South East UK2/3 Scenery for Condor 2

[Andy1248]

I am retired now so have plenty of time. Also my work is not to the same high standard as that of Xavier.

[GregHart1965]

Andy making the airports in wings is relatively quick. I download an image of the airfield at the highest res World Imagery has to offer (about 15cm per pixel). Then create the runway object and scale the image plane of the airfield to fit the runway (use 'tab' and percentage of size for fine tuning). I work at 1:100 for the first bit but scale up before adding all the markings and buildings. You usually have to re-center everything after scaling up so make careful note of where the center of the runway is on the image, I have these marked in Google earth as dropped pins. The hi-res airfield image plane is awesome - you can see exactly what is going on (better than Google Earths highest zoom level). Work in Isometric view in plan view (press 'y') as much as possible.

I build all the buildings in one go in a separate file working at 1:10 scale (Don't forget to scale up when done - lost track of how many times I've exported the G-file and then can't see it at all in Condor - only to realise it is still at 1:100 and a tiny little scrap! ). Doing all the buildings at once is good because you can get the UV map texture all on one image file.

Remember max "object" size for groups of building should be about 300m in extent - any bigger you run into 'big object' issues with falling FPS. Also too many 4096x4096 dds tiles in one area will kill FPS. Try to keep it to one per airfield and take note of how many such tiles (other nearby airports) you can see from say 500m altitude (max four - any more and FPS will take a hit). As you have discovered too many tree objects kill FPS - it is just too much transparency layered one on top the next making a depth sorting nightmare for the engine. Those are the only FPS pitfalls I can think of. Make all textures dds - they have slightly garish colours (low colour depth) but make a huge difference to load speed. The only other file I would use is Targa and then only when a fine graduated transparency is needed or a very high level of fine detail.

All that said I just make the small airfields, with one or two buildings, in LE as objects (life's too short) - not worth the effort of doing them in wings as they will not crush FPS the way a larger airport would if done as objects. The slowest thing about doing it in wings is UV mapping all the different runway marking types - you want only one of everything at the correct size. Then duplicate AFTER UV mapping - will save you hours tracking all the bits down to select only the face you want to ignore or map.

[Andy1248]

On request from the Derbyshire and Lancashire Gliding Club I have made the 'Ladybower Dam'.

Maybe the Derwent next.

Greg - Thanks for the tips.

[Paul_UK]

All downloaded and working

Lasham is still hitting my PC resources pretty hard, no worse than before though and it is still flyable.

I didn't realise the windsock could cause so much damage to a glider either

[Andy1248]

Have done some serous hedge cutting at Lasham, should be better on the CC version.

[Andy1248]

South East UK3 Now available on Condor Club or use the updater.

[garymortimer]

Andy and others just wanted to drop a thank you in for all the hard work. I am getting enjoyment beyond measure from your sceneries!.

[Andy1248]

Thank you.

[k6chris]

Andy, just been playing with SEUK3 in my new VR headset - WOW!! many thanks, huge amount of hard work. Been looking at my home club and delighted to see trees, trailers and hangars!! One issue I have spotted is the runway alignment at Saltby.





Not sure if this is an easy fix?? Hope it is,

Many thanks again for all your hard work!

Cheers
Chris

PS, no idea why these images are showing white!!

[Andy1248]

I have just done a Condor Club download and fresh install to check if any difference in the CC version.

All appears to be OK.

Not sure why the runway is wrong in yours. I suggest a fresh install from CC as I have done should cure it.

[k6chris]

Thanks, will try that. The original was isntalled about a week ago from the Condor Updater, should that be the same as CC?

Thanks
Chris

[k6chris]

Hi Andy, so I have deleted SEUK2 and SEUK3, re downloaded and unpacked it from Condor updater and the problem still exists -



Not sure if it helps, but the real runway at this end is '25' so not sure why '07' is showing?

Also tried Barkston Heath and there appears to be a similar issue?




**Problem Solved** Updating Condor to 2.0.9 patch has solved the issue, I will leave the post here in case anyone else has the problem.

Thanks again Andy, it is brilliant work you do and is much appreciated.

[k6chris]

Manual download and unpack of the 5 x SEUK3 files in condor club, unpacks to 17.3gb - 3,328 files, of all which are texture files only? Not Airport folders etc?? The updater uses six files. Is there a missing file on Condor club?

Thanks!

[Andy1248]

The 2.0.9 patch was released at the same time as an upgrade to the Landscape Editor used by scenery designers. It included an improved way of aligning runways. I guess that your problem runways are ones that I have realigned with the updated editor. I guess that patch 2.0.9 is vital for any scenery edited with the updated Landscape tool.

NOTE should be no difference between CC updater and a manual download, Folder/file structure should be the same.

[Andy1248]

Manual download and unpack of the 5 x SEUK3 files in condor club, unpacks to 17.3gb - 3,328 files, of all which are texture files only? Not Airport folders etc?? The updater uses six files. Is there a missing file on Condor club?

Thanks!

For a manual download from Condor Club there is the main South East UK3 download (225mb which contains all the key main files) and five texture downloads which as you state are texture files only. This is the standard for manual downloads from Condor Club. it is very much recommended that the Condor updater tool is used for scenery install, it will save a lot of problems for those not sure of the scenery folder structure.