Forests Update

I've overworked the forests. For X-Plane 9 users, I added forest exclusion regions around the airfields, so the runways should be clear of XP9 trees.

I also recommend this mini-update for XP8.x users, because I've worked on the forests too.
You'll find the update on the download page.

Work will go on

I started to flatten the terrain around the next 5 airfields:

• FM17 - Isoanala
• FM18 - Jangany
• FMMP - Ambongalava
• FMMW - Andriamena
• FMNB - Ankaizina

The problem with the flattening is, that the terrain is changed by this action. So I have to try to keep this changes in a very small range. Flattening rises the surrounding terrain until the runway doesn't float above it anymore.

For testing the changes, I use Propsman's great Landrover AP. With the landrover, I can easily drive slalom along the runway and over the runway edges.

Anyhow, it means much trial and error for me - and countless restarts of X-Plane.

Update Version 1.1 Released

Today, I released the version 1.1 of the Madagascar Bush Airfields. There are 5 new airfields:

 

FM05 - Ampanavoana

FM07 - Ankilivalo

FM09 - Berenty

FM13 - Fiadanana

FM16 - Isalo

 

But that's not all! There are many new objects, new forest definitions and animations.

Objects optimized

I went thru the whole objects library today and tried to optimize the file size. Therefor I removed doublesided surfaces that were not necessary, searched for hidden surfaces to delete and so on.

Finally I saved several hundred kilobytes. 

It seems that the export scripts of Blender are more efficient than the plugin for AC3D. I was able to save about the half file size of some objects. The only case, where I kept the AC3D objects were objects with animation and objects where I had to use ATTR_no_blend (for example: trees objects).

All in all the whole package decreased in file size, so it's time to fill the gap with new additional objects. ;-)

Briefing page added

Today, I added the "Briefing" page to this website. You'll find some missions there.

New hangars

Yesterday, Bob Feaver sent me some hangar objects. I've already placed some of them in the scenery.  Thanks Bob!

apt.dat seems to be ok now

After deleting every "earth.wed" file, that I could find on my hard disk, the error of duplicated airfields disappeared. So I was able to set the custom startup locations.

Apt.dat issues

Today, I wanted to edit some custom startup locations.

Unfortunately, WED 1.0b4 did no good job. After exporting the modified apt.dat, every airfield was listed two times in the apt.dat.

It seems that I have to wait for a better version of WED, before I'll use it for my scenery apt.dat.

X-Plane 8.63 release fixes some scenery errors

With the release of X-Plane 8.62 and 8.63, the annoying bug which shifted the scenery by several feet, when loaded during flight, is fixed. 

Now the objects appear exactly there, where I placed them.

In the past, it was a big problem, to place objects near runways or near a river. Everytime the scenery was loaded during flight, the scenery was displaced with the result, that the objects were placed partly on the runway or in the water.

I strongly recommend to use the latest version of X-Plane, so you can enjoy this Madagascar scenery as it was intended by me.

Edit: It seems that version 8.63 brings another bug back. When scenery is loaded during flight, it's possible that whole airports are missing. - No runways, no buildings - just the green underground. :-(

Objects Library is still growing

Today, I found the time, to build some additional hangars. See the picture to the right.

It's just a simple hangar with wooden sides and a metall roof.

Here's the hangar viewed from the back.

I also created a new hut, built of stone with a thatched roof.




Finally I placed the new objects at FMXA.


All buildings share already existing texture files, so there's not much to load for X-Plane.

After placing the new objects, I started to add forests around FMXA. I won't add much yet, because there are many airfields left, without forests and I intend to add the "bush feeling" to every airfield before the first release of the scenery.



There's still a bug in X-Plane that shifts the scenery when it is loaded during flight. The only thing that I could do to work around this bug is, to place the objects further away from the runway - but I don't like this solution. I'm pretty sure that these bush airfields won't waste much space. OK, it's no problem to place the buildings a little bit further away, but on the other hand, I'm using empty oil barrels or simply small rocks as runway boundary - and these are objects that I have to place near the runway.


I hope, that X-Plane 8.62 will fix this bug. Beta-testers listen! Please report airfields where buildings are too close to the runway. I will try to find the right compromise.

Madagascar Bush Airfields sceneryis close to be released

The Madagascar Bush Airfields project will be an ongoing project. The Scenery is based on a converted Microsoft Flightsimulator scenery by Pierre Mogenet. Without this conversion, I'd never had a chance to find out all the airfield data. So thanks Pierre for granting permission, to use your work.

After conversion, the package had a file size of about 7 MB. Then I started to build a library that contains all used objects. The next step was, creating additional objects. Meanwhile the package's file size is 20 MB.

One of the first steps, creating this scenery, was to flatten the surface around the airfields. Otherwise there were floating runways. This was done before the release of WED, so I had to write all coordinates to the apt.dat by hand. Sometimes it was extremely hard to find out, why the runway was still floating. But now all 50 bush airfields are usable.

After checking all 50 airfields, the next step followed: Creating typical trees for the Madagascar bush. When I finished the graphic work in Photoshop, I had to create the forest definition files. This are simple text files that reference single parts of the trees image. The forest definitions define the distance between trees, percentage of occurrences of the various trees, minimum and maximum height and the number of quads that a single tree uses.

I had to create different types of forests and I also used various densities. This was a lot of work, but nothing against placing the forests.

There seems no way to automate this task. The only landcover data that I found, use a raster of 1 km. That's way too much for doing a accurate work. So I have to draw the forest polygons by hand (using Marginals OverlayEditor). I quickly found out that this is a huge amount of work, but it's worth it. The forests are looking much better and more naturally than every forest created by automation.

X-Plane does not have many NAV aids at Madagascar (I don't know whether there are more in real life), so you'll have to do most flights VFR. It's always good if you can follow a river or a road. For this reason, my first efforts where to populate the river shores with trees. 

DON'T EXPECT TOO MUCH YET! I placed trees along some major rivers and around about 15 airfields. The rest will follow piece by piece. 

We (shadetreemicro.com) are building aircraft for X-Plane, so the time for working on the scenery is very rare. For most of our new and updated aircraft, we already used scenes of this package as backdrops. Believe me! It's a lot of fun, to fly our bush planes at Madagascar.