• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

SWP Airfield Buildings - Back 2 GMax

P

Pen32Win

Charter Member
During the process of populating the new PM airfields I find a lack of Aircraft Maint./Machine Shop Buildings. That thought grew into general buildings that would be approriate for the Allied Fields. While this was not a problem with the IJAAF Fields, they had so little begin with, at the Allied Fields it has become a sticking point for me. So, not to gripe and do nothing but gripe I'm going back to GMax and try to remember how to build a building, or 20.

I've got some good ideas and have laid out about 15 different sizes ranging from 10x10M up to 52x30M. Some Wood, Some Bamboo, some painted green, some flat roofed, some peaked, etc. One goal is to keep them simple and low on the poly count. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on hand rails if you get my drift.

So if you've got a photo or just an idea about a SWP area structure you read about, or thought, Building Medium A would be great but it's concrete and a bamboo or wooden building the same size would be great, let me know. I want some diversity and many minds are better for generating it.

This will slow down the release of the PM Fields a bit but it will make them better and add to our collection of buildings for everyone to use in the future. That and I haven't touched GMax since I put out the 40mm Bofors. Time to relearn it before I totally forget how to use it.
 
Pen,
I've been searching through my Mother-in-law's photo albums, as I promised you a few weeks ago. This led to a major clean up of the garage! Anyway, I'm now in the process of scanning the most appropriate photos. Do you also want shots of gun emplacements facing out to sea (Moresby) and aerial shots of Fairfax Harbour and Moresby (admittedly taken in the early 50's, but it gives an idea of how small the town was). Marg (my wife) suggests that we look fo archival photos of Burns-Philp buildings, which were located in all of the PNG ports and were all of prewar construction.
Anyway, if you PM me your email addy I'll send you the shots I have found so far.

cheers,
Mike
 
These are what I have in mind so far. Remembering how to build and texture them is coming back pretty quick.

The big question will be can I remember how to get them out of GMax and into the CFS2 World...LOL
Didn't I hear something about a new(er) tool for creating BGL's from the GMax Export files? One where you didn't have to rewrite half the SCASM code to get it right?


The maint shop at the bottom is a throw back to some API Macros that prior to the GSL revolution I used to use. They were great for Aircraft Maint/Machine Shops. There were a whole bunch of them. Some were Open Bay Shops too. Going to have to remember how to do two sided textures to recreate that. There's something with both the part name and the texture that has to be done, I remember that much.

Anyway, looking for some more input.
 
Well I'll throw a picture in the pot...maintenance area of the 90th B.G...that I think is somewhere around the Los Negros. Enlarged the section, 2nd pic. Not too clear on the smaller buildings thou...
 
Thank You DV;

Do you know what time frame this picture was taken? From the shot I'm not sure if the B-24's and the Buildings are Green or Silver....

They've got to be silver...

BTW, did you notice the runway in the foreground? Remember what I said about the Allies building them narrow, like 100'. Look at the width of the runway and then look at the span of the B-24's closest to it.....

Anyway, we've got several Q-Huts out there, 3 that I know of, Stock, MR's and one from the ETO; but nothing like the building in the photo with the extensions out the sides..... We will now.


How about this..... It Measures 6m High, 33m Wide 16m deep. I used the B-24's next to it for scaling.
 
Sorry Pen, I do not have any information saved with this photo. just the name that it was saved with. It's been stashed away on a cd for several years now...that sure is a nice rendition you knocked out of that maint/building. Fast too...Nice.
 
No Problem DV, and Thank You.

These are going to be quick and simple buildings that rely mostly on stock textures. Most of them are only 14 polys, single LOD, very FPS freindly for crowded Allied Airfield Complexes. You could throw 100 of them down and still have less polys than a single CL. Heck the lowest LOD of my Atlanta/San Diego was 1682 polys. The bottom line is most of these are going to rely on the textures for details. There are a lot of very detailed buildings out there that look super but we need to be able to ballance them with some you can use a whole bunch of and have a minimal FPS impact. That's the target for 30 of the planned buildings.

So, I've got it all planned out now.

10 - US/Allied General Airfield Buildings for anything from Supply to Mess Hall to the Latrine ranging from 10x10m to 35x80m. Green Painted Wood, various roofs.

10 - SWP Bamboo Buildings from 10x10m to 35x80m.

10 - Wood Maint Shops Flat Roof 10x10m to 35x80m.

1 - Q-Hut w/Extensions Maint Shop. "DV's Shop"

2 - Hospitals! Something I did a long time ago but never made it out of GMax. These are a bit more detailed but just how many Hospitals does one need? LOL

4 - Oil Storage Tanks - 2 Sizes, 2 Colors each, same story as the hospitals. Everyone can turn LW's Large Water Tank back into a Water Tank.

1 - ??? Anyone ever make an GMax/FSDS2 Oil Barrel to replace the old Burning Oil Barrel that used to CDT? If not let me know! I'm on a roll....
 
Rav;

Do you have the original DP for that? I can't locate it on my machine and I'm right in the middle of processing about 35 GMax Files to BGL's.

If I remember correctly it was set as a Vehicle....So you could spawn it.
 
Thanks Jagd;

A new collection of Airfield buildings is born! I remembered some and found one very important doc. on the new version of GMax to BGL using BGLC and Raw2SCA. So over the last couple of days I went took the long road and built a collection of 35 buildings.

27 of 3 types, 9 sizes and they are varied textures and roof styles.
1 Q-Hut Style Maint Building with the large extensions off the sides
2 Hospitals
4 Large Oil Tanks
1 Burning Oil Drum Vehicle that doesn't CDT!!!!

I'm going to go back to GSL'ing the PM fields and they'll all come out together. 2 packages.....
 
Hey Rav;

Thanks for looking for it. Jagd found one copy of it and I found a copy burried in a zip file I didn't even know I still had on my 'puter. LOL

That's the stock Oil Barrels DP. What's different is the lack of the attached FX that gives you the constant fire.

No matter, we got it worked out and it's playing nice, and that's what counts..... Spawnable Buring Oil Barrels for runway lights with No CDT...

Thanks to both of you for helping out!
 
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Night landings again without the crashes... CTDs and airplane smash ups on unlit coral strips.

Nice looking building too. By the way, I'm almost finished with my mega library objects Mission Builder support package. I'll hold off on posting it so that we can get all this new infrastructure in it too. The hospitals were a great idea.
 
Thank You Jagd;

Gotta give MS some kudos too, most of the buildings use stock textures or a modification of them. A roof from Large Hangar C, walls from Medium Building B a new Model to hang them on and you've got something that blends in well AND, CFS2 doesn't have to load as many textures as if you did them all with custom skins. They're already loaded when the stock buildings load.

The Larger 3 Section Hospital is a recreation of the Hospital at "AF". The Smaller Single Section one was just so we had a couple of different sizes to work with. When I go back to AF, I've got all of the Cable Station Buildings and the PAN AM Hotel and .....God I forgot I had this stuff.... Gotta quit taking those long breaks....LOL

I just updated the GSL I did for 3-Mile Kila. They blend in very nice with the stock, LW and Wolfi's stuff. Looks like we've got ourselves a harmonious outcome.....
 
Thanks PS;

I just got done fixing a few things, like the simple fact that in GMax the front view is really the back of the building!! Rotate 180* Moron! LOL Always the little things.....

I made a few other little adjustments. They're going to give us a wide range of size choices and looks. So far I'm pretty happy with them in the Sim. I haven't tested the new BGL's yet. Going to go do that now.........

Then I've got a bit of DP/FX adjustment to do just to make sure the FX fit the building type.

See Ya' on the Flight Line....
 
New Nest for Big Birds

I keep coming up with things to build, after looking a wonderful high-res photo of Wards I recieved this afternoon I decided the Big Birds needed a new nest too. I even remembered how to do a Multi-Texture on a single object! Yes, I'm having too much fun.

What's Next???
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top