Need macros of the period

[pooch]

I am not a designer, but have started to use macros. But unfortunately most are modern and I found only very few usable for the 'Roaring Thirties", especially vehicles and people.
As I would like to populate same sceneries a bit more, I would be happy if someone has some more information.
Thanks

[biplaneflyer]

Yeah - if anyone has any 'Golden era' macro's they'd like to share I can post them on my site under the Scenery Development section - which is another job I've got to get around to doing. I seem to remember Leon's sceneries having some nice one's!


Pooch if you look around some of the big sites and Franks Hangar - www.flightsimsetc.dhs.org/ - there are some around - plus if you need planes - use old FS98 files and mdltobgl to create api's. and of course you know about the set that comes with GW3? Unless your G-max, Afcad and TTools proficient.

[simonovman]

Ahem - biplanebloke, could you go into a bit of detail on that part about converting airplane models to apis? That sounds very promising and this is the first I've run into anyone who knows how to do it.

Do you know where this "mdltobgl" can be obtained?

Leon Louis did a set of "bush plane" apis which I think Avsim has - they're basically more modern planes but there's a Bellanca on floats, and a Goose. Also he did a "show planes" set which again is mostly modern aerobatic planes (Pitts etc.) but it includes a Ryan ST, and, if you're not terribly picky about biplanes, a Stampe.

One thing that is needed is some appropriately dressed peeps. Just the other day I was looking over an otherwise excellent airfield (which I won't identify) where there was one young lady whose ensemble, while undeniably fetching, would have gotten her arrested for sure in the GW era.

[biplaneflyer]

MDLtoBGL website www.avsim.com/hangar/utils/mdltobgl/id2.htm

read instructions - takes less than 15 mins to figure out - find some old fs98 planes (some don't work ) - and have fun populating your scenery. p.s. make sure you put the aircraft texture files into your scenery texture file!) Takes less than 5 minutes to nmake an api and place in yoour scenery. (I had a collection of @100 sailplanes/GA planes -but didn't back them up and loss them in a computer crash!)

Presume you know how to place api's in scenery?

Of course the proper way to do it these days is to turn FS9 planes into AI (the models generally look better), and use AFCAD and TTools to place them -but haven't got around to doing that and it takes longer!

P.S. ask authors for permission to use - if you can get hold of them - if not include their readme instructions with any scenery files you may upload and credit them-if your using them for your own amusement it don't matter

[willyb]

Hi Guys
I have a lot of them already converted, the hardest ones to find and do, are the American or US army and navy planes. As a matter of fact I was stumped so I wrote to Bill Lyons . He had a small program that can read OAF files from FS5 , he sent it to me and said good luck! Well I got it to work , the static planes at McChord Field in Washington State are these ones.
I can put together some macros and send them off to Paul . If you are interested?. let me know what you are looking for in particular. Also if you know how to paint or use PSP you can redo the signs etc. on any macro (example) if I have a hanger called "Misty" you can take the texture file and change it to whatever you like (Kilroy's Field) it is called improvise if anyone needs any help with anything as far as scenery is concerned, I am not the best there is but I will help in any way I can....WillyB

[pooch]

Willyb, great if you can contribute with anything you have and fits 'the era'. I particularly miss vehicles and people dressed as in the 30's.

I will be out for 10 days. When I am bac I will check if Paul could post a first collection.

Thanks

[biplaneflyer]

Golden Age Macro Collection started -see scenery building page at site below.

More welcome - especially Golden Age planes!

[simonovman]

Bless you, lad! Several items in there I really can use.

(That's if I can ever use ANYTHING. I've just given up on Airport; it's got more bugs than an ant farm - today for no reason it deleted a complex flatten I'd spent all morning on, and it's done that sort of thing before. I'm to the point that I'm afraid to let Airport near anything I care about; practically everything in the present project has had to be installed at least twice because Airport managed to dump it - though when I WANT to delete something, Airport stubbornly hangs onto it.... I'm still trying to get somebody to tell me how to use Sbuilder to place objects but so far no luck. Sorry, sorry, OT but it's been a long day.)

To get back on the subject - one very useful macro, Avsim has it, is Jimmy Martin's "gray brick dock." Nothing much in itself, just a big rectangular gray slab, but it can be used to build bigger structures. For example I just finished re-creating a big seaplane dock facility using nine, count 'em, of that particular api. Lots of potential as a building block.

[ScruffyDuck]

If you need help in plcing objects with SBuilder PM me - took me a while to figure it out

[simonovman]

So I downloaded MDL2BGL. Great: yet another program that doesn't work. I got as far as the input selection and it kept insisting it couldn't find the .air files. Which were right there, if they hadn't been I couldn't have clicked on them - in the same folders with the .mdl files, which it found right away and with no whingeing - but it swore it didn't see them.

It had already demonstrated that it couldn't find its assembler with both hands, so I wasn't surprised. That "not found" error seems to be all too typical of these progs; I want somebody to develop a utility that will allow me to pick the bloody thing up and ram its head into the folder and say, "THERE, YOU CLOT, SEE FOR YOURSELF!"

Oh well. I didn't need another way to waste time anyway...but why can't they all work as smoothly as AFCAD? It never gives me any lip....

[Jakemaster]

I used rwy12 for objects, but I can't use it now because it doesn't support API. I cant figure out Airport, and Sbuilder doesn't work.

What I would really like is if someone would make/convert scenery to be compatible with the XML style of rwy12.

[simonovman]

Sbuilder certainly DOES work; I've used it. I don't know much about HOW to use it yet, but it's flatly untrue that it doesn't work.

But that is OT and I accept the blame for the digression.

Back to MDLtoBGL - I tried again and again, finally decided maybe I've got a bad download so I downloaded it again. Same results exactly. It can't find ANYTHING. (When I clicked on Help, it claimed it couldn't find that either!) I sent an email but I don't have very much hope of a reply since it's an old program.

I need it, too, or something like it. I'm hurting for aircraft macros. So far I've found exactly one - a float Bellanca, beautifully done but pretty lonely out there with the whole airport to itself. I know some people use the AIs for parked aircraft but I don't know how to do that and in any case it seems excessively complicated.

Anybody who's got a WORKING copy of the program, PM me, please?

[ScruffyDuck]

and Sbuilder doesn't work

It sure does

Anybody who's got a WORKING copy of the program, PM me, please

I'm downloading it now - let me see if I can get it to work


OK you are correct that it cannot find it's help file but that is not uncommon in older programs. The file is there in the folder you placed it in as MDLBGL.hlp. If you double click it directly in explorer then it comes up fine. I will give it a read through and report back

UPDATE
OK I cannot get the program to recognize that scasm.exe is actually in the folder I have given it so I am beginning to think that you are right - at least you and I cannnot make the program work. However I am not giving up on this just yet

[Admin]

RE: MDL2BGL, when it rejects your choice of SCASM, just close the config window and it will start up

Be aware though that it will not work (or work well) with anything created with FSDS, FSDS2 or GMax

Also be aware that any API made this way will be an intense frame rate hog and that 20% of them will give you a compile error when you compile your bgl.

Frankly, it would be far easier to learn TTools and make AI traffic. Better looking, better frame rates and better scenery

[simonovman]

No doubt you are right, but still it's frustrating to have something work that badly.

Yes, it did start up anyway; but as I say, it still wouldn't go anywhere because it claimed it couldn't find the air file.

I don't understand why a small API would cause a bigger frame hit than an AI made from a model of similar size and complexity. (And it would have to be a pretty simple model, because this tool warns you it can't handle a mdl file bigger than 133 kb.)

The trouble with using AIs as parked aircraft is that it's so limiting. If you're developing something as an add-on for other people to use, then you have to consider which planes they're likely to have, and that's very hard to predict; in the present case that pretty much limits you to the GW AIs. Which are very nice but not all of them compatible with a given period; and besides, that's going to get repetitious.

Then too the GW AIs are pretty much US stuff; what about if you're working on a field in Europe or Africa or wherever?

It does look as if that's going to be our only alternative, though. Thanks, Scruffyduck, for letting me know it's not just me....