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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2017 14:19:01 GMT -5
I've been busily working on a few local X-Plane French sceneries which I wanted to have finished all at the same time, but as they're taking longer than expected, I thought I'd let you know about the first one. It's Aérodrome de Castillonnès LF4722 in the Lot et Garonne and it's where I got signed for my French ULM licence shortly after coming to France. I've done some screenshots to give an idea of what it's like and also a few comparison shots against real life. A real life shot of the main hangar And from my scenery Several scenery shots Some shots comparing a real life approach to one in X-Plane. Sorry about the quality of the real ones as they were grabbed from an old video from 4 years ago. Steve, I've packed the scenery up into a Zip file together with installation and some other info and if you'd like to have a copy to try out in X-Plane CLICK HEREIf you do give it a go, first try flying at the airfield, which is included in default X-Plane 11, without the scenery installed. Then install my scenery and let me know what you think. Best wishes, Roger BTW - I've found the best aircraft to fly in this scenery is the Icarus C42 which is available in the downloads section of the X-Plane web site. And the best version of it, although a bit over-powered in my view, is the third 'standard' version, the one with the black panel.
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Post by sgtmajor on Sept 14, 2017 8:27:51 GMT -5
WOW!!! WOW!!!! WOW!!!! You are a genius!!!! (smile)
Roger, those look stunning. My gosh....I can't believe how well everything is represented....Looks perfect!! Obviously you placed the airport items etc., but is the scenery surrounding the airport....was that already there, or did you have to place those items too? Wonderful Stuff Roger....Looks Perfect!!!
Cheers,
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2017 10:21:38 GMT -5
...but is the scenery surrounding the airport....was that already there, or did you have to place those items too? Cheers, ha ha, that's why I said if/when you do give it a go, Steve, fly at Castillonnes before dropping in my folders and again after. Don't want to give too much away, but before it was almost completely bare - nothing like the Lot et Garonne at all, which I found very disappointing because it's a lovely and very interesting area to fly in. So I've spent the last couple weeks planting trees and building houses and barns - my hands are red raw with the toil of a French peasant. Actually it's been great fun and a brilliant learning experience. I think that the feel is very authentic now - obviously I've had to take one or two liberties and although I've dropped in hundreds of houses and barns (and goodness knows how many trees) in the right positions in Google Earth (but still nowhere near the number actually there) I'm sure that they bear no relationship to what's actually there. And I didn't even bother starting on the swimming pools Anyway, hope you enjoy it and if it works OK (ie I haven't made any mistakes packaging it up) I might upload it for everyone. I'm already back working on Malbec LF2467 where I fly from so hope to have that done in the not too distant future. Then you can do the flight between the two, which we do quite often. Roger
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Post by sgtmajor on Sept 17, 2017 13:04:02 GMT -5
Hi Roger.....finally got around to trying to load your scenery into my X-Plane....but I'm getting an error message.
I went into XP11 and flew around the Castillonnes area first. You're correct..........there is NOTHING there. (smile)
I then unzipped your file and copied the two folders (Castillonnes and Castillonnes_roads) into my XPlane Custom Scenery folder.
I then opened XP....selected aircraft, time, weather etc. but when the flight begins to load I get an error message that say's;
"The following scenery package has a problem and will therefore not be loaded; Custom Scenery/Castillonnes/ It requires an additional library scenery package that is not installed, or it is missing some of its files."
Any suggestions?
Cheers,
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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2017 13:34:13 GMT -5
OK Steve, I'll look into that. It's a problem that bedevils X-Plane. I have used/modified some objects from other object libraries and incorporated them in my package to save people like you having to search for them without knowing where to look and load them independently. Users are not developers but the program designers don't appreciate that. It appears that a couple have been missed. X-Plane will need to deal with this. If objects don't load in FSX, the program doesn't just stop. It's a bit mickey mouse really.
Roger
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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2017 14:52:48 GMT -5
Something that occurred to me Steve - have you got X-Plane Europe world scenery installed? I guess you probably have if it has Castillonnes in the menu, but I thought I'd ask.
But anyway, I'm going to try installing it on a completely clean machine and see if I can trace the problem
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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2017 15:06:35 GMT -5
Steve, I think (but haven't yet confirmed) that the 'missing' files are the two jpg background images that I made from Google Earth, used when creating the scenery and left out of the package.
If so, this is madness because they are not essential to make the scenery 'work' - only for a developer to edit it.
Anyway, my proposed 'clean' install should prove if I'm right.
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Post by sgtmajor on Sept 17, 2017 20:10:42 GMT -5
Something that occurred to me Steve - have you got X-Plane Europe world scenery installed? I guess you probably have if it has Castillonnes in the menu, but I thought I'd ask. But anyway, I'm going to try installing it on a completely clean machine and see if I can trace the problem I Roger. I have a completely clean install of XPlane.....no add-on's. Just thought I'd mention.....I'll leaving in the morning for a business trip and won't be back until later in the week. I'm sure the scenery issue is probably something simple......maybe even something I'm messing up....but I'm sure we'll sort through it eventually. I've been looking at your screenshots though...........Beautiful!!! I'm very impressed how well everything blends so nicely!! Cheers!!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2017 3:11:51 GMT -5
Thanks Steve, I'll have it sorted by the time you get back. No, it's not you, it's an X-Plane thing. It's a ruddy nuisance.
Various people have created various 'libraries' of objects that people can then include in sceneries - there must be 20 or more and it's a pain in the backside because often when you download a scenery, although the author provides a list of the libraries that they used (that you, poor sucker, then have to download and install separately taking maybe 5 times as long as the original scenery), they often overlook one, in which case the whole scenery is useless. It's something that X-Plane needs to address I think. I have several sceneries where this has happened and the authors are obviously oblivious.
I tried to avoid that by incorporating all the objects I used into my scenery but it apears that on this first occasion I might have used an object when I was experimenting early on that I've forgotten about.
Not to worry. All part of life's rich tapestry!
Roger
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Post by sgtmajor on Sept 18, 2017 8:03:51 GMT -5
Not to worry. All part of life's rich tapestry! Isn't that the truth!!! While I never created scenery for FSX......if not mistaken, I think they had a similar issue. I'm sure you'll get it sorted.....but as they say, if it's worth doing....it's not going to be easy. (smile) I'll be back home in a couple days....this is just a short 2 day trip. Cheers,
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2017 8:33:16 GMT -5
I'll be back home in a couple days....this is just a short 2 day trip. Cheers, Ok ...... no pressure then ha ha Have a good one Steve Roger
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2017 10:16:34 GMT -5
OK Steve, cracked it. I used a library called ff_library_extended_LOD which, when I used it while developing the scenery, I thought was part of X-Plane (because in the development tool it shows up merely as 'library' and not with its full name). You can download it HERE and then you must unzip it and place it also in your Custom Scenery folder with my folders. It seems that X-Plane thinks that all of its users will go off and download and install every library available but fails to realise that some will have neither the motivation nor the skill to do that and that's what I think needs to be addressed. The Master List is at forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/90776-master-list-of-libraries/There's just one more thing (I think) but I'm still learning as well. In your Custom Scenery folder you'll find a small text file called scenery_packs.ini Open it for editing using Notepad and you'll see a list of everything you have in your Custom Scenery folder including my two folders, 'Castillonnes' and 'castillonnes_roads'. I've found in my follow-up tests that 'castillonnes_roads' must be ABOVE 'Castillonnes' in the file, otherwise the changes and additions that I made to the roads don't show up i.e something like.. I 1000 Version SCENERY SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/ff_library_extended_LOD/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/castillonnes_roads/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/Castillonnes/ SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/Global Airports/ I think that that should about do it. X-Plane seems to be a bit more demanding than FSX in what it asks its users to do independently of the program itself but I think that what you get back is worth the effort. And once they've got seasonality, ATC and AI traffic sorted, it'll be a world-beater IMO Roger
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Post by bhk on Sept 19, 2017 16:10:17 GMT -5
A fascinating thread....even tho' I don't have X-Plane! You've done a super job in creating that scenery, Roger. Kudos and a round of applause, mate.
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Post by sgtmajor on Sept 19, 2017 19:19:09 GMT -5
Good Stuff Roger!! I'll be home tomorrow evening but it may be a couple days before getting things downloaded, installed etc. (Us poor working stiffs.........don't you feel sorry for us? (smile)).
REALLY good stuff about the road file being above the other. Over the years, I've found some of my FlightSim scenery issues was traced back to that very same thing. Amazing!!!
Once you get all these little XP11 nuances figured out, I'm sure it will be a breeze!!!
Cheers!!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2017 6:37:32 GMT -5
Thanks gents. Bruce, if you are still into flightsim, it's worth taking a look at X-Plane. One of the really big problems with the MS offerings was that they were/are based on old technology gaming engines and the moment you started designing detailed scenery with lots of objects (which are what make sceneries in the long run) they were reduced to a snails pace ie frame rates in single figures.
I lost interest with my Kai Tak FS2004 scenery that I never even got around to finishing even though I had lots of good responses about it, because at that time you needed a supercomputer to run it that was beyond the scope of ordinary people at that time. And because of the outdated software technology behind it, there was no way forward from that point.
And the same still applies today. My machine runs highly detailed X-Plan sceneries with FRs of 30+ whereas if I load say Heathrow Extreme into my FSX, I'm down to a display that goes tick tock ie it's unusable.
Yes, X-Plane has a long way still to go. Its ATC isn't good and it doesn't have programmable AI traffic, which the MS FS products have shown are essential. It also lacks seasonality ie trees that change colour automatically with the seasons etc, but I believe that if people (users and developers) start to support it, these things will come. And when they do, I think that it will be unbeatable. I'm still gobsmacked that I can 'take off' from an airfield in my neck of the woods (the rural Dordogne) and follow the roads between towns and villages. And this at a time when the area is blank and vanilla-like in FSX and trees, which are fully detailed, individual 3D in X-Plane are represented by flat photoscenery in FSX.
I'm right behind it anyway, and as a 'designer' (of sorts) I've thoroughly enjoyed the experience of creating objects in Sketchup (much easier to use than Gmax) and seeing them almost instantly in X-Plane using tools that are readily available and/or come with the software rather than having to scratch around the corners of the internet in order to find out how to do it. Mind you, I have to admit that having delved a bit into MS FS in the past has made things a bit easier.
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