Hi guys. Just thought I'd share this with the group. I finally decided to give Instant Scenery 2 a try. As I've always threatened to do, I downloaded BlueSky KPRB (Paso Robles, California...a bit north of Santa Barbara). I spent a couple hours and added some scenery to it. Below is the result. (Some of the objects are from Blue Sky but most of this is what I did.) I was very surprised at how easy it was (and keep in mind I have barely any idea what I'm doing in it at all.) I'm still trying to get a feel for where all the objects are and how to move and resize stuff. Note that everything here is stock...I just used what FSX already has.,,none of it is custom. (Nothing to brag about here.) I did fire up my trusty Cessna and flew around it and really liked the feel of it...trees...buildings. I could imagine it taking a month to build out the area...a nice hobby for when my kids are on my sim machine. (I have a laptop with FSX on it where I made the file and I just copied one file over.) All in all, I'm pretty impressed.) It should work in both BlueSky and Megascenery unchanged...at least I hope so. If anyone would like to test it on other photoreal just let me know and I'll send it over. No quality work but very useful and quite fun. Sure beats the cr** out of landing on flat terrain.

 

Gregg

 

Well, I'm talking to myself here...LOL...but I figured I'd update my progress on building out Paso Robles. I've got most of the airport done and I'm working (slowly) on building out the surrounding areas. As I've said, all the the objects are stock. I spend a lot of time finding the stock item that most matches the thing that is there. I use Google Earth to help guide me. I'm trying to stay as true to the real world place while, at the same time, create a nice place where someone would want to land. I'm hoping like he** that this stuff will work on the MegaScenery 2.0 stuff as well as it does on BlueSky. It's pretty cool how the dark dots act as shadows for the trees. This represents about 8 hours of work. It takes a LOT of time to find buildings that match the real buildings and, sometimes, you have to blend a little to get it better. Screen caps (including one night photo) below...

 

Gregg

 

KPRB 3000 ft.

 

 

 

KPRB final Rwy 01

 

 

 

KPRB downwind...

 

 

KPRB final Rwy 31

 

 

KPRB downwind night...

Wow that's some great work. Maybe it's about time I give instant scenery a try

 

 

Well, I'm talking to myself here...LOL...

 

Ha, ha! No you're not Gregg, I'm following along as I'm guessing others are as well.

 

Your project is looking great and if you keep it up I may be inspired to do something like this to my local airport too.

 

I typically fly with tileproxy scenery though so I need to do some research to find out if I can add autogen objects that will overlay on top of tileproxy...off to search I go.

Gregg, it is looking great. I did the same thing to my local airports and around town. Added Casinos and condo, shopping malls, piers, domes, dolphins, birds, etc. I added so much that it finally started to bog down the FPS and decided to give it a break.

 

One little trick is to make several different bgl files when you are just checking things out. That way you can call up different levels of work without having to go in an edit them. You can also use objects from other locations and other airports.

 

Have fun.

 

Ray

Wow that's some great work. Maybe it's about time I give instant scenery a try

 

Thanks!

 

 

Gregg, it is looking great. I did the same thing to my local airports and around town. Added Casinos and condo, shopping malls, piers, domes, dolphins, birds, etc. I added so much that it finally started to bog down the FPS and decided to give it a break.

 

One little trick is to make several different bgl files when you are just checking things out. That way you can call up different levels of work without having to go in an edit them. You can also use objects from other locations and other airports.

 

Have fun.

 

Ray

 

Yeah, I've been wondering about that. So far, it isn't impacting frames at all. My idea is to build out the area around 1-2 miles from the airport to a reasonable point and then move on to another airport...probably San Luis Obespo...a bit south of KPRB. These airports don't have vast amounts of stuff right around them so they're more practical for a beginner.

 

Gregg

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I've been wondering about that. So far, it isn't impacting frames at all. My idea is to build out the area around 1-2 miles from the airport to a reasonable point and then move on to another airport...probably San Luis Obespo...a bit south of KPRB. These airports don't have vast amounts of stuff right around them so they're more practical for a beginner.

 

Gregg

 

We need to exhange a few of these updated and enhanced bgl files and see how they work on other computers. Maybe we can start some uploads to the Avsim library to share some of the work.

 

Ray

I agree. There are a lot of areas in between the large cities that people would fly if there was something there. Like I said, building out KPRB will probably end up taking me a good month just doing it in my spare time and when I have enough energy to not be lazy about picking objects out. I do, also, think that there needs to be a few screenshots that go along with it. I know that some people build out airports but I don't download them since I have no idea if it's worth it or not and I don't want to load up my sim with a lot of junk.

 

Gregg

Gregg,

Excellent effort - I use instant scenery 2.0 as well. I noticed that you have done a good job picking out the smaller airport buildings - I find that a real chore. I would appreciate it if you published a list of the objects that you use - particularly hangars and smaller office buildings. I search through autogen and airport objects and just don't find them often. Also, realistic houses are hard to find for California - I live down near San Diego. Any help you can provide would be appreciated!

 

Dave

Thanks. What I (finally) did was to create some favorites lists. I put hangars in one, houses (and there aren't many) in another, barns in another, shopping centers in another, bushes in another...and on and on. That bit of effort has saved me lots of time hunting for things.

 

I have to agree about the houses. The stock stuff is pretty limited in important ways. I bought Instant Object Studio and am building some custom things now...mainly ranch style houses right now...for KPRB. I figure the time will be well worth it if I decide to build out another airport. I've got, maybe, 20 or so done. For now, I'm spending time trying to get better at IOS...learning to make things more efficiently, finding sources for good textures. It's a good tool...has some limitations that are a pain...but learning to work within them and be efficient. I hope they create a new version with more functionality.

 

I'll post an update to KPRB sometime soon. Once I get a good collection of houses, if you want, I'll send them to you and you can use them in your own scenery.

 

Gregg

Hey Gregg,

 

Is the scenery exportable? In other words, once it's created, are you able to share it with others?

 

 

Dave

Is the scenery exportable? In other words, once it's created, are you able to share it with others?

 

Sure. I develop the scenery on the laptop and then zip it up and send it over to my sim machine. I didn't have to do anything to the sim machine to get it to work other than unzip it and tell fsx where to find it in the scenery library dialog.

 

Gregg

Just saw this, Gregg - stuff disappears so fast that you miss it here.

 

Nice work so far. It's amazing how a bit of 3D on the ground can make an airport so much more appealing. I admire your patience in doing this. It's not that I wouldn't enjoy doing it - I expect I actually would - but I'd probably end up rushing the job. So many airports, so little time, and always the temptation to just go fly...

 

BTW, I agree about the photo blobs (I assume these are probably small trees and shrubs) making good shadows on the ground under tree placements. I noticed this with some of the MSE v1 tree autogen when flying at lower levels over places like the Palmer Divide in Colorado. The two worked nicely together for a good effect.

 

Looking forward to seeing where you can take this.

 

Scott

Nice work. I dare say it should work equally well with MegaSceneryEarth. Usually no problems with adding other scenery and objects to the MSE world. You really only need to ensure you have MSE as the lower layer in the Scenery library.

Nice work. I dare say it should work equally well with MegaSceneryEarth. Usually no problems with adding other scenery and objects to the MSE world. You really only need to ensure you have MSE as the lower layer in the Scenery library.

 

I've actually held off doing much more, in part, waiting for MSE 2.0 California to come out...not sure how it will line up. I checked the Blue Sky and the VORTAC in the center of the field is spot on so that's good news. But I've been working on my skills and figuring out where the limits are in the mean time. Making custom objects is making it nicer but still struggling with a way to efficiently make night textures. One thing IOS could use (amongst several things) is a way to help with the process of making night textures...nothing fancy but something so you could edit and line up both textures and see how they line up.

 

Gregg