Old ships in old sceneries

[Matthew Anderson]

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle. Thanks for clearing the whole situation up for us Mike!

[essub]

Hi all and especially Mike,

These ships are really good and very much needed - I had always problems with these default ships; it is a very fine addition. This ship issue leads me to a probably very dumb question - is there a way to transform these static ships into ai ships? I have added in the past ai ship traffic to sceneries like Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro, Pearl Harbor etc. and I used mostly cfs2 ships which can be easily transformed into nice functioning fs9 ai ships. Unfortunately there are only few cargo ships (mostly based on Liberty ships) and practically no liners (only Le France from Hama for fs9) from the 50ies/60ies available for ai application. I am not capable enough to design respective models on my own - so I thought it would be nice if there would be a method to convert static ships into ai ships. Any ideas would be highly welcome.

Cheers

Kalle

[Deleted]

Anyway Mike, you did a great job. Many thanks!

Bernard

[Deleted]

Aug 1, 2013 4:56:09 GMT -5 essub said:

I am not capable enough to design respective models on my own - so I thought it would be nice if there would be a method to convert static ships into ai ships. Any ideas would be highly welcome.

Hi Kalle,

There is indeed a way to convert static ships to AI by using ModelConverter X. I had a correct working ship but I haven't been able to show the textures. To get some help I put a thread at FSDeveloper Community, but obviously nobody didn't checked really the problem. So I let it be definitely.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Tom/CalClassic]

AFAIK there is no way to take a static object and directly make an FS9 "aircraft" model.

If you can use GMAX even a little bit, you can export them in ModelConverterX as 3DS files, Import them into GMAX, weld all the vertices, smooth the polygons that should be smooth, and then Export as an FS9 Aircraft MDL file. You can also get the textures to display in GMAX, if you wish (not required). A relatively easy process.

But you should get permission from Mike before releasing them, of course.

Hope this helps,

[Dennis the menace]

Regards to all and thanks much for the kind words

One thing I forgot to mention, was that there are many shipping lines that use the same color funnels, or nearly the same coloring and markings. Use that link to find your shipping line, and then look for the funnels. Once you see what they look like, scan through the bgl file until you see a ship that is close enough to what you want. I did create some generics just for that purpose.

An easy way to use the reference guide for my ships is to first, go to the static objects Library Text Files folder, and look for the classic_ships_information.txt file. Open that file and minimize it. Now, with instant scenery, scroll though the ships in the ships in the classic_ships.bgl and look at the ship, then the description in the little window to the right. It might say for example "small liner Dole Lines. Now, go to the Classic_Ships_Information.txt, and look down the list and you will see under the category of shipping lines, "Dole Lines". Next to that you will see that its Home Country is the USA. To the right of that, you will find usual destinations that Dole Lines sailed to from the USA, and those places would be Hawaii, Caribbean, Central and South America. You would not normally see a Dole Lines ship in Germany, or Japan or Australia.....normally. Perhaps there was a special cargo or a charter and they sent one there, so one might be ok, but not 4 or 5 of them. If Japan wanted bananas from Central America they would send one of their own ships, likewise for Germany or France.

There are three lines that I seldom see people using, and they would have been common in New York; French Lines, Italian Lines, and Swedish American Lines.

One last thing, don't forget, that in the Classic Objects bgl, I created some "classic harbor cranes" to go with the ships. These are modeled on post World War Two harbor cranes that I remember seeing all over the Port of Long Beach and Los Angeles as a kid. You should see a blinking light from the top of the cranes, and smoke from the stacks of the ship. Be aware, that the moment you activate Instant Scenery, it stops all effects in FS.

Here is a model of an old World War Two T-2/T-3 type oil tanker made by Revell that I used as the basis for my generic tanker (these things were like flies all over every port before the advent of super tankers in the late 1960s).


And here is the model of a typical freighter you would have found anywhere before the container ships started coming into use in the mid 1960s.  This one is the Matson Lines "Hawaiian Pilot" by Revell, and its how your sugar got from Hawaii to the mainland of the USA.  Matson also served the trans-pacific routes including Tahiti, Fiji, Samoa, New Zealand and Australia.


About "cruise ships" again; some shipping companies leased out the entire ship to a travel agency for a period of time under a "wet lease" where the travel agency got the ship, fuel, stores, and crew ready to sail.  It was then the responsibility of the travel agency to fill the ship and pay the monthly lease on the ship.  Painting hulls white for cruising services really didn't begin until about 1956 or so, and even by 1960 less than 20% of ships used for cruising had white hulls.  These travel agencies usually did as little as possible for the conversion process for cruising, other than some extra bars, activities and decorations here or there.  Here is the SS Independence (American Export Lines) ready for winter season cruising with the hull painted white:


These ships had sheer and rake to the hull, plenty of freeboard and yacht-like lines.  It truly was "marine architecture."   Now compare the looks of the Independence to this monster of today:



This indescribably ugly box on a hull design is only made for two reason, to build it as cheaply as possible and to pack as many people possible onto a given hull size.  It looks like something a child would build with Legos, or somebody with two hours experience with GMAX might create.  Its ugliness is beyond words - its exactly what it appears to be - a container ship for human beings.  Ughhhh.

Now compare that monstrosity (Norwegian Epic)  to this design masterpiece, the pride of France (SS Normandie):



The three story high dining room filled with bronze relief work and Lalique crystal (the walls and "light towers" were Lalique lead crystal and back lit so when you were inside the entire room glowed like being inside an ice cave:

The main lounge:

A cabin:

Like I said, the Pride of France, and what a pity it was lost at the hands of strangers 


Cheers,
Mike

[brn1976]

BIG THANKS Mike also from my side. I have sent you also a pre-version of my NYC, HKG and SYD sceneries. Without your ships in the first place obviously this would never have been possible. Your ships are just great, and they are also well spicing up my upcoming Nordic scenery.

The old ships made you feel being on a boat, no matter their size. Today's cruise ships are just a micture of malls and fun parks accidently floating in the ocean. It doesn't look like a ship and thanks to modern stabilizing technology it doesn't feel like one either.

[jacklyon]

Nice Job !

i am agree with you

old cruisers, "paquebots", was better...

only some new ones, are beautifull...

[Defender]

Hi,

Mike/Bernard,

Where exactly is the Classic_Ships_library.bgl? I must have missed something here. Thought I was up to date.

Mike, share your view of modern cruise ships! Not for me. 

Bill
  

[Tom/CalClassic]

If you downloaded and installed the latest Classic Libraries mega file, you will find it in your Static Objects Library/scenery folder.

Hope this helps,

[ejoiner]

American Export Lines was eventually purchased by Farrell Lines. Farrell adopted similar ship stacks. I spent 22 years working directly for ocean carriers. If you ever want to know what carriers plyed what trades in what era, Im your guy. Especially the cargo and container ship carriers. I will say, that in the NY harbor, you should add a single container ship. Sea-Lands ideal X. She was the first containership in 1958 and was a converted tanker plying the NY/NJ to Houston domestic route. Malcom Mclean pioneered the technology that fueled the commerce of the world (the container).

[Defender]

Thanks Tom.

Woops! They've been in my SOL all along! I just assumed they must be new and didn't see them in the library objects index text, which by the way is otherwise a very useful listing. 

Bill 

[Tom/CalClassic]

Yeah the index listing doesn't include the latest objects - I'll get around to updating that some day...

[brn1976]

Here another port that I upgraded, this time it's in the Caribbean.

Yes, all ships calling the port in the scenery are from the USSR, but don't believe any Capitalist propaganda! They will only unload tools and agricultural machinery. Chairman Khrushchev is giving his word!


4 by brn1976, on Flickr


2 by brn1976

[Tom/CalClassic]

MUHA!