Sunday, October 21, 2012

Eglin AFB - reprise




Some months ago, my computer experienced an hard disk failure which cause the loss of some FSX-related work-in-progress experiments, including the Eglin AFB scenery I used for my F-35 screenshots. As you may be aware of, the Eglin AFB in Florida, US will be the main training facility in the world for pilots and ground crews of all the F-35 variants.
Now in Italy we have a saying "non tutto il male viene per nuocere" (not all evil comes to harm) meaning that sometimes bad things bring positive outcomes. In this case, I took a break from the F-14D cockpit (I am in the very tedious process of coding the advisory/caution lights...) and I have redone the Eglin AFB scenery from scratch. Now, I am happy to say that the new version is better, both in terms of colors and blending.
It is still a day only, no autogen, no 3D objects scenery - and I've just aligned the runways and got rid of all the airport structures... but looks pretty good in screenshots!
It is a 1m/pixel scenery, with some areas at 50cm/pixel...so it is quite a large file - about 5.50Gb. With all these limitations I am not sure if it worth to share it...but if it makes sense, I'll try to do it.


10 comments:

Unknown said...

I'd download it

SpazSinbad said...

Apparently there is a way to use Google Earth scenery. A online friend sent me NAS Nowra, Australia Google Earth scenery (now lost in proverbial disk crash) that was very realistic compared to ordinary FSX scenery for that area.

Rob Meador said...

Yes please share the scenery! I live and work just minutes from Eglin AFB and would love some local scenery to fly around.

By the way, the F-35s are flying on a daily basis now.. often in 2 ship formations. Had one land literally right above me the other day. Has a very high pitched whine to the engine. Id even say higher pitched than an F-16

Orion said...

Just curious: is the water masked properly as well?

ScimmiaSpaziale said...

Well, there are some issues in releasing it publicly: first you have to make sure the aerial imagery you start from is not copyrighted. Second thing is it is a big chunk of data - it is compiled for 100% quality (no compression) therefore is pretty large. Anyway, I'll see if there is a way to distribute it (but I am back on the Tomcat...actually I postponed the caution/advisory system and I started modeling the RIO cockpit).

@Rob,
Actually the lack of a custom sound package is probably the biggest shortcoming of the package at the moment. Too bad I lack the skills to do that.

@Orion,
I've blended only the sea, and the blending looks quite good, IMHO. "Lagoon" (if it is the proper english word) is not blended/masked as it did not look that good.

Aside, there is a photoreal scenery of the area at SimMarket... I bought it months ago, but I have to say I was not happy with that - colors were not great, nor was the masking, and runways have not been aligned. I think it is probably OK for most people but does not really meet to my personal taste - so I did my own.

Orion said...

From my reading, a value between 80 and 90 seems to be the best compromise CompressionQuality. I've found using 85 can significantly reduce the file size, while still maintaining a fairly good look in the imagery. (Just throwing that out there, should you want to re-compile and reduce the file size.)

Honeycool said...

Dino,

May I inquire if you've decided to share this scenery anytime soon? Thanks.

Anonymous said...

That would be AWESOME if you would release, or even allow someone to download it. I have lived right off the south end of Eglin AFB all my life and would love to have this scenery... email is kpdogg1000000(AT)yahoo.com if you want to contact me.

Anonymous said...

Hi Dino please finish your great work on Elgin AFB with a compact installer if at all possible. The screen shots look amazing please share and please finalize on the F-35 your fans love your work just check youtube videos coming out. Another Fan.

udidwht said...

How's this with P3Dv3.4.22.19868?