Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2015 4:34:45 GMT -5
Hi Deltalima, Thank you for the FSX angle; as I do not have it this is all information new to me. The next file to be made available, which is a big one, will be the English Channel, including ports in the United Kingdom from Southampton in the west to Newcastle in the north-east and on the continent from Cherbourg to Ostend, Ken
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2015 1:36:52 GMT -5
Now available on Avsim (search for Ken Lawson) is my most ambitious file yet - classic ships for the English Channel (including the coast of northern France) east of Cherbourg and Southampton, and eastern England as far north as Newcastle. The ships have been placed according to Just Flight's UK vfr photographic scenery and Ultimate Terrain for Western Europe. Not tested wth the default FS9 scenery or with FSX. Thanks again to Mike Stevens for the ships. It occurs to me that much more could be done if more people were doing it, especially those, like myself, who do not have the skills to produce more elaborate scenery. The really time-consuming thing is creating the wakes. Placing the ships above them is relatively quick. If anyone has an area they are particularly interested in, could create the necessary xml files for the wakes (see David Marshall's tutorial) and send them to me they could then have ships for that area. As I am based in the UK most of my files are going to be European ones, although I have started looking at New York; now that is a very big harbour.
|
|
|
Post by deltalima on Aug 20, 2015 1:04:55 GMT -5
Hello Ken,
London ships look great in FSX - no issues.
cheers,
Daniel
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2015 1:20:26 GMT -5
Hello Daniel, That is good news. Many thanks, Best wishes, Ken
|
|
|
Post by deltalima on Aug 20, 2015 16:02:49 GMT -5
Here's a very quick shot of what the wakes look like - here's an overflight of one of the ships off the Boston shoreline ... Love these! Thanks again, dl
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2015 13:52:49 GMT -5
Many thanks for this. At low level it looks better in your FSX than my FS9. The bow wave is slightly ahead of where it should be, but the wake is much flatter than in FS9, where the ship can sometimes almost disappear beneath it. The sheer quality of the modelling of the ship should not be forgotten, of course, Ken
|
|
|
Post by Dennis the menace on Aug 23, 2015 23:58:03 GMT -5
Many thanks for this...... The sheer quality of the modelling of the ship should not be forgotten, of course, Ken Thanks for the compliment! I tried to achieve a balance between detail, and keeping polygon counts very low. That is another reason I gave them three LODs. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect these ships to be a popular as they are! This all started because when I built my airports for Bermuda and the Bahamas and US Virgin Islands, right on approach was that ugly, oversized rusted MS oil tanker. The MS ships really looked out of place, and I thought I might could do better than they did. There were some other ships in the mega scenery library addon, but they were all modern LNG and container ships in cartoon colors.....so with no other options avaiable, I cranked open GMAX and got to work! cheers! Mike
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2015 13:29:46 GMT -5
Mike, Outside of airports, and with the exception of AI which I only rarely see in flight, the world of FS9 is one in which other human activity is largely conspicuous by its absence. However, when I look out of the windows (I have passenger views in all the aircraft I fly) and see a ship which appears to be moving that feeling of isolation disappears - there is, after all, a world outside going about its business. In that sense, the classic ship files, simple as they are, are some of the most effective scenery there is, and I can only assume that this view is to some extent shared by those who are downloading them. The other thing that impresses me about your models is the terrific range of different shipping lines of the period which is available. If one is creating something in the Far East, then the appropriate ships are there, Best wishes, Ken
|
|
|
Post by deltalima on Aug 24, 2015 13:51:08 GMT -5
They are very awesome addons, Mike, and as Ken points out, their presence really adds to the immersion. Indeed, with moving AI shipping in FSX, watching ships actually sail brings a tremendous enjoyment. Like Mike, I really dislike all the style of all the modern stock shipping, and what's so cool about these ships is the breadth of classic types which come to life in the sim. Which brings me to a question:
I'm curious how hard it would be to convert these ships from static scenery objects into moving objects. Now, Mike, I know where you stand on FSX, so I respect you'd not be interested in this, but just wondering if an idiot layman like myself could do this somehow.
In FSX, there are a number of moving objects classes: aircraft (just as per FS9), misc objects (droppable munitions, and similar objects, more of the "mission" thing), animals (never did see these yet after all these yeears, but I've always wondered! - should do some low/slow over Africa ...LOL), vehicles (as in land), and most importantly in relation to the topic at hand, "boats". These are simplified entities have three basic components:
1) as sim config file, like a simplified aircraft.cfg file - it gets called by the stock AI shipping traffic bgl, in similar fashion the AI aircraft traffic bgl 2) a model folder (like in an aircraft folder) 3) a texture folder (like in an aircraft folder)
How, if at all, could the model(s) be adapted from a .bgl to a simple .mdl?
Just as in FS9, where there was a bunch of modern ships everywhere, in FSX there a myriad tankers, cruise ships, etc - all set in the modern period. The possibilities, just as with a completely converted aircraft AI environment, to have a converted FSX AI shipping environment, would be just awesome.
For my part, I could do the decompiling of the stock shipping AI bgl and rebuild using the new (old) ships, but of course, like with building the flying AI, the models are key. Now Henrick Nielsen has done a number of replacement ship models, and there is a hint of maybe a few classic models, but I thought maybe Mike's scenery models put us much closer to that goal?? I wouldn't look to necessarily convert all the stock FS ships to classic ships on a 1:1 ratio basis. I'd keep the sailboats and powerboats, but if all the stock ships were replaced by a truncated list of say, 2-3 classic cruise liners and 2-3 classic cargo ships, that would give a completely different shipping experience.
I'm likely naïve to the complexity of a bgl->mdl conversion, and it'd likely not work - but just thought I'd toss it out there.
Anyway - right now I've got a whole handful of loving classic ships at anchor at a number of places I enjoying flying out of, so I'm already delighted with where this is at.
cheers,
dl
|
|
|
Post by Tom/CalClassic on Aug 24, 2015 14:58:46 GMT -5
Hi,
ModelConverterX can do this, I believe. You only have to load Mike's ship library BGL file into MCX, convert a given ship to FSX format (i.e. take care of any transparency, convert textures to DDS if desired, etc.) and use Export Object to export as a valid FSX MDL file. Then use it as needed. As I understand it, all MDL files are in an identical format in FSX.
Hope this helps,
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2015 18:00:24 GMT -5
Manfred Jahn's Super Constellation at Newark (KEWR) as depicted in the scenery by Chris Helton. I have uploaded to Avsim (search for Ken Lawson) Classic Ship files for New York harbour placed according to Ultimate Terrain USA. The ships actually docked are in their own bgl and can be omitted if you do not have Ultimate Terrain. The second bgl deals with ships at sea and may well be alright in the default scenery, but has not been tested with it. Nor have either been tested with FSX although earlier files have been reported as working well in it. I have not attempted to research where ships might have been in the harbour in the 1950s, but have followed one of the online vessel tracking sites to establish where they are today. This revealed that there are numbers of static ships which have anchored but are not in the docks, especially for example in an area south of Long Beach. Such ships are represented in the second bgl. My thanks again to David Marshall upon whose work all this is based and to Mike Stevens for the very fine ships, Ken
|
|
|
Post by Johan Dees on Nov 8, 2015 12:02:08 GMT -5
Ken,
Thanks for all the work. I going to install them all, since I agree with you that those ships add live to the fs9 world.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2015 14:09:32 GMT -5
Many thanks, Johan. I'm pleased you like them, Best wishes, Ken
|
|