27 replies to this topic

[jschall]

 152 at Emma - 2.png   2.07MB   4 downloads

Do you remember that Ed Wells (Falcon409) built his version of Emma Field for FSX, from the ground up, using GEX?

From his readme file:

''Emma Field FSX:
This is a a simple rendition of everyone's favorite airport and hopefully works for everyone who installs it. I am using GEX and default terrain mesh, so I am hopeful that with the thousands of various computer setups and FSX setups, tweaks and aditions, that this scenery will work for most everyone. If, for some reason it does not work for you, sorry there's no tech support with this scenery, lol. I am limited in my knowledge of scenery design and beyond what I've already produced I can't offer any additional assistance.

Ok, disclaimer taken care of, here's what is included in this zip:
Main Emma Field Folder with the photoimagery, exclude, flatten, Instant Scenery/scenery file and autogen files
A large amount of scenery objects, which you may already have, so check it out before installing as you may be able to eliminate a lot of duplications:
Len's EZ Scenery
EZ_Terminals_ss
Small _airport_objects3
kb_static_aircraft''

I installed it over Orbx PNW, so there appears to be a level difference around the perimeter. I have not tried GaryGB`s FSX flatten file, but maybe it would improve the surrounding cliffs.

IMHO, it looks great. And little or no FPS hit. There`s even a glider parked on the grass, just like in the original!

[Francois Dumas]

Nice !

[falcon409]

Jeff, still working on an updated ground texture. Actually, the ground texture isn't the problem, it's the terrain around the airport. A normal flatten isn't going to work because the surrounding elevations change so dramatically in all four directions that a simple flatten leave sheer walls all around. If I try to raise the elevation to minimize the "wall" effect, it has a similar effect where there's a drop off to the south. . . .more sheer walls going down. I tried a sloped flatten with about a 10% slope to it and that looked pretty good except that the runway was partially covered because it was no longer a "flat" surface. I'm still playing with this, but it's frustrating to say the least.

[Ian P]

Hi Ed... I was just told you couldn't get in here, by a mutual acquaintance, however you're here, so that information is clearly no longer valid. Welcome back!

You'll probably need to modify part of the surrounding terrain to "ease out" the slopes, rather than trying to eliminate them entirely. Even then it's a less then straight forward process, as I proved repeatedly with RAF Friston.

I presume you are using SBuilderX to work with the flatten polys?

Cheers,

Ian P.

[falcon409]

Ian P, on 15 February 2012 - 08:50 AM, said:

. . . . . .You'll probably need to modify part of the surrounding terrain to "ease out" the slopes, rather than trying to eliminate them entirely. Even then it's a less then straight forward process, as I proved repeatedly with RAF Friston. I presume you are using SBuilderX to work with the flatten polys?
Cheers,
Ian P.

Yes, SBuilderX and I was actually trying to "stack" a series of poly's moving out from the main flatten, thinking I could gradually lessen the "wall" effect, but that hasn't worked like I envisioned.

[Ian P]

Try just creating a simple four-corner poly sloping away - the "bottom" of the slope can be wider than the "top" of the slope or vice versa and there don't have to be any right angles anywhere.

We're back to RAF Friston at this point, which is my testbed for slopes as the terrain (and the airfield operating surface) is nightmarish from a mesh perspective. I've found that sometimes the best answer can often be a four-corner poly with all four corners at different altitudes!

Ian P.

[GaryGB]

Hi Ed:

I was wondering how you've been doing since this last somewhat disconcerting post I'd seen from you here:

http://forum.simflig...post__p__432871


Previously we'd discussed your original release of "a 'alternate RWY extension' in the NE corner of the main KEWL airfield which was FSX-compatible" in this thread:

http://forum.simflig...post__p__432904


...which IIRC was initially released and discussed in this thread:

http://forum.simflig...__1#entry403262


Since many here may be interested in your scenery to enable a place-holder for KEWL in FSX while other perhaps much larger scale project development continues with the endeavor to bring Emma Field 'back to life' in FSX, may I inquire again on behalf of all interest parties:


* Do you still have your "Emma Field" FSX scenery package available, and if so, could you also tell folks where / how to download it ?

* -Or if that package has been deleted from SOH and your personal archives, is a new version under construction ?

(I presume the answer to the latter question is "Yes"... if I followed this thread correctly)


Thanks in advance for your reply, and I hope all is well with you at this time.

GaryGB

[falcon409]

Hi Gary,
Yes, the previously touted EmmaX "Alternate" scenery is still available, I just never went public with it as very few folks outside of this forum seemed to be interested. Having said that, as the posts here confirm, I am reworking the scenery because after having a singular success with the USGS Seamless server I was able to extract some ground texturing that I thought looked better than what I had used originally. Since I did the original scenery I have loaded Orbx's PNW scenery and that in turn has completely changed the look and general elevations of the area in and around Emma Field. . . .so much so that if one has that PNW scenery the original scenery will still look ok, but the "wall" effect I speak of will be very obvious and just takes away from what it could look like if I knew more about how to control the surrounding mesh.

IanP has given me a direction to follow and I plan to get right to that later today and this evening. Hopefully I can find a happy medium that will both minimize the effect of a flatten in a very undulating terrain environment and still look "natural" if that's possible.

[jschall]

Ed:

Even if you don't succeed in getting the flattening near-perfect, I don't find the wall effect disconcerting at all.

I just took a drive around your latest masterpiece in my red Jeep, looking for the walls. I could see 'em through the trees, all right, but far enough away from the runway and buildings so as to be nearly invisible. From the air they're hardly visible, either.

Since your objective is to provide a ''place-holder'' for Emma-lovers to use while waiting for something else - I hope you wouldn't mind sharing what you come up with.

It would be interesting to see what your version looks like on FSX without PNW installed...

Anyway, Ed, I for one really appreciate your scenery talent!

Aside: Ed did me another big favour a couple of years ago. My local airport, Saint-Mathieu de Beloeil (CSB3) is wrongly-located and downright ugly in FSX. I wrote to Ed asking if anything could be done to correct the location, so he redid the whole airport, working from Google Earth photos to get the colours right. Thanks again for that, Ed!

http://www.okad.ca/cvq/scenes.php

[GaryGB]

Hi Ed:

I'm sure many folks will appreciate having a place-holder in FSX for KEWL made available again, this time FTX compatible.


As many of us have seen in FSX with higher resolution terrain mesh, airports placed near hillsides will likely have a "sloped cliff" where the flat RWY had to be cut out of the nearby terrain (bulldozed by Chicago Mayor Daley's guy that razed Meigs Field ?).

In the case of KEWL's RWY location, the hillside between the utility corridor cut zone and the Hood Canal is dome-shaped, so in order to have a flat RWY to allow normal taxiing and/or AI aircraft, "some" excavation of that domed hillside will necessarily result in a cliff slope to the West side (toward the utility corridor) if the real world shape of the surrounding terrain is to be preserved in higher resolution mesh, so there is only so much one might wish to do in that area, IMHO, without losing other desirable nearby terrain details.


FYI: This "RWY cliff" scenario has already been dealt with by the upcoming EFSTEP package in a fairly aesthetic way for FSX.


BTW: For diehard nostalgics, a "cliff-less" legacy terrain mode is also planned for EFSTEP as one of multiple KEWL-area terrain mesh configuration options in FS8, FS9 and FSX EFSTEP versions, along with fixes for vector and texture content to allow compatibility with popular 3rd party scenery end users may have installed and active in the Emma Field vicinity.

These options have purposely been implemented in EFSTEP as terrain mesh rather than vector flattens for a number of reasons, via a mix of commercial and custom proprietary GIS software processing, as well as a lot of learning and manual labor over the last few years working in my limited available free time.

I have meticulously examined all the scenery add-ons I could find which overlap the KEWL area with file coverage, in an effort to be sure all flattens have been identified and accommodated, while maintaining the precise original elevation and location of the KEWL airfield and scenery objects in EFSTEP.

I just thought I'd mention this, as it may save others some considerable time and effort learning the limitations and "gotchas" of making / using sloped flattens; I'd also hope this might save me some time... by avoiding having others make and distribute alternate KEWL airfields with incorrect elevations (which might require further laborious accommodations / corrections for EFSTEP prior to beta and release).

Thus, perhaps some may wish to wait and use the  EFSTEP mesh solution(s) for the KEWL terrain challenges rather than multiple parties attempting to create their own vector "fix" for the "cliff" near the RWY, and at worst so dramatically altering the shape of the contiguous terrain on other users installations that vast amounts of workarounds are needed for EFSTEP to accommodate a majority of end users different configurations.

NOTE: My approach and earnest goal in creating EFSTEP is first and foremost to maintain compatibility between the FS8, FS9, and FSX versions of KEWL for a consistent "look-and-feel"... whether for MP flying involving differing FS Emma version participants, or for allowing a "continuity of content" experience as Emma-ites upgrade to other FS versions of Emma Field over time.


But certainly I understand the enjoyment as well as the frustration that one may have fixing up ones own FS scenery, as my most frequent FS activity is scenery building rather than actual flying time (although I do greatly enjoy getting out to fly when I successfully tear myself away from "terrain tinkering" for a while).

And it's good to see others thinking along the lines of contributing to a "Emma Field Reconstruction Project" (aka "EFRP") here at EFFC Forum again like we saw at the transition from FS2002 to FS2004 while waiting for a KEWL update from LAGO.


< Hmmm... "Cliff" may become another 'persona' around KEWL along with "Water Creep" in an upcoming episode of "Emma Tales" ! >


PS: Ed, have you considered making your original "Emma for FSX" package available again to accommodate GEX / non-FTX FSX users  


Thanks for the update, and good luck with your project !

GaryGB

[falcon409]

Here are two shots of the WIP (w/Orbx PNW active). You can see in the long shot the "cliffs" in the foreground (still working on that), however the major cliffs along the western edge where the power lines are have been all but eliminated using IanP's suggestion of a 4-corner sloped flatten (thanks Ian).


Note: the autogen (trees) are from the PNW scenery, I haven't done any additional autogen yet.

[falcon409]

Just a quick observation: This looks so much better when I shut off the Orbx scenery and just have UTX and GEX running. The cliffs become rolling hills, no sharp corners and I noticed another problem in Orbx. . . .at the end of rwy 18, the elevation drops off again about 50ft from the end of the rwy. So what I have is basically the end of rwy 18 looking like a springboard at the city pool. This is with the flatten going well beyond that area, so the flatten is being overridden by Orbx. . . .great!

[Ian P]

Yes, I have flatten/exclude problems with Orbx sceneries as well. They seem to happen to me when I put landclass files in the same CVX file as the flatten, which causes the CVX to stop working altogether, flatten, exclude and landclass.

I've not found a solution to that one yet.

Ian P.

[falcon409]

Well, I think I have this for both PNW scenery and base scenery (w/GEX&UTX) to the point where it's very usable. The very central area was a problem in that the sloped flatten didn't allow for an AFCAD produced rwy to sit flat, some portions of it were hidden by the slope. Soooooooooo, I hit on an idea. . . .in SBuilderX I drew an area that encompassed the main airport parking and runway, set it as a "hole" and knocked that area out of the sloped flatten poly, then I highlighted that area again and gave it a set altitude to match the elevation at the center of the runway. What you end up with basically is like taking a paper towel and having the corners slope upward and take a sheet of glass and lay it in the middle to flatten that section. Seems to work quite well surprisingly, lol.

[jschall]

I'm looking forward to trying out your latest version, Ed.

Consider me a Beta tester!

[falcon409]

jschall, on 18 February 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

I'm looking forward to trying out your latest version, Ed.
Consider me a Beta tester!

Sure thing Jeff. It's changed several times since those screens were shot, so I'm going to post some new ones. There are some elevation "problems" here and there, but overall, it's very enjoyable to fly around that area now with Cushman Meadows, Bear Gulch and now Emma Field all within range of each other. I flew "Ant's" Drifter around last night shooting touch n' go's for a while just to get a feel for Emma from the air and on approach. I think it works pretty well. More to come!

[falcon409]

Ok, here's a series of shots from the Drifter:










I still have a few minor things left, like adding some parking spots and laying in the rwy for the Gliders, but it should be ready to Beta Test later today.

[falcon409]

Jeff, you should be getting a link to a download pretty quickly!

[falcon409]

Well, I went back to some early posts concerning EmmaX when Bill and Holger were still active with the project and Bill mentioned that he had to move the rwy for Emma south several yards (actually more than several, lol) because the "18" end was basically a steep ravine with the new mesh that Holger had produced. That bears out what I found when trying to initially get the runway and the elevations to match. I also ended up having to shift the rwy away from the drop-off to get it back on solid ground.

[jschall]

Here`s how it looks in late winter, from the North and South approaches. With his latest work Ed has done a great job of minimizing the ravines. I seem to recall a big ravine at the South end in the Lago original...

And somebody (Fritz?) has worked hard at clearing the trees on the 18 approach!

 trike at emma 18.jpg   465.84K   3 downloads


 trike at emma 36.jpg   449.87K   3 downloads