Tim's Trials...

[TimC340]

In the tradition of alliterative titles, I though I'd add my feeble attempt.

I've recently started a Facebook page to showcase my lack of talent at FSX/P3D scenery (see here). I leave it to the reader to deduce the origin of the page title.

A couple of recent examples of my work, made in SketchUp then rendered in Twilight - which give an idea of how the could look in MSFS if I can work out how to do it!

[jetpilot1980]

Admittedly that is one of the single biggest things I absolutely hated about MSFS those flat aircraft and objects not cleaned up from the scenery / terrain... Looks like someone lazily just slapped a google earth image in there... Herc is a beautiful plane but man it looks ugly there as they all do...

[TimC340]

Haha! I know what you mean (and the same is true of a lot of photoreal scenery in FSX and P3D) but on this occasion it’s the photo poly I’ve used in SketchUp to orientate the group of buildings, and it’s not part of the finished scenery. These raytraced renders are done within SketchUp by the Twilight plugin, and the photo poly comes from Google Earth as captured by SBuilderX.

The finished scenery is likely to have a fully modelled ground poly, if I can work out how to do it.

[jetpilot1980]

I figured your finished product would be better... But this is a general MSFS issue I would say... I remember when I was beta testing it (still have not bought or switched over to it to this day) this was and appears to still be an issue... Honestly, it was this and the "no weapons" bit (I do enjoy tacpack / vacmi and being able to kill things...) that initially made me not want to switch; then add in various other issues such as lack of addon compatibility (I know the AI platform has had a lot of issues) etc. and I just have not been able to bring myself to do it...

[Jon]

Lol, nice tie into the original Top Gun movie.

[Firebird]

... Honestly, it was this and the "no weapons" bit (I do enjoy tacpack / vacmi and being able to kill things...) that initially made me not want to switch; then add in various other issues such as lack of addon compatibility (I know the AI platform has had a lot of issues) etc. and I just have not been able to bring myself to do it...

This is in no way trying to make up for the lack of things going woosh and bang, but aircraft do have weapons on them but just do not buy them through the market in game. It seems that to sell them there that MS insist that the weapons options are removed but if you bought things like the F-14/F-15/F-16 etc from other stores then you get the weapons.

[TimC340]

Lol, nice tie into the original Top Gun movie.

...and the fact that my job in the RAF was driving 'cargo planes'!

[TimC340]

This is what I've been working on tonight:



General Service Shed (80ft), RAF Old Sarum.

[Jim]

Jeez! Your cast iron work is the equal of your bricklaying

[TimC340]

The Belfast Trusses are made of wood; no cast iron in this building. The geometry was a nightmare and took me about a week to work out! Of course, the eye is led to that detail - and ignores the fact that there's no detail (yet) in the doors, internal walls or the eaves of the roof structure. They'll all be there eventually, but this building is unlikely to find its way into P3D. It's for the museum that occupies it in real life (Boscombe Down Aircraft Collection).

Oh, and every brick was laid by hand! At least, it feels that way...

[TimC340]

I figured your finished product would be better... But this is a general MSFS issue I would say... I remember when I was beta testing it (still have not bought or switched over to it to this day) this was and appears to still be an issue... Honestly, it was this and the "no weapons" bit (I do enjoy tacpack / vacmi and being able to kill things...) that initially made me not want to switch; then add in various other issues such as lack of addon compatibility (I know the AI platform has had a lot of issues) etc. and I just have not been able to bring myself to do it...

I think you need DCS. And a course at Tim Davies’ ‘Shadowlands’ DCS training school. https://www.fastjetperformance.com/shad ... g-training

[TimC340]

Update on the Type J hangar.

The individual hangar modelled is one of the three at RAF Swinderby, which were destroyed between 2007 and 2017). It's almost unmodified from its construction in 1940. Swinderby was just about the last expansion-period airfield, and so a real rarity with many 1936-style Archibald Bulloch FRIBA-designed (and RFA Commission approved) buildings - the Officers Mess, senior officers' quarters, other more mundane buildings - and the wartime T2 and J Type hangars. I've used this prototype because it can be modified into several variations which appeared over the subsequent 50 years.









Note that the model has not yet been fully textured, and nor has any interior modelling been completed.

[Garysb]

Looks good Tim
Swinderby is just down the road from me.
Had many a fine day in Chipmunks

Cheers

Gary

[TimC340]

At YUAS, we used to use Swinderby as an RLG and also to take our cadets for 'survival' exercises (mainly an excuse for the staff to drink beer and drive cars at silly speeds all over the airfield!).

[TimC340]

An aside...

I was doing some investigative work on an LIRF scenery for a query over at FSDeveloper, and though I'd have a look at LIRE in P3Dv5.3 while I was there. This is a John Stinstrom scenery which I modified to place it on a new photoreal background and to match the current layout of the airfield accurately. Sadly, I don't think I can share it as it's more than a minor change to the original.

[Victory103]

Following this now as my lack of "trails" and just getting parking going in P3Dv5 ADEs is about all I can manage on airline reserve duty. Using the Combat Aircraft Magazine articles (still running a series on the US) as a path forward with my basic ADE 1.79beta skills to get MAIW parking in v5.

[TimC340]

When you convert MAIW sceneries to P3Dv5, it's well worth checking that the parking radii match the intended aircraft. Many MAIW sceneries were designed for FS9, which used a different aircraft/parking protocol to FSX/P3D. Aircraft parking priorities within the sim may mean that even nominated parking is ignored by AI aircraft if the radius is not what the engine expects. And many sceneries make no allowances for visiting (non-based) aircraft, which can mean that the visiting AI disappears on the approach or after touchdown.

[Victory103]

Thanks Tim, the extent of my knowledge outside of the tutorial on MAIW was using a system from AIG forums. I use R. Smith's FSX only civilian airports and converted them to work in P3D as he uses mostly modified stock objects (nothing custom). The recent repaints, the "MA" JYAI F-15s for example, had me looking at stock P3Dv5 parking as I could not find a previous FS9/FSX ADE to compare. First run was just to get AI parking, then I look into adding MAIW objects as many military bases share similar looking hangars/buildings. Also like to have an accurate ramp with GPUs, fire bottles, and pallet loaders.

[TimC340]

Well, it sounds like you're working on the right lines. The default parking sizes as applied by ADE are way out for most MAIW aircraft, and do really need to be adjusted appropriately. It's well worth having AI-Aircraft Editor.NET on your system to easily check what sizes your target aircraft are looking for (among many other useful things this software can do). For instance, the default ADE radius for MIL_COMBAT parking spaces is 12m, yet almost all fast jets as produced by John Young and Nick Black and others require a 7m space. Some are quite illogical, often because the flying characteristics of the AI don't work well with accurate span radii - an example is John's KC-46, which uses an 18m radius parking spot - smaller than the C-130 (either JYAI or HTAI) or KC-235 (MAIW/MGAI) (both 20m). If you change the wingspan of the AI to better represent reality you risk upsetting the way the AI flies, so best to suck it up and provide parking spots to suit the AI, not the other way around! Of course, ideally you want to nominate most of the parking so that the based AI parks where you expect it to (another good reason for having AAE.N), but you should leave some for the fairly frequent visitors your airfield will have if you have a comprehensive MAIW fleet installed.

If you also use civilian AI generators (Ultimate Traffic Live, My Traffic or Global Traffic - or all three), they will occasionally put a spanner in the works by installing their own parking layouts, and if you have Orbx you'll find that it will modify huge numbers of stock airfields (often illogically), for which you may need to intervene to re-establish military order. In my opinion, the benefits of the airline and GA traffic far outweigh the nause of sorting out the airfields, and if you use Lorby's P3D installer it's extremely easy to manage your global airfield estate.

Let's face it, with somewhere between 35,000 and 50,000 airfields to play with you're never going to get them all right - tempted as you (and I) might be to try! I think I've modified or built somewhere around 3-400 airfields now, mostly minor adjustments to stock or Orbx airfields, but a fair few are either entirely original or major mods of other people's work (see posts passim). It's great fun, but it's a hopeless task in the face of its potential scale.

[TimC340]

Had a couple of hours spare today while rebuilding my upstairs windows!

KRIV March ARB by John Stinstrom in P3Dv5 (yes, I know the trees aren't in the right place!):