I've decided I'm going to build a new scenery for the KFFZ (Mesa Falcon Field) and Boeing Apache plant just north of it.
I've started the main strip or primary landing area for the Apache plant and will likely do that area first and then move to modifying the KFFZ airport. Growing up I almost would open the door to our Mooney to get a better look at the Apache base...and figured it was time to do it justice in FS9 (Also there has been discussion that it will be moved or shut down). PLUS...we have a lovely set of AI Apach's that will work nicely with this project.
For now I've started the AFCAD work and would like to see if anyone happens to have some tips or pointers about Sbuilder or Fligt Simulator Scenery Creator. I've searched all over for tutorials, but cant find much on either. I'm a visual guy so the more pictures the better. OR...if anyone has any other recommendations for a newbie in building, I'd love to hear it or be directed to your tutorials. Thanks again.
Hi, nice idea indeed!
I have no tips for building objects, but MAIW libraries will definitely suffice to make a great scenery.
My advice is to use a Google Earth image of the airfield as a background in order for you to make new taxiways in a realistic way.
That is looking great. An idea might be to make a separate afcad file for the Boeing plant to keep the helicopters from moving down to the main airfield to do operations that should be done at the plant.
Thanks for the encouragement. My thoughts exactly as for having a separate AFCAD...I just needed the original of KFFZ for a reference. I'll likely re-do that one as well someday.
As for using an image, I'm fairly proficient with AFCAD (or at least its easy for me to use), but how would one go about with FS scenery creator or Sbuilder...I was hoping it would show more than a blank screen or allow you to import something to start with. (Sbuilder wont let you import an AFCAD to use as a reference?)
Get ADE9, it allows you to import a background image to use against the AFCAD file, also it allows you to add objects and the like to it as well, the only thing it doesn't do is the landclass type editing.
Some progress...love the layout of ADE and is functions...just trying to figure out how to get some of my polygons that are layered to show up (Concrete pads for parking.)...and need to chain-saw down the brush off the tarmac.
I had some of the same problems when I was starting out as well. The concrete is actually layered below the asphault textures. So for the concrete pads to show up, you will actually have to cut holes in the asphault polys. The good news is that you will only need to make one big concrete pad, since it will just show up in the holes you made in the asphault. As for the weed problem, you will have to use sbuilder to increase the size of the airport background.
staffed up...little pre-mature...but I really wanted to see how it would look with birds on the ground. I was able to take care of unwanted plants by just using an exclude rectangle for the whole area...worked like a charm. Buildings so far are all stock...does FDE (for fs9) allow you to import in objects from other editing programs? I thumbed through the documentation and didn't seem to find anything about importing of 3rd party objects (object placer/runway 12 packages).
(Double post...) Just curious, does anyone have a recommendation for a program or method to create a photorealistic scenery background? I think that might be a great way to shore up the scenery and avoid using colored/textured polygons for the ground.
