Well I've decided to jump back into scenery design.  I used to do some back in the days of FS02, never released, just for personal use.  I was using FSSC then.  I am wondering what programs are more common these days.  I have seen Rwy12 mentioned around, and have downloaded it but haven't installed it yet.  I don't know if I have what it takes to do it in GMAX or any other 3d program, and am not entirely sure if I want to take it that far yet.  My main goal is to remake the airport where I work.  The default is not very accurate at best.  Being as I work there, I have all types of layouts, photos, and satellite imagery to play with, so I think I can do pretty good with it.  If it was good enough, maybe even release it, not that there would be many people interested in flying out of Mason City, Iowa, except for maybe the Buddy Holly followers.

I should add, I would be primarily doing this for FS9, although FSX would be a possibility, I just don't use it as much

skoker wrote on Jul 10^th, 2010 at 12:53pm:


I tried GMAX once before, and was not even able to make a shape.  How difficult is it to A) Create the scenery, then B) Get the scenery properly placed and exported into FS9?  With FSSC it was pretty simple to get the location right, draw the taxiway and runways, and throw buildings into the scenery.

Here is a decent toolkit if your not interested in creating your own 3D models. And a good start if you are, though nothing here will do that.

For airport facility data such as ramps, parking, taxiways etc., you know, the flat stuff, ADE9X is the best and it's free. If you are familiar with Afcad2.21, ADE9X is a new and much improved version. With ADE9X you can create and edit approaches too. It will work for both FS9 and FSX. Get it here- http://www.airportdesigneditor.co.uk/

ADE9X has the ability to place objects, though it is not WYSIWIG . For free it does a great job for most objects, however detailed placement such as jetways can be a bit tedious because you have to compile, then re-start the sim to see changes. There is also a bit of setup to do if you want to use EZ-Scenery-type object libraries. But still pretty good for free.

If you don't mind spending $30 USD then Instant Scenery is the way to go for object placement. It is WYSIWIG and automatically recognizes EZ-Scenery libraries. If you value your time you will save money with Instant Scenery. Available here- http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=instscen2

Another great freeware program for FS9 is SBuilder. I use it to create new airport backgrounds, flatten polys, roads and coastlines, and more. It also can place objects about the same as ADE9X. One of my pet peeves about scenery created with older Scasm-based software is they tend to wipe out autogen far beyond the scope of the addon. There is a better way. Once you get the hang of SBuilder it is easy to create a custom airport background that uses FS9's default autogen-excluding texture classes. No more need to create excludes to remove trees from runways and aprons.

There is a bit of a learning curve to mastering SBuilder, however there are some great tutorials around. There is also SBuilderX for FSX, but I have not used it. You can get SBuilder here- http://www.fsdeveloper.com/

It is in the downloads under Scenery Design>Tools. BTW, that website is a great resource for all FS design.

Hope this helps get you started.

cheers,
Joe

Gmax isn't hard to export as long as you have the right coordinates.  Also modeling and texturing isn't that hard either.  Its really all just moving around a few points and having the right plugins.

JoBee wrote on Jul 10^th, 2010 at 5:02pm:


I have downloaded both ADE and SBuilder, and hope to install them and give them a try the next time I am off work.  ADE appears to be a lot like the older FSSC, which is what I was hoping to find.  At least for now, all I am looking at doing is updating the runway numbers (they changed 5 years ago)and remodelling the ramp and terminal areas to be more like the actual airport where I work.  Depending on how much time I have and how much luck I have with these programs, I may go even farther (I see Sbuilder has the ability to go photoreal with the background textures).  I may release it, although I doubt there would be much interest in this particular airport.

Ok, I've been tinkering with ADE.  It seems like what I was looking for so far.  I do like the ability to open stock airports and edit them, something FSSC couldn't do.  Now I am just debating whether its worth just trying to edit the exisiting, or start from scratch.

Capt.Propwash wrote on Jul 12^th, 2010 at 10:40pm:


ADE9X is the successor to AFCAD 2.2.1, which was abandoned years ago by Lee Swordy.

As a result, ADE9X is fully FS9 and FSX SDK compliant, and has tons more features.

In short, it is AFCAD on Steriods...