Galatea/Murupara for FSX (Almost ready)

[timmo]

Hey Guys- Ive just been putting the finishing touches on Galatea aerodrome and surrounds- The Galatea aerodrome doesn't even exist in the default FSX airport database, and in real life is just two buildings and a grass strip.

However, my first solo cross country in real life flying was between Whakatane- Rotorua and Galatea.....since the other two airports have already been modelled by myself and Robin respectively, Galatea was the final piece of the puzzle.

It features scratch built Galatea aerodrome with bump mapped buildings, large area of autogenned photoreal and the Murupara mill/train yards which include custom NZ trains!

Have a look!

















Cheers

[Bruce]

Looks cool - I like the fact the trains are apropriate NZ type too. Is the Beer Can museum shown?

[corsair67]

Nice work, Timmo.

Just a quick question - how long would it take you to put airfield scenery like this together?

[Dave Homewood]

That looks really great, especially that high level shot looking through the canopy glass, it looks real.

What actually happens at the real Galatea trip? Just topdressing? Or is there more to it there?

[eieio]

As a former Galatea resident of 32 yrs,a great effort.The beer can collection is off the bottom of the last photo. What happens there? Ive recently seen photos of the first aircraft to land there ,a P W D Whitney Straight[1938]. The original field extended to the wigly line {watercourse] on the left of the strip view. Site of my first airpagent ,1950/51 ,next show was my first flight in an Auster of James{Rot]. School is across the road, I recall more interest in aeroplanes than lessons. A few Tigers,home to Avian ACM, James [Rot] and Rural 180's dropping supplies into the Urewera's for the Forest Service deer cullers. The cullers huts were helicoptered in , in 1959 .Hiland Duster AZL flew fertilizer of to Opotiki once ,also laid carrot bait [for Forest service in theUreweras. I think the poisen bait was laid by 180.s Early sixties Rotorua Aero club had 3 planes out there on a sunday. Harvards and Devons worked from there searching for Taylorcraft ATY.Harvard made an impression in those days of few aircraft. At this stage of history it is more amusing that the local traffic cop rode in and ploughed half the field and sowed it in barley,someone else actually had a lease for sheep grazing,guess he had the law on his side.The patrol car made a handy ute. Currently there are a few micro,s in the shed. One for sale on trademe. When flying, tuned to 119.1 the field is a busy cross country target. Hope that werent too boring,I,ll try a couple of photos.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks eieio, sounds like a little hub of activity in the country.

[philip]

Ha thats great. I fly there a few times a year as i have a dairy farm client right next door to the airfield and actually leases the spare airfield land. The sheds look in far better condition than they were last time i was there in January. I'm due down there again soon

[Barnsey]

Looks good!!

[timmo]

Aug 27, 2009 14:56:03 GMT 12 corsair67 said:

Nice work, Timmo.

Just a quick question - how long would it take you to put airfield scenery like this together?

It depends on a lot factors- This was 'quick' because
a) there are no trees around the buildings (if there are trees or other buildings around it can be a lot of work creating the textures/getting rid of these objects)
b) The buildings are very simple shapes
c) The underlying facilities (i.e. runways, taxiways, parking, fuel, radio channels, ILS/approaches etc etc) are very simple
d) I had access to good aerial photography on which to base all the dimensions and placements on.
e) The aerodrome was very 'bare'- little things like chairs, signs, junk, fuel pumps etc take a long time to model (although I am building a good library of objects from past projects now)

but as a guide for this little project:
10 minutes taking photos
2 hours creating texture sheets from photos
2 hours creating underlying facilities
2 hours setting up aerials and reprojecting to WGS84
4 hours defining water mask and blend mask in Photoshop
4 hours adding autogen trees/buildings to aerial
4 hours modelling and texturing Galatea buildings
8 hours modelling and texturing trains
2 hours placing Murupara mill/township objects
1 hour placing galatea objects

+ half a day playing with some new features (bump mapping on the buildings)
....sometimes things go well, sometimes you need to re-do stuff alot...and as the complexity of the airport increases, the complexity of the models increase a lot (due to the actual geometry of the models, but also the techniques used to ensure that that complex geometry doesn't overwhelm the users' computer)