a baseline to start. The baseline is the vanilla package for FS9. Now there is nothing wrong with the accuracy statement. You yourself have witnessed the longevity or the MAIW F-16 program and the work that those two guys have put in and they aren't 50% through yet.

I was trying to point out that our scenery release have always been as accurate as the modeller could make them at the time, for the vanilla FS9 installation.
You are perfectly right to mention the BlueSky photoreal scenery which is freeware but we are not entitled to distribute it as part of the package and it does have one huge disadvantage in FS9, in that it will not allow night lighting to show through. This is according to their own documentation at the time. We can't force developers to buy the best available PR scenery to develop an addon. They are free to do so but we can't force them. Nor can we force them to purchase the PR pictures to include in their freeware package.

It maybe frustrating to have a certain sim and a certain PR setup and not have it 100% but for users of another it may be more accurate or worse.
I think that most developers align their scenery or afcads using Google Earth, which is of course is a PR system. Now I am not a developer so I do not know whether GE is 100% accurate or not and I don't know how developers get that imagery into their afcad system and the accuracy of that conversion. That may be the problem.

It sounds like you have already taken the path towards being a developer yourself. I am sure that a lot of people here will be more than happy to install your completed project, especially if they have the same PR system as yourself. We always welcome new developers and are proud to have their work in our downloads section.
Our most prodigious complete scenery maker over the years was the legendary JS, now retired from the sport. We do have back the legendary Rocket whose attention to detail would stun most people. The truth is however that we have to rely on people wanting to produce scenery.
Our most prolific that are active at the moment are Brent and Brian. However it does seem that you have your motor running and you would be a valuable addition in this field. I can tell you understand what is involved by the time that you have spent on this already and it is not complete.

I would make one request of you. If you could make your project as all encompassing as possible it would be appreciated. For me and my FS9 with no PR I would still love your balls-on accurate scenery in my system even though I couldn't enjoy it as much as you can.

[clickclickdoh]

Perhaps I can add a perspective, since I have worked on JSs sceneries at Yuma, Luke and Beaufort to modify them for the F-35 projects. Each of these projects has presented some unique challenges to update, largely related to what we are talking about here, GPS accuracy. Some parts of each scenery are GPS accurate, while others are not. This has required a bit of "averaging" to add new ramps and buildings to old scenery without having to resort to a complete rebuild. How did this end up happening?

Well, it's important to remember that these are some of the oldest scenery projects MAIW put out. Yuma in particular is 10 years old. When these projects were produced, Google Earth wasn't quite as reliable as it is today and couldn't be used nearly as easily to build a mosaic template to build a scenery on top of. In particular, one of the problems with old Google Earth is that you couldn't minimize what it calls Elevation Exaggeration. As a result, attempting to create a large area mosaic from Google Earth would result in images that didn't properly line up at the edges. You would kind of have to piece the images together as best as possible. Sometime, things got... Wanky. Modern Google Earth allows this to be reduced almost to the point of non-existence.

There is still however one flaw that can not be overcome. Google Earth does it's best to display on a globe. FS9 however doesn't know what a globe is... nor does Photoshop. As a result, large scale images will by necessity have variances in them. The further out from the GPS alignment point, the worse it gets. The larger the scenery, the more obvious it becomes.

And of course, lastly, Photo Real scenery is itself not always GPS accurate, mostly for the reason above. Depending on where they chose their points to align the scenery, it will be inaccurate at distances far from that point. High end Photo Real scenery will GPS locate every texture tile, but then extra work has to go into adjusting the tile edges so that they display correctly. Lower end Photo Real just says "Meh, looks good". When I did the new scenery for MCAS Futenma, I found that several of the Japan Photo Real scenery were off to the point that making an attempt to align the scenery to them was pointless.

[Woogey]

Thank you to both Firebird and ClickClick for your input on the topic. I really do appreciate your perspective, I very much respect the countless hours that every MAIW developer have put in on these projects. I will most definitely submit my updated Hill as soon as it is ready. I need to get FSX re-installed so that I can use Instant Scenery 3 to scale and place the buildings and objects. I also need to see if I can perfect John’s anti-pushback node technique.

Here’s a bit of a left-field question: do any of you scenery developers have experience with the Falcon 4.0 Sim, and it’s latest evolution BMS Falcon 4.33? I’ll create a new topic to further that conversation.

[TheFoufure]

Article and Pics of Real F-35A testing parachute

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... 5a-446052/

[John Young]

That was weird. I've had just finished the FSX/P3D texture conversions for the "International" F-35A's and the last one I did was a Norwegian aircraft with a brake chute, wondering if that was premature. Having closed FSX and gone straight to MAIW, I got the answer within 30 seconds of the thought occurring to me. Thanks for that one.

John

[Foxbat]

Weird indeed, I expected to see this tested elsewhere, but I guess the two artist's impression pre pics wasn't using RNoAF just for fun :-p

[Foxbat]

John,

Been testing the P3D4 version with success at ENOL. The resemblance to the real world is simply eerie, and I cannot tell Dino's 5087 from your version. I have sent you a filemail with the latest Airports of Norway, so you get a proper ENOL to test with.

Cheers,
Andrew

[John Young]

Thanks Andrew, your scenery is all set up and looking good.

General update: I’m at the final test stage for all the F-35A and F-35B models with their new FDE’s from Steve, just to make sure they are all fine in the 3 sim versions and indeed they are. The F-35A model and texture conversions for the "International" and USAF (Luke AFB) aircraft are all done for the FSX/P3Dv4 models and are working well in those sims too.

I had one small problem that was nagging me for the past couple of weeks. All of the A and B models parked fine in FS9 and P3Dv4. However in FSX, as I slewed along the flight line, each one would momentarily dip into the ground by only a few inches – just enough just to notice. I checked the static_pitch and static_cg_height values with AirWrench and they were spot on, the aircraft spawning on the ground without dropping or rising. I then checked the LODs to see if any were at a different height, but no they were fine too. I then compiled the first LOD only and to my surprise the dips still occurred. I then remembered that Steve had told me that John Tenn had given him new static_pitch and static_cg_height values based on his observations with the F-35C. I then tried them and hey presto, problem solved. AirWrench, which I have used with reliability over the years, was obviously having a bad day. My thanks to John for that input. I’m not sure I would have found the solution without it. For those of you with the F-35C models, you may wish to change the values in the [contact_points] so they are like this:

static_pitch = -0.66
static_cg_height = 6.90

The principal scenery offering for the F-35A’s will be Luke AFB that is working fine in all 3 sim versions (not withstanding any 3rd part photo-scenery alignment). If you want to see F-35A’s of 5 nations, this is the pace you will want to save a situation to. There are 60 of them there. It’s quite intensive:



So, we are getting close to release of the “A” and the “B” packages. While friends here are working to finish the scenery enhancements, I’ll carry on and make the Eglin F-35A paints to add to the packages. The scenery was done for the F-35C’s, so no further work is needed there.

John

[TheFoufure]

Video of F-35 testing the Drag chute :

[John Young]

Thank you for that one. It confirms what I learned from Steve today that 5149 is fitted with the chute.

[bismarck]

[John Young]

Me thinks that's Nevatim Giorgio. Thank you.

I can also report that, with an exclude and flatten file, I also have the scenery and F-35A's running in FSX and P3Dv4.

John

[mikewmac]

I've been working to minimize as much as possible the undesirable effects of P3D v3.4/4's dynamic dimensional scaling of all light effects including light based afterburner and smoke effects for the past few weeks. If you are not familiar with this issue, in P3D v3.4/4 FS9 light effects are basically significantly reduced in size when viewed from relatively short distances and then increase continually in size as you view them from longer and longer distances until they finally disappear.

With FS9 afterburner effects some of the light components increase to quite large sizes at relatively short viewing distances creating what looks like a fireball encompassing the AI aircraft, while others increase in size more slowly and only become a smaller light ball before the afterburner shuts off.

My starting point for this work was Steve Holland's FS9 NBAI F-15 afterburner effect file which he graciously allowed me to modify. John's JYAI F-35C was my trial horse and while I was at it, I added P3D v3.4/4 default nav and strobe lights as well as some derivatives of them where I delayed there appearance at hold short lines until the JYAI F-35C's wingtips were completed folded down.

I've posted some quick screenshots which display the resultant JYAI F-35C afterburner both during the day and at night, which, although far from perfect, is certainly better than no afterburner at all.

If anyone is interested in using them, and with John's concurrence, I have also attached a zip file below containing the afterburner and delayed light effect files as well as the [Lights] sections that need to be substituted into the aircraft.cfg files for both the carrier and land based JYAI F-35C's.

Enjoy!

[gsnde]

This is how it is supposed to look, Mike! A great payoff for the many hours you have invested investigating this issue.

[mikewmac]

This is how it is supposed to look, Mike! A great payoff for the many hours you have invested investigating this issue.

Thanks Martin,

I finally decided that I had done enough after nine versions and declared victory.