FSXA MegaSceneryEarth Airports Project: KWRI

[Gaiiden]

Thanks Ed, I will be adding in more people later that one pair was just a test to see how they would look.

I'm a bit sad to see my frames plummet into the single digits when I view a large portion of the airport, but it's nice to know that people can triage with the scenery density slider. I'm going to include instructions in the ReadMe that tell people how to create configuration save files so they can start with, for example, Normal scenery density at McGuire and then after they depart they can switch it to Very High if traveling to a smaller airport that can handle the load. This method preserves things like the TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD setting.

 

[Gaiiden]

put putting along...

Now that I'm working around an area of the airport that doesn't require any more detail than buildings and trees things have moved along much quicker. I actually got all these buildings here done in a day but then had to travel for business for almost a week so tonight I went back and added some finer details in some areas closer to the tarmac. There are no trees added yet because FranceVFR messed up my autogen files and I'm not able to see the trees I want to place. I'll be reformatting my system this weekend though so that will be fixed soon. Maybe I'll be done this month? Would certainly like to be!! 4 months and counting...

Over 2,000 views tho! Wow, thanks for following along everyone!

 

[Gaiiden]

ANG area surrounded, trees complete around main tarmac

I reformatted mid last week rather than wait for the weekend, then took a few days to rebuild FSX and my development environment to the point where I could begin designing again. Then for two days I was getting video card lockups within an hour or two of starting the sim to place objects - and although I tried to remember to save often I would usually end up losing a good deal of work, get frustrated and quit for the day. Things seem to have smoothed out though since Thursday I've been able to work several hours without the video card locking up my system and therefore I've managed to make significant progress.

I completed all the trees remaining for the main tarmac area so that part is completely done. Then I continued working my way around the airport, laying down trees along the highway and into the area surrounding the Air National Guard tarmac. I placed the trees yesterday and the buildings went in today. If I keep up this pace by the end of next week I should be done with all the surrounding airport objects and vegetation and can move in to tarmac objects and static aircraft.

 

[Gaiiden]

Rolling right along...

Yesterday and today I finished up the Marine helicopter tarmac and the area extending all the way down to Runway 06. All that remains now is to plant a ton of trees alongside Runway 06/24. I plan to have that done by Wed. Then I'll spend the rest of the week decorating the tarmacs around the airport with static aircraft and 3D people.

After that, next week will be mostly performance tweaking. One of the downsides to using all these freeware objects is that although most of them look great, technically a lot of them suck. I don't know if it's lack of LOD, bad texture management, or what but if I sit above the airport and look down so I can see the entire thing I get about 4-5FPS. To mitigate this I'm going to be going back through the objects in the scenery and setting density levels. The plan is to make it so the Normal scenery level can be used on approach/departure - this will have all the major buildings and some large objects but none of the smaller details that suck down performance so you can have higher FPS and smooth control when landing and taking off. For taxiing around the airport you can switch to Dense/Very Dense depending on your FPS tolerance and machine's performance. There will be a big FPS drop but at slower taxi speeds this will be manageable.

I'm definitely wrapping up KWRI this month - 5 months of work is enough!!

 

[EdGeneer]

For the FPS drops you get, are you using pretty aggressive LOD distance settings in your objects to keep things smooth? I know its nice to have alot visible, but there is alot of detail in each object you have, and there are alot of objects scattered around... almost to a detriment, especially if the objects only has one LOD and your system is trying to draw all the goodies, even at moderate distances...

Larger airports, you almost have to take alot of those objects, especially all the cars, tanks, and like sized goodies, and drop them out of the scene using LOD's unless your right up on them...

Your scenery is looking great, but you have to be picky about what people can see and how far they can see it...

It looks like your doing alot of work, looking nice... keep up the good work

 

[Maxman]

Honestly, when I designed some of the objects you are using, it was never my intention that they be used for others sceneries. I developed them on a personal use basis and as such some are more detailed than others. In the image I included with the quote, you have lots of the more detailed ones showing and they will effect performance. If you have any of the people included with the military scenery, they are much more detailed as I opted for better visuals since I didn't plan on having an army of them in the scenery. None of them have LODs because "I" didn't need them at that time and most have one texture sheet meaning less drawcall. Hope that helps clarify why they may 'suck" for your use.

MC

I plan to have that done by Wed. Then I'll spend the rest of the week decorating the tarmacs around the airport with static aircraft and 3D people.

After that, next week will be mostly performance tweaking. One of the downsides to using all these freeware objects is that although most of them look great, technically a lot of them suck. I don't know if it's lack of LOD, bad texture management, or what but if I sit above the airport and look down so I can see the entire thing I get about 4-5FPS.

 

[Gaiiden]

Easy there, maxman. There's no need to take any blame on yourself and I'm not looking to go around pointing fingers either It's a general issue with freeware scenery objects and I'm just pointing it out and talking about my solution for it. Perhaps I used the term "suck" a bit too generally instead of applying it more directly to this project. Certainly, I doubt there would be an issue if this were a much smaller airfield project.

Ed thanks for the insights but I have no control over LOD so I have to make do with scenery density settings as I mentioned.

One thing I didn't talk about in relation to my scenery density solution is the fact that many people dislike using the Display menu as it resets some custom fsx.cfg settings when you use it. Luckily there is a simple solution to that I think most people forget about - heck I did until I read this...

 

[Gaiiden]

vegetization and optimization

Happy to say that I'm ahead of schedule for once! With the end in sight, I'm really knuckling down to get this all done. I expected to have the trees all placed and the object density set by this weekend and it's already completed as of tonight.

As planned, I went through several hundred objects and adjusted their scenery density (image complexity, to use the actual term) to either Dense, Very Dense or Extremely Dense. I also just straight up deleted a lot that ultimately were not necessary and only partially visible under certain viewpoints. When on Normal, you see only the largest and most noticeable buildings around the periphery of the airport - the majority of the smaller buildings and objects are still visible in the center area. Frames are still on the low side at 15FPS (I also keep a LOT of graphical bells and whistles turned on, and I don't run overclocked while designing) but this is at least flyable. If I set to Extremely Dense I get 5FPS (see last two images).

I've decided not to stop here however. There's still the problem that after you land and set the scenery to Dense or Very Dense the frames are still in the double digits but you can be parked all the way over on the ANG tarmac and look back towards the main tarmac and see your frames sputter. There's no sense at all having detailed objects on the main tarmac when you are arriving at the ANG tarmac. So once I have all the static aircraft and people placed as well as finish up the Marine tarmac I will compile the airport with a separate object BGL file. I'll then extract the various detail objects from each area into their own BGL files - ANG, Marine, Main Tarmac North, Main Tarmac and Main Tarmac South. Then it will simply be a matter of enabling the detail BGL for the parking area you'll be arriving/departing in prior to loading up your flight (by changing the extension from .off to .bgl for that particular file).

So for an arrival you would decide which ramp you will be parking on depending on the nature of your flight and enable the BGL file. You'll land at Normal scenery density and after taxiing off the runway switch over to Dense, Very Dense or Extremely Dense to enable detailed objects. Each parking area is defined so you can tell ATC where you want to park so you end up in the detail area you enabled.

Next up then is to get all the Military AI Works aircraft set up again since I reformatted everything and then use Static Aircraft Model Maker to generate some static craft I can place around. I'm going to make it possible to control the density of static aircraft separate from the rest of the scenery objects - but more on that once it's done.

 

[Gaiiden]

Weeding out the static aircraft

Quick update: I've begun converting MAIW AI models over to static aircraft using Static Aircraft Model Maker. However in order to determine which of the tons of AI aircraft are the ones that actually visit KWRI I need to poke through all the traffic files using AI Flight Planner. This is a rather arduous process since AIFP does not let me sort flight plans according to arrival/departure airport to show me all the flights that pass through KWRI for a given traffic file. If anyone has a better way of doing this please respond to my previous thread here with suggestions. Thanks!

Once I have all the static aircraft rendered I'll know which developers to contact for permission to distribute them with the scenery. Hopefully all agree.

 

[Gaiiden]

Static Aircraft In!

After a week of back-and-forth with Don (SAMM developer) to fix up a bunch of issues I was having when trying to create static models of the various MAIW craft that visit KWRI I've finally reached a point where I can get them placed in the scenery.

Seriously, HUGE THANKS to Don for the support and to Arno as well for helping out where he was needed when MCX issues arose. I'm glad I was able to help make both tools a bit more robust.

There are 137 individual aircraft that visit KWRI during the week and I've exported them all as static aircraft although I obviously don't plan to use them all. Once I have them placed and finalized I'll be removing the unused models to slim the static library down, as it's currently 322MB. I considered exporting one of each aircraft type but I felt it wasn't worth saving space and I would much rather have each static aircraft be unique, as it would be if you had AI traffic running. Of course, if the user does decide to run AI and static aircraft together then there's a chance they may see duplicate aircraft, but fortunately you have to be up close and look at the tail number of most aircraft to tell them apart.

I plan to have all the static aircraft placed and the finer details (stairs, people, vehicles, equipment, etc) added by Tue. Then I'll begin the process of breaking down the object files and static airport files. By Friday I should be cleaning up for a release next Monday. Unfortunately with the various SAMM issues I'll probably miss my end of month deadline but at least it wasn't due to slacking!

Soooo close....

 

[Gaiiden]

Marine Ramp and People

Went through each tarmac and added props and people as well as finally putting the finishing touches on the Marine Ramp where the helicopters go. I think I might also make a static version of the F/A-18 Marine livery as well to place there - I only see helis in the aerial images but the lower parking area seems suitable for jets as well.

Again, all this detail is way too much for the sim to handle. Next step is to set scenery density for the newly-added items and then break the object BGL generated by ADE upon compile into several BGLs that can be turned on and off by the user depending on where in the airport they plan to arrive or depart from. If you're leaving from the ANG tarmac you're not going to miss all the detail that's gone from the main tarmac because it's so far away. Even taxiing by isn't worth the performance hit.

Sun is rising, and since I'm an east facing room that means the temperature is as well - almost 90 again today so no working during the day. Siesta time!

 

[Gaiiden]

Turn down the lights...

I remembered there were still a few important details I needed to add to the airport before I could begin breaking up files and such - night lights, taxi signs, airport starts and a beacon. Oh, I also had to make sure you could request ATC to send you to the one hangar that's available for parking as well.

Taxi signs were easy and I could reference aerial photos for placement. I also made sure to read the KWRI airport remarks to dig up info - like how they note there are no runway exit signs for taxiways J and K. I even, for the first time, remembered to add those runway distance markers.

Night lighting was a bit more tedious. I also referenced the airport remarks listed online to find that some taxiways were unlit but had reflective markers and some lights were out in some areas of the airport. I also did not light the two taxiways coming off RWY24-06 that no longer exist in real life but I put there because the MSE ground textures still show them. I was able to see and measure distances between the ground lighting in Google Earth to be able to place them all accurately.

Of course the night lighting added its own performance problem. There are 702 light objects in the airport - including blue taxiway lights, blue reflective poles and green taxi line lights. To help mitigate the performance hit these objects can cause the user has several options. First, I compiled out the lights into a separate BGL so the user can choose to simply not let them load in the scenery at all. If they are included, setting the scenery density to Normal will hide all the reflective poles, taxi line lights (as they are only on one tarmac area) and roughly half of the taxiway lights. This is "landing mode" as it will give you a good overall lighting for the airport as you approach and land. Once on the ground and moving slower you can up the scenery to Dense which will give you full edge lighting, roughly half the amount of reflective markers and roughly half the taxi line lights. Bumping up to Very Dense will give you the full 702 light objects. The last three images depict this.

Next thing to do was compile out the various densities of static aircraft, which will be separately controlled from the in-sim scenery density settings. Low amount of static aircraft includes a few scattered planes around the tarmacs that do not take up any parking locations, with exception to the helicopters on the Marine ramp, and is meant to be used with 60-100% MAIW traffic. Medium static aircraft adds a decent helping of aircraft taking up parking locations on all tarmacs and is meant to be used with ~40% MAIW traffic. High static aircraft fills up almost all parking locations, leaving 1-3 of each type open for the user, and is meant to be used with no AI traffic. Each static aircraft BGL has it's own accompanying airport BGL so parking locations and AI pathing are removed to prevent the user or AI from taking up a parking spot already occupied by a static aircraft.

Finally, I took note of the static aircraft I was using for the scenery and re-compiled the static library with only the necessary aircraft to reduce it from 347MB to a slightly slimmer but still substantial 211MB. I'm just going to host that myself and link to it in the ReadMe to not have to deal with library upload limits - and to not burden those who wouldn't have planned to use static aircraft anyways.

Speaking of static aircraft, I don't even know right now if I'll be including them at all. Depends on how discussion over at MAIW forums goes. Though I would like to ask here too - would it be wrong of me to just make the model/texture files available if I can't get in touch of the original authors because they've left the FS scene or I can't find info on how to reach? Obviously I plan to include full credits for all models/textures in the ReadMe.

Wow. I'm almost done. ALMOST DONE. Just have to start working on the documentation tomorrow and get the website ready to host the airport page. I want to try to release tomorrow or Saturday as then a new aircraft will be out that I have to review for AVSIM so want to be able to dedicate my attention to that and take a general design break for a week or so as well.

(Normal Density)

(Dense Density)

(Very Dense Density)

 

[Gaiiden]

Ship it

Well that's that. Files all packaged up and sent off to the AVSIM library - should be available on Monday So many new things I've learned while making this airport - I have the full list in my release announcement.

Here are some stats from ADE on the project:

Aprons: 38
Generic Buildings: 272
Guidelines: 187
Library Objects: 13702
Parking Spots: 97
Taxi Links: 3859
Taxi Points: 3871
Taxi Signs: 122

I should note that I got these numbers by loading all the individual object BGLs into the same airport project - there is some overlap in the object BGL files but there are definitely still over 13,000 objects

Obviously that many objects isn't going to work in a scene at once, but the user has a nice guide I wrote up that will let them customize the scenery performance to match their machines. Here is also the parking reference guide I created to let people know where it would be best for them to start/end a flight based on the type of aircraft they are flying.

Thanks to everyone for following along. I'll be announcing my next project soon. You can see the final release image gallery on the airport page.

 

[Ztimbre]

So, were you able to finally get permission from all the object authors? I remember you posted somewhere else about having trouble tracking them down.

 

[Gaiiden]

No, I still haven't found any sort of contact info for any of them. Two of them I was able to send PMs on the MAIW forums but that's it. Some I'm told don't come around much anymore. Therefore the static library is not in the AVSIM release.

Frankly I'm rather annoyed at this.

 

[Ztimbre]

Hmm, yes, it is annoying but I think you made the right choice. It's always better to err on the side of caution and respect the copyright of the original authors.

Anyway, congratulations on the release. You've clearly put a lot of work into it, and I'm sure it will be a success, even without the statics!