Dear Simmers!

After long months of work, I would like to announce that KHAF Half Moon Bay airport by Rising Dawn Studios has finally hit the stores!

Half Moon Bay is an ex-Air Force airfield in California, close to San Francico and Silicon Valley, converted for general aviation use decades ago.
Since this airport is my home base since a decade now, I wanted to convey the same feeling to the users. So the scenery features a fully customizable hangar for the user's aircraft, and it is a nice and welcoming place to come home after a long trip. Customization options include painting, putting a poster on the wall (including your own images), changing the light fixtures, and cleaning up (or leaving it dirty).

The airport was the default starting locating in Flight Unlimited II, and if you were a fan of it, you might find some subtle cues referring to back to that sim in this scenery package, and the manual, too.

Other features include:

Photo scenery coverage of the airport and nearby areas with 0.3-0.6 cm's per pixel

Animated 3D trees which sway according to wind strength

Ultra detailed pavement and runway markings, with reflections

Baked in ambient-occlusion effects

Realistic grass, with customizable density

Animated powerlines

A special night mode on the terminal building with shutters, an animated neon sign, etc.

I could also mention 4K textures, but that is a misnomer, and doesn't actually mean much, so I let the screenshots speak instead. :)

The scenery also covers the following nearby neighborhoods:

The industrial-commercial area of Princeton, with open-air car and boat dealerships

Pillar Ridge (a manufactured home community adjacent to the airport)

The magnificent Pacifico Hotel and its surrounding sister-buildings

Point Pillar Air Force Station (a remote telemetry site of Vandenberg Air Force Base,
tasked to track and to monitor ballistic missiles - overflying is prohibited)

Pillar Point Harbor, with a plethora of ships and boats (some of them animated)

If you are interested, you can read the manual here, I've tried to make it look like a 1980's Popular Mechanics magazine, and it details all aspects of the airport, including customization options:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0f8eZpBReODM2dPUlA4UDBsbms/view

You can find me with questions here at AVSIM, or at Rising Dawn Studios' Facebook page. I wish many happy hours of flying!

Screenshots:

I've been following your progress on the X-Plane 11 forum, and you've put a huge amount of work into this (and the animated trees) :-)

Edit: tried to buy it, but x-plane.org have stopped accepting paypal for some reason?

48 minutes ago, tonywob said:

I've been following your progress on the X-Plane 11 forum, and you've put a huge amount of work into this (and the animated trees) :-)

 

 

Thanks! :) Yes I did, and hopefully people will like it! When you look at a scenery like this, you won't even think how much work is behind it (and that is true for every scenery, or aircraft). I would like future (or existing) owner to read the manual, so they can see the every feature of what the airport has to offer. There are many other options apart from the hangar, so people can set up the airport to their taste. :)

I think the issue with Paypal has been also resolved.

Hi, it´s a superb scenery! Many thanks for your work! Unfortunately, i have small problem... there is a floating building. I don´t use any addon mesh.

 

floating building:

30 minutes ago, jt8d9a said:

Hi, it´s a superb scenery! Many thanks for your work! Unfortunately, i have small problem... there is a floating building. I don´t use any addon mesh.

 

floating building:

Hi!

Thanks for letting me know! Luckily I've already identified the problem thanks to StevePHL. I am working on an update as we speak, and it will be ready tomorrow! This will unify things so there will be no need for any extra compatibility files, everyone can run the same airport. I'll notify everyone when it's done!

I've finished the update which fixes any floating issues people had. I've also added some other tweaks, for example to the ortho blending, to make things work better if you have other photoscenery in the area. Also, 3D trees are now the default option - you can still select 2D or mixed, as an option. I've contacted the stores, and I'll inform you when it's live!

Cool :) Many thanks for your work!

I believe the update should be live now - please check in the store, should be 1.1! I'm sorry for the wait! Can I ask the people affected to report back whether the floating issues has been resolved (both with radar station, and inside the hangar)? Of course I don't want to hijack the forum for this purpose, so please do it in PM or on Facebook. Also, please check if you can still repaint the beams and change the posters - I had to do some restructruing with those files, but it should still be ok. Thanks very much!

I've also introduced another customization option for the trees, it's detailed on page 14 in the updated manual. Also, 3D trees are now the default option. The update also include some tweaks to the exclusion zones, better ortho blending, and some other minor improvements. I hope that makes your experience more enjoyable!

Update v.1.2 is in the stores now! It's mostly minor fixes that most of you won't even notice, but there is one bigger feature: I have reworked the appearance of the terrain around Point Pillar Tracking Station. The cliffs there are very dramatic, and normally none of the publicly available mesh products get right. So I've given them a little hand-crafted care. I know it's not perfect, because I have some limitations in terms of what I can do, but I believe it's a definite improvement over what you currently have, and will make flying in the area more scenic. I hope you'll enjoy the result!

Fantastic work! Many thanks!

Dear Flyboys and Flygirls!

Half Moon Bay is updated to 1.4, which now includes 3D people as well! They may not be the highest quality, but they are not bad either, and look quite realistic when peeking out from your aircraft! They enhance the atmosphere very well - disappearing when the night falls, and return in the morning by the time the Cafe opens! I'm sure you'll love them!

The patch also includes my own World Traffic settings (so you won't spawn aircrafts on the run-up areas, etc). I highly recommend the use of World Traffic. Half Moon Bay comes totally alive with air traffic, it's great for both big jet people and GA maniacs as well!

Happy flying! :)

And this is with World Traffic:

6 minutes ago, Susu986 said:

Half Moon Bay is updated to 1.4

Very good update. I think every airport should have some 3D people on it, it adds so much to atmosphere.

Also thanks a lot for the WT files. Although I somehow can't get WT to generate GA traffic (at every airport. I'm using AFRE and do not generate additional random flight, but have the necessary checkbox checked and the GA slider at about 50%...)

1 hour ago, MarioDonick said:

...Although I somehow can't get WT to generate GA traffic...

Just for the sake of troubleshooting, try turning off AFRE, turn on Random flights, and maximize your sliders! It should work (at least it works well on my machine, I even get TOO much traffic at times with full sliders). Perhaps check if you are running the latest version of WT. If nothing works, contact Greg on .org forums, he is usually very responsive, I'm sure he can help out!

Thank you for developing an enjoyable destination near San Francisco.

22 hours ago, DJJose said:

Thank you for developing an enjoyable destination near San Francisco.

Thanks for buying my scenery :) Enjoy it! :)