FSX 06C-Schaumburg Regional Airport [Schaumburg, Illinois, USA](10nm west of KORD)

[jakubz]

Ok, here is my first attempt at scenery.

It's a single-runway airport, GA airport located about 10 miles west of Chicago-O'Hare Int'l. I collected the ground textures a couple of months ago, and they were just sitting on my computer.

I got the ground textures, and after a bunch of fiddling around with the .inf and Resample.exe, I finally managed to get the ground textures to show up.

This is just a early stage. I still need to exclude the original FSX airport, create a fresh Runway/Taxiway/Parking layout, and then get the buildings builty.

Overhead image. You can see a section of the default ground textures in the north east corner.

View of the east end of the airport, with some of the surrounding area.

View of the center part of the airport and some of the area south of the airport.

West end of the airport.

I realize that I am going to have to adjust the layout of everything, so that is the next step. After that, making the buildings.

 

[Gaiiden]

cool, will you be cutting up the ground textures better to fit just within the property of the airport?

 

[wideloadwhitford]

Nice work, I was about to say the same thing, alpha channel it maybe?

 

[jakubz]

UPDATE-runway/taxiway/parking layout + Response

Overview of the airport with a layout done. You can't see it, but the airport has in the neighborhood of 60 to 80 parking spaces.

Overview of the current layout. I exclude the stock airport, and created a new airport from scratch.

Ok, now the response to the comments.

About cutting the textures up, I am not understanding what you mean. I want to cover everything within approximately a mile of the runway center point. to do that, I will have to fetch the rest of the corner that is missing. I

As for the alpha channel, are you referring to the water mask? If that is the case, that would be a nice touch to add, but that will have to wait a bit.

Next thing I will be working on is finishing the layout, then the buildings and hangers.

 

[jakubz]

Ok, two part post. first portion deals with the first models being added.

As you can see, I have an issue with a texture not showing up on the hangers. But the hangers are placed, so I will take that small step.

The main building of the airport which isn't textured yet, and that is going to be fun. They have a restaurant called Pilot Pete's. Never been there, but looking to change that. They also have a flight school, and small maintenance hanger/facility. The model was made of three parts, but when I tried to export it, I got a degenerate poly warning. I exported the whole thing, then each part separately. Looks like they all worked.

The second part deals with getting textures to show up on the hangers. That was an adventure.

I got the textures to work, but it turns out the hangers are 180* off. Easy fix, so I am not worried about that.

So the next step for me will be to get the rest of the hangers, the main building textured, and get everything properly textured.

 

[wideloadwhitford]

Good work so far.

 

[Ragtopjohnny]

First scenery project? I'm impressed

FSX?

 

[jakubz]

Good work so far.

First scenery project? I'm impressed

FSX?

Thanks guys. Ragtopjohnny, I saw your Angels 44, and it look like a good start. I am looking forward to seeing the final results. My next step will be learning how to model aircraft, but that's a project for another time.

Wideloadwhitford, I saw your work on the Phoenix airport, and it looks amazing. I am really jealous of the custom runway/taxiway/apron textures you made. If that is "in progress", then I am sure we will be amazed at the final version.

Ok, now onto a status update....

One of the quirks with this airport is that while the airfield itself is pretty level, the parking lot is pretty much on a 4meter hill that ends at halfway up the side of the main building. recently, I worked on creating a custom ground object in GMax and put a texture of the parking lot and grassy area just north of the building. Here are the preliminary results. for the moment, I just put the object in an easily viewable place instead of the correct location.


An overhead view of the entire object. The main building has not yet been textured, and the ground texture was just quickly grabbed as a proof of concept. As a result, its incorrectly sized for the object. That is why the blue section appear. Also, I need to adjust the height of the polys in the upper right corner.

A quick close-up of the ground textures. They are not a really good resolution, but I will work on that.

A view of the building from right over the parking lot. You can see how the roadway goes up a hill to the mid-level of the buildings. The area with a big jump is covered by a brick wall, which is yet to be modeled.

 

[Airjunkie]

Looks Great! I live about 10 minutes away from there. They did some major renovations to the airport a few years ago. You're doing a great job in getting this scenery up to date.

 

[jakubz]

Looks Great! I live about 10 minutes away from there. They did some major renovations to the airport a few years ago. You're doing a great job in getting this scenery up to date.

Well, from what I can see, the stock airport looks like it matches 4/11/1998 overhead imagery. The next imagery is dated 3/31/2002. I haven't looked at the FS9 version, but I would have to guess that it has the same issue.

Given that FSX was released in 2006, That's a delay of 4 years. I wonder what the source is for the information is and how often its updated. Then again, its not exactly at the same priority as O'Hare. Anyway, I am going to post some screen shot in a little bit.

 

[jakubz]

Ok, Update time!
Alright, I have been working on this all day. I got the east retaining wall texture mapped and a texture built, but not yet colored properly or loaded into FSX.

First look at the stairs and ramp
I spent most of the day working on this. I still need to get some details sorted out on one of the walls.

Another angle at the stairs
I have to adjust the underlying mesh so that the stairs/ramp and ground don't interfere

Ground is too reflective
I am going to have to lower how much light is reflected. Last time I checked, grass doesn't reflect sunlight like glass.

 

[Gaiiden]

About cutting the textures up, I am not understanding what you mean. I want to cover everything within approximately a mile of the runway center point. to do that, I will have to fetch the rest of the corner that is missing.

Ok I wasn't sure if you going for an area coverage or just had a larger ground tile than you needed. I was thinking you were just going to have photo-real textures within the road that bounds the airport itself as some airport sceneries do

 

[jakubz]

Ok I wasn't sure if you going for an area coverage or just had a larger ground tile than you needed. I was thinking you were just going to have photo-real textures within the road that bounds the airport itself as some airport sceneries do

Ok, I get what you are saying. That would cut down on the size of the .bgl, but that kind of kills the realism IMHO. Besides, part of the procedures for the airport involve following the local streets to fly a certain pattern. it would be kind of hard to do that if the scenery doesn't reflect that.

Now the one problem I am worried about is legalities. Does anybody know if images from http://msrmaps.com are able to be used? Most of the images I would use have "Image courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey", so I would think that means they are fair game to use. If anybody has better information, please let me know!

 

[jakubz]

Wow, its been nearly a month since I last posted anything about my work here. I have been busy trying to learn how to create ground polys. Here are a couple images of the first test.

The textures under the left wing are the default FSX runway textures.

The textures under the right wing are from Bill Womack's tutorial. Big, even a MASSIVE thank you for the tutorial. I am only using the texture as a test/learning tool, I won't use it in the final version. I am pretty sure I can get some concrete textures to use in the final version.

 

[alexczarn]

Very nice work so far!

 

[jakubz]

Very nice work so far!

Thanks a ton!

I have been busy with finding a permanent job, so not much time has been spent on this project. However, I got to it this weekend, and some progress was been made. Here is what I accomplished


In this pictures, I was able to get the basic markings put down, including the Hold Short bars, Threshold bars, and Runway Numbers. The base is now oriented more or less in the right direction. I will have to load the exact heading and location from the underlying airport.

....Later that weekend...

Alright, next step, putting in the Taxiway center lines. Found a video on YouTube on the basics of lofting, and the tutorial on here for the rest of it. Here are my result.

Alright, re tweaked the ASM for the Hold Shorts (et. al.), putting it to layer 16, and moved the taxiway lines to layer 12. IMO, they look a little to bright, so I will probably tone it down a bit, and maybe try to make the texture look a little more beat up.

As for the taxi lines, I made all the curved portions and straight portions separately. Figured I could make the straight portions with as few steps as possible to save polys there, and keep the curved sections at a higher setting. Catch is, it looks like there are areas that are not covered now.

Overhead view. Things aren't lined up to the final location at the moment, but when it comes time, it will be a quick fix. Since the ramp has sections with different size tiles, I am going model that. To make it easy, I made the ramp out of several planes. To easily tell the planes apart, I changed the color on the basic concrete texture, and applied a differently shaded texture to each different section of the ramp.

View down the airport. On the left, you can see the ground textures (around 30 cm/pxl, if i remember correction), the default runway "under", and the ground poly Runway/Taxiway and markings "above".

Here is a quick overview of what my GMax File looks like at the moment. (In wire frame)