Tim's Trials...

[TimC340]

For those who haven't seen it, I have released a 'Beta' of RAF Finningley (EGXI, 1990-ish) for FSX in this thread. It's far short of what I'd like it to be, but I hate vapourware, so it's a start.

[VulcanDriver]

Can't wait to get the finished scenery, the Beta is great.

[TimC340]

I should point out that the bottom image is of a version of EGXI I built for P3Dv4 back in 2019, using JY's C-Type hangars. This version was lost in two consecutive SSD failures (along with a lot of other work). The version I've just released is completely new work.

[TimC340]

Had a play with this today. It's the Air Terminal at Brize as it was in the 1970s (as best as I can remember!). I'm not sure it will go anywhere, as we already have a very good Brize Norton, albeit in modern form. The UK2000 EGVN isn't bad for the roughly 2010 era, but the '70s to '90s, which seems to be getting some love at the moment, isn't really covered. As ever with my models, this is probably too detailed to be a good model for FSX/P3D, but I had fun making it.

[John Young]

That's really nice Tim. You are certainly getting the hang of modelling now.

John

[TimC340]

Thanks John. It does help having a decent (albeit free) rendering app to produce the screenshot. It would never look this good in FSX/P3D. It might in MSFS, but the process of putting SketchUp models into that sim is far from simple.

[TimC340]

Not finished, but I put it into P3Dv5 to see what it looks like. Accompanied by some Ted Andrews' work, and a few of John's aircraft plus the JBS VC10, HTAI C-130 and some flyable models that I converted (Hastings, Britannia, Andover). Spot the KC-135 in modern colours that snuck in while I wasn't looking, and the flying P3D road traffic...















And one in SketchUp showing the inner faces from landside:

[TimC340]

As part of the project to present Thorney Island as a frame for John's Andovers, I began construction the C-Type hangars from the airfield. Inevitably, the model got out of hand and is way, way too complex and detailed for our sims. Indeed, this is becoming more of an art project than a flight simulator project, though I think it has potential for MSFS. As an example, this model came out of MCX at 108mb in P3Dv4.4 format, and with a host of warnings! I have managed to import it into Blender so I hope that I can get it converted from that with both better textures and a much smaller file size. We'll see...



A high definition image of this can be found here:

https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/im ... 1674813277

I've also done the OMQ I lived in at RAF Lyneham in 1991-92, of which there are several examples at Thorney (though in a darker brick).

[TimC340]

Couple of teasers for some projects which should be publicly available soon...

[Delboy99]

2 great looking sceneries there Tim. Just waiting for John's Andovers to really bring them to life.

[TimC340]

John will obviously make his own announcement when he's ready, and these teasers will make a bit more sense then and I'm not going to steal his thunder! I did trail these a while back, so hopefully he'll forgive me showing these distance shots. I'm looking at the possibility of doing a couple more airfields related to the Andover, but in a slightly later timeframe which the 80s/90s enthusiasts might like. However, don't expect them imminently.

[Jobza Guddun]

They look superb Tim. Great work!

[John Young]

Thanks to Tim's great work to give the Andover's UK homes, we are nearly there. Today I completed the AFCAD and traffic file (Andovers, C-130's, B727's and P-3's) for the New Zealand element for P3D, to go with the converted scenery. Just waiting on the FSX scenery conversion from Sean to complete the package. I'll post some more shots in the Andover part of the forum shortly.

John

[TimC340]

They look superb Tim. Great work!

Thanks! Sadly, I'm afraid I haven't done a version for FS9. There is a Thorney Island for FS9 in the Download Hangar (here) by Brian Clarke. It really reflects the airfield as it looks under the Army's care, but it's a straightforward job to add some parking if you want to use it. There is also an Abingdon somewhere! It's deep inside one of the FS9 packages (Jaguar?), but I've done a brief search and I can't find it at the moment.

If anyone wants to convert my airfields to FS9 once John releases the package, they are welcome to do so as long as they share the result here at MAIW.

[paul day]

If you want the FS9 Abingdon I have a copy.

Regards Paul Day.

[TimC340]

Was it in the Jaguar package, Paul, or was that my imagination? I know it was included in Matrix (hidden amongst the waypoints, I think) but it was very basic.

I’d forgotten that John had already shared screenshots of earlier versions of these airfields and his Andovers and sand C-130s, so I needn’t have been so coy about close-ups! But I’ll leave the PR stuff to him.

If anyone has photos or links to photos of Benson in the 80s/90s - before the big reconstruction for the Merlin, which hugely changed the look of the place - I’d be grateful. I’d like to try and do a scenery to house the 115 Sqn and TQF Andovers. No rush - I’m taking a little break from scenery development for a bit.

[Jobza Guddun]

[/quote]
Thanks! Sadly, I'm afraid I haven't done a version for FS9.
[/quote]

Yes, I get that you guys don't build for FS9 any more, I just enjoy looking at what you produce! I tinker with ADE to produce fairly simple bases, so I think I've a good idea of how much effort you put in - an appreciative post is the least us lesser mortals should be doing!!

I'm loathe to move on due to the hours and hours of work that's gone in to get my sim to where it is, and I'm still happy with what I get from it. Currently having an 80's revival in Europe and the USA and it's awesome!!

[TimC340]

TBH, I've never really worked in FS9, even though I've had MSFS since DOS days. I was happy to use other people's work! I do have a copy of the program in strictly vanilla form so I can test the very few items I have made for FS9, but to work in FS9, FSX, FSX:SE and P3Dv4 and v5 is just too much! Preferably I'd only work in P3D, but it would be a shame to restrict John's aircraft to just the latest sims - and it's not that difficult to reformat P3D stuff to FSX as long as I haven't used high definition PBR textures - which, as I generally do my building work in SketchUp, I rarely do.

However, the time will come when I start to do stuff for the new(ish) MSFS once the dust has settled on the SDK. If I work in Blender, it's not too difficult to do stuff that can be formatted for either P3Dv5 or MSFS depending on which export protocols you use. I am doing a number of courses in Blender to try and prepare for that scenario, and I'm excited to see what can be achieved. I would like to do something similar to the Ted Andrews libraries 'uprated' for the modern sims so that people can use them to create their own airfields. Jon Masterson is working on ADE to make it the go-to tool for MSFS as it is for the earlier sims, so hopefully this is a realistic prospect. But, as some of my earlier illustrations show, working at the potential level of detail these sims will support is hugely complex and intensive!

[A25777]

If anybody is interested, I have RAF Abingdon for FS9 made for my personal use.
It contains object libraries from released MAIW packages.
But the original AFD is from the RAF Jaguar Package from Chris Brown and Menno van den Boogaard.
If it is ok with them, I can upload it.


regards
Alex

[TimC340]

This post really applies only to those developers who have access to the MAIW FTP site.

I have decided that, to all intents and purposes, my FSX/P3D development hobby has come to an end. I have other interests and demands on my time, and the amount of work that went into the Brazil Part 1 project left me exhausted. I'd come to regard it as 'work' and consequently I put off doing many things that I really needed to take care of in my personal life. However, I have a pretty huge library of completed and part-completed work that may be of use to those who wish to continue to develop sceneries for P3D.

Some of that work includes improvements to MAIW and John Stinstrom FS9 sceneries from years ago (some examples are illustrated earlier in this thread) and that's why I'm restricting access to those who are allowed in to the MAIW FTP site. I've no wish to compromise the MAIW moral stance on modifying other people's work, and I trust you guys to look after that legacy in that spirit. Working with John Young, we have in the past presented updates for some JS sceneries in order to frame John's aircraft, so I'll leave it up to you guys to decide what would be acceptable to release and what wouldn't.

Much of the work I've done involves new AFCADs that accurately represent the real-world geographical layout of these bases, and includes photoreal imagery. These files can be huge, and so I think it's probably best that I release them in phases. Right now, I have uploaded work divided alphabetically by a number of US States. I'll leave each batch up for a couple of weeks before replacing them with another batch - I don't want to overload the FTP server. If you want them, get them as soon as you can! I'll update this post with details of the latest batch as I upload them.

For clarity, I am completely happy for my work to be modified and further developed in your projects either for personal use or public freeware (ONLY!) distribution. It would be great if you'd credit me where appropriate, but I won't be coming after you if you don't! I will try and create a library of the various buildings I've done, but of course they are included in the relevant airfields as appropriate. If you wish to reuse them in other sceneries, feel free.

While it's extremely unlikely I'll do any more scenery modelling, I won't rule it out entirely as I do really enjoy modelling individual real-world buildings, and I may continue to do modelling for museum and research organisations from time to time. If I do, I'll try and convert them for P3D use (subject to complexity and model size) and let you lot have them.

In my FTP right now are the remaining Brazil airfields, and the first batch of USA airfields from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware and (out of order!) New Mexico. I'll leave these up for around two weeks.

Some examples:

New Orleans



Elizabeth City (incl Weekes airship hangar)



Lackland



Mobile Regional (USCG)