Miami Previews

[acourt]

All,

Here's some preview shots of my WIP Miami International Airport. I'm planning three versions:

1) Terminal as originally built, with no hotel and five concourses (circa 1959-60);
2) Terminal with hotel (circa 1961);
3) Terminal with hotel and Delta "jet" concourse (circa 1962).

These photos are all of the final version, although I haven't started construction of the hotel yet. Let me know what you think (constructive criticism only...please ;D).

1) A shot from the ramp looking up at the Administration Tower and Observation Deck.


2) General night shot of Administration Tower and Observation Deck. Does anyone know if the signs were actually lit?


3) Looking across the Eastern ramp tower toward the Administration Building.


4) A Delta DC-8 at one of the jet gates.


This was all done using Google's new SketchUp 3D design tool (in my opinion, the best thing to happen to Flight Sim in years).

Al

[Tom/CalClassic]

Wow, that's looking great. Here are some images of the airport, hangars, etc:

www.members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/FL/Airfields_FL_Miami_C.htm

www.crazedfanboy.com/npcr/laflapcr300.html

www.pbase.com/image/94472322

2.bp.blogspot.com/_5ucgL83AHw8/StdpC1gd9HI/AAAAAAAAAwc/lDqgfGu5kYc/s320/0DK628+Miami+Airport.jpg

2.bp.blogspot.com/_5ucgL83AHw8/StdpCUXfHHI/AAAAAAAAAwU/SBHUWtV_3XM/s320/9CK581+Miami+Airport.jpg







Hope this helps,

[sak1134]

AL, thanks for giving MIA a shot, its been a big hole in my FS world and it looks great.

Two quick questions

1. You mentioned this the final version. Are the screen shots shown completely textured etc, or just complete building wise. (Make sense?)

2. Can you post a more zoomed out shot? Would be nice to get a feel for the whole terminal.

Thanks - Steve

[acourt]

Steve,

Here's some overview screenshots...





The northernmost (Eastern) concourse is finished, as is the center concourse. The others are all in different states of work. The bent (National) and original Delta concourses aren't textured yet, and appear transparent.

I've placed my initial version of the Miami International Airport Hotel in these pictures. Construction highlighted an unfortunate setback: through a simple math error, I find that my Administration Building and Tower are about 38 feet too tall. Oh well. It's at least a somewhat easy fix with Sketchup.

As far as textures go, these are what I have. Not so good, are they? While I'm very competent in building things with SketchUp, I'm no artist.

I don't suppose there's anyone out there who wants to team up and work on textures, is there? ;D

Al

[Tom/CalClassic]

That's always my downfall too...

But it's looking great so far!

[acourt]

Tom,

Isn't there a way to get greater than 256 colors in FS9? I thought there was, but I see most textures are 8-bit 256 color.

Al

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

Yes, you can convert your 24 bit BMP textures into DXT1 textures - these use more than 256 colors. But the conversion process sometimes leads to some image degradation. You use DXTBmp or Imagetool for that conversion.

Hope this helps,

[sak1134]

Al, thanks for the new shots, it really looks good. Your overall look is spot on; I can't wait to try it out. Wish I had any ability with texture so I could assist but sadly I don't. Hopefully a volunteer will come through for you.

As long as I'm being demanding can we have a street side shot? The dual level arrival and departure areas must have been fun to do.
Steve

[acourt]

Steve,

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to the landside portion yet. I've taken a break to work on the hotel, and I'm redoing (i.e. shortening) the Administration Tower now. But I am going to put a little work into the landside before I hit the sack tonight. I'll see if I can get anything posted later.

Then it's off to work again for four days, so no further progress until Wednesday. Meh. I love my job...but I love being home more!


Tom,

Thanks for the info about the textures. I'll give that a try tonight. I didn't realize there was a difference in the two formats. Maybe I can make this look better using photo textures.

Also, thanks for the links. I'd forgotten one of them. With that addition, I have almost fifty reference pictures to work with!

Al

[acourt]

Okay, I've worked with the textures quite a bit. There's still a little more to do, but how does this look?





The basic "stucco" texture on the main terminal tiles a little, so I have to work on that. I'm also going to try and make the observation deck's windows a little more detailed (like the slit windows on the right, where you can actually see details inside).

BTW, this is the original 1960 version of the scenery. I'm having some trouble compiling the International Hotel for the later versions, so I'll start here.

Let me know what y'all think!

Al

[Randy_Cain]

Hi,

Al, that looks great!

To the hotel, double check your part hierarchy and make sure you don't have 2 parts referencing each other, or a child part with a parent/reference part with exactly the same x,y,z, coordinates. That has generated problems for me in the past.

Another thing that can cause a problem are parts that are angled in an otherwise squared model. In one situation, I found the only way to resolve this was to leave the one building as a separate .bgl file in the package.

Yours,

[acourt]

Randy,

I've had some problems in SketchUp with two parts occupying the same space, and it's caused some display problems. In this case, it's the detailed front and back sides of the hotel that just aren't displaying. I'll check your suggestion, although I'm afraid I may have to redo the sides.

Is there any limit to the physical side and/or file size when constructing objects in FS? The sides are fairly detailed, so I may need to break the hotel into two or more pieces.

I've already broken things up for sake of ease later. The Terminal is actually built in four parts: the Main Terminal with four original concourses plus landside parking, the Administration Building and Control Tower, the MIA International Airport Hotel, and the fifth Delta "Jet" Concourse. I guess I may need to break things up a little more!

Thanks for the words. I'll post more later today.

Al

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

That's looking great, Al - looking forward to it.

There is a limit of 65,000 polygons for the FS2004 BGLComp compiler, but I highly doubt if any building will ever reach that limit!

Hope this helps,

[acourt]

Here's another one...



This is taken from atop Concourse D, looking down into the Eastern Ramp. The terminal behind is (basically) done...I think! You can't see it back there, but I'm almost done with the entrance road ramps and the landside details.

All the terminal details, such as windows, are separate components attached to the main structure. It's faster than making individual textures, and allows me to place them exactly where I need them. I can also vary what textures each displays (allowing some offices to light at night, while others go dark when their occupant goes home for the day). The nice things about using components is that changing one window changes them all.

Thankfully none of this has caused any frame rate hit.

Still working...and I haven't even gotten to the other airport buildings yet.

Al

[acourt]

Here's some more after a full evening's work...


Looking across the center concourse toward the main terminal. Most of these gates were used by Pan American and PANAGRA.



The main terminal central area. The concourse on the left was Eastern's. Pan American's is on the right.



The Administration Building and Control Tower, looking west across the Pan American concourse. The Air Force/ANG ramp and Pan American base area are visible in the background (and will, eventually, have scenery).

I'm still plugging away at this. There's mostly just detail work to do now (adding the large AC unit on the terminal roof, finishing/fixing the landside area, creating a few night textures, etc). Next time, remind me not to start with something so complicated when I get a new design tool!

Al