You know I was thinking... Instead of all of us waiting for airport scenaries and stuff... We should be able to build realistic airports ourselves.I have not tried it..but I want to build two airports badly.. My home airport here in Dallas area 52F (North west Regional) and Bannings KBNG near Palm springs, CA against those mountain backdrops.Is the SDK really that hard that ir requires only payware and few very smart people (freeware developers like Shez) to build it.Are there any third party toolkits out there..that would help us do it little easier? like prebuilt airport objects that we could pick and place and stuff like that?Manny

Go check out the scenery development forum. Read the sticky post at the top. I recommend you start with a program called ScenegenX and try some simple things first. its not hard but the learning curve can be steep and it requires a good bit of patience. Get familiar with either Runway 12 or EZ scenery by abacus, both decent programs, EZ scenery isn't free. I would also figure out how to use Sbuilder and take a look at the Microsoft SDK's. There is a LOT of info out there on how to do this stuff.Hornit

I think there are two things to consider, and this is true for any development in FS:1) being able to design the addon.2) being able to do it "optimized".This is true for gauges, for sceneries, for aircraft etc...Designing an airport is a matter of building 3D objects, making textures to "paint" them with, and placing the objects at the correct locations. It sounds simple but each task is already long and painful. Add special effects in the mix...Now, making it like not only looking like the real thing (modeling accuracy and photo-real texturing skills), but also render in FS with almost no FPS hit no matter the "visual" complexity, this is a totaly different story. Now, add in the mix unique Research and Development to make things no one else is able to do...I think many are designing great scenes, with details, special effects and eye candy, and from the look of pictures on web sites, the best scenes just appear to be as good as any other. However, to my knowledge, one and only one vendor has ever produced not only the best looking scenes (and actually they are just looking like the real deal), but also the same vendor is the only one to have made the quantum leap of offering the most complex yet the most FPS friendly scenes. Their latest even has "3D" grass and I suspect this as well is with 0 FPS hit.There shall be some screenshots in their forums:http://www.flightscenery.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=558This is simply astonishing!The level of development involved may partly explain why we, the simmer, have to wait sometimes...Hope this helps!

You know, if I had to pick out one scenery developer as the very best, I think it would have to be Vauchez. There is something about his scenery which just has that certain je ne sais quoi. It was evident even in his first available freeware scenery of St Malo airport. This isn't to say that I don't find other scenery makers work excellent mind you but Vauchez....magnifique!