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PostPosted: Wed Dec 21, 2011 6:57 pm
by Snowman
Just uploaded to my website, and available for download,...................
NCRG Rarotonga International Airport, Cook Islands.

Welcome to Rarotonga International Airport, in the beautiful pacific paradise of the Cook Islands.
This scenery is a complete rebuild for FSX of my old FS9 (FS2004) scenery, and uses a lot of objects
from the original, as well as FSX specific objects, and is more detailed than the original.
The scenery also contains a separate landclass file which vastly improves the over-forested look
of Microsoft's original FSX landclass for the island of Rarotonga.

A few pics snapped off during building of the scenery,...................



















Lawrie. New_Zealand_etc.gif

PostPosted: Wed Dec 21, 2011 6:59 pm
by connor
Cool, I love raro! clapping.gif

PostPosted: Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:37 pm
by deeknow
Awesome stuff Lawrie, great job of modelling of the terminal buildings etc, looks like the real thing from my memory of it from about 5yrs back
Any plans to do Aitukatki? tongue.gif

PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 9:11 am
by Ian Warren
One Pacific scenery i do have is the Cook Islands , I did happen to win in it in a NZFF screen compo many years ago , well just after it was released months before FSX .. jeepers be a good four/ five years ago , and i have d/loaded a patch for the FSX but have not installed it , best i have a look later .

PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 3:01 pm
by Snowman
deeknow wrote:
QUOTE (deeknow @ Dec 21 2011,10:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Awesome stuff Lawrie, great job of modelling of the terminal buildings etc, looks like the real thing from my memory of it from about 5yrs back
Any plans to do Aitukatki? tongue.gif



Yes,.......... NCAI Aitutaki is well under way, and about 60% complete.

Lawrie. New_Zealand_etc.gif

PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 3:19 pm
by Snowman
Ian Warren wrote:
QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Dec 22 2011,10:11 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
One Pacific scenery i do have is the Cook Islands , I did happen to win in it in a NZFF screen compo many years ago , well just after it was released months before FSX .. jeepers be a good four/ five years ago , and i have d/loaded a patch for the FSX but have not installed it , best i have a look later .



Hiya Ian.
I also have the RB Cooks FS2004 scenery, and had it up and running in FSX a long time ago.
If i remember rightly, this scenery will work in the RB Cooks scenery, although i currently have it de-activated, preferring the landclass file thats included in the download with my scenery.
Best to keep VLC for NZ activated as well, as many of the trees in the scenery are from VLC, and the surrounding autogen trees look better using the VLC ones, as opposed to Microsofts ones,................

Lawrie. New_Zealand_etc.gif

PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 3:36 pm
by Ian Warren
Cheers Lawrie , will do follow your feeds , you heading to the Tauranga Airshow late next month ? .. its time to meet your flock off flyin NZFFERs and if so ill book a flight in .

PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 4:19 pm
by ZK-MAT
Looks good Lawrie! We were there in September - the outside of the arrival facade has changed a wee bit, here's our pic after landing taken about 1am, of course we departed when it was dark too so didn't get any daytime pics of the airport sad.gif


PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 4:29 pm
by Naki
Nice one Lawrie

Matt must be a reasonably recent renovation ...they seem to of modernsied it a bit from when we were there

PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:13 pm
by ZK-MAT
The pic was taken first week of September 2011. The outside of the arrivals area seems to be the only finished bit, the inside still looks old, however there were parts of the departure area that looked fairly new, but it was raining and past midnight so didn't linger around too long. Gutted I don't have FSX installed - have you got a FS9 version of this Lawrie?

PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 10:27 pm
by Snowman
Ian Warren wrote:
QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Dec 22 2011,4:36 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Cheers Lawrie , will do follow your feeds , you heading to the Tauranga Airshow late next month ? .. its time to meet your flock off flyin NZFFERs and if so ill book a flight in .


Not sure on the Airshow Ian,........ conflicts with a holiday im supposed to be going on with friends.
If i can get them to re-arrange dates for the holiday, i may be able to get a day at the show...........

PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 10:41 pm
by Snowman
ZK-MAT wrote:
QUOTE (ZK-MAT @ Dec 22 2011,7:13 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
The pic was taken first week of September 2011. The outside of the arrivals area seems to be the only finished bit, the inside still looks old, however there were parts of the departure area that looked fairly new, but it was raining and past midnight so didn't linger around too long. Gutted I don't have FSX installed - have you got a FS9 version of this Lawrie?



Gudday Matt,........ Yeah, the pics i was working from are about 2 years old.
If i could get a good set of pics of the new additions, i could modify the scenery and add them.
YES, there is an FS9 version of the scenery on my website here,........ http://fs-snowman.com/index.php?ind=downlo...iew&iden=38
There are also many others i did for the Cook Islands as well on my website.
Bear in mind, they will ONLY work if you have the RBE Cook Islands 20m mesh & topo installed in FS9.
They WONT work in default. Most of the Cooks in default is in the wrong places, and these airports will end up out in the water or other ugly things in default.

Lawrie. New_Zealand_etc.gif

PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 11:15 pm
by AdrianPetford
Snowman wrote:
QUOTE (Snowman @ Dec 22 2011,3:19 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I also have the RB Cooks FS2004 scenery, and had it up and running in FSX a long time ago.
If i remember rightly, this scenery will work in the RB Cooks scenery, although i currently have it de-activated, preferring the landclass file thats included in the download with my scenery.

Hi Lawrie,
Thanks for another great airport. I originally bought the Red Baron Cook Islands scenery so I could use it with your airports in FS9 and found it superb, but I've always had problems with it in FSX unfortunately. I get random incorrect shoreline textures appearing and disappearing all over the scenery, which can be very distracting. Christian's patch made it basically compatible with FSX but was only meant to be an interim thing, I think. I'm also now using the new landclass supplied with Rarotonga.

Just one small issue here. I seem to have a few untextured buildings (this is with your static objects libary, VLC 1.01 and VLC Libraries 1.1 installed). Either that or the Cook Islands government is involved in some seriously secret "black ops". Those sheds look mighty suspicious... ohmy.gif





Merry Christmas,


Ade

PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 11:45 pm
by Snowman
AdrianPetford wrote:
QUOTE (AdrianPetford @ Dec 23 2011,12:15 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Hi Lawrie,
Thanks for another great airport. I originally bought the Red Baron Cook Islands scenery so I could use it with your airports in FS9 and found it superb, but I've always had problems with it in FSX unfortunately. I get random incorrect shoreline textures appearing and disappearing all over the scenery, which can be very distracting. Christian's patch made it basically compatible with FSX but was only meant to be an interim thing, I think. I'm also now using the new landclass supplied with Rarotonga.

Just one small issue here. I seem to have a few untextured buildings (this is with your static objects libary, VLC 1.01 and VLC Libraries 1.1 installed). Either that or the Cook Islands government is involved in some seriously secret "black ops". Those sheds look mighty suspicious... ohmy.gif





Merry Christmas,


Ade


Hiya Adrian.

The black building issue i think is easy to fix.
Those particular buildings are draped in old "Nova Gold" textures. They date back to around the FS98 / FS2000 era, and they dont all display in FSX.
There is, however, a fix for it on my website. Under the "FSX MUST HAVE" files heading, you will find the FSX fixed textures
here............. http://fs-snowman.com/index.php?ind=downlo...ew&iden=319
You MUST install them EXACTLY as mentioned in the READ ME with them, or they WILL NOT work.

Something else that intrigues me in your pics,...............
In your second and third pics, the texture colour of the terminal building roofs is a totally different colour to those in my sim !!!
I wonder if you have Mike's Oceania AGN Texture update installed in FSX.
It changes the house and roof textures from default to something a little more realistic for the region ( including New Zealand).
Available here at Mike's website....... http://fs-creations.org/Freeware/Download/...GN_textures.zip
Try installing those, and see if the roof colour changes to the colour you see in my pics.

Let me know how you get on with both things.

Lawrie. New_Zealand_etc.gif

PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 10:41 am
by AdrianPetford
Hi Lawrie,

Thanks for your very quick reply.

Snowman wrote:
QUOTE (Snowman @ Dec 22 2011,11:45 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
The black building issue i think is easy to fix.
Those particular buildings are draped in old "Nova Gold" textures. They date back to around the FS98 / FS2000 era, and they dont all display in FSX.

Thanks for the pointer to the Nova Gold fix. That was it, I've installed the files and now have all the buildings textured as they should be, although I had to alter the priority of the static objects library to get them all to appear. thumbup1.gif

QUOTE
Something else that intrigues me in your pics,...............
In your second and third pics, the texture colour of the terminal building roofs is a totally different colour to those in my sim !!!
I wonder if you have Mike's Oceania AGN Texture update installed in FSX.
It changes the house and roof textures from default to something a little more realistic for the region ( including New Zealand).
Try installing those, and see if the roof colour changes to the colour you see in my pics.[/quote]
Well spotted. I hadn't even noticed that! Yes, you're right. I didn't have Mike's Oceania textures installed (odd I must have overlooked them, as I have all of Mike's other stuff in my sim). I now have the updated AGN sheets working and it's resulted in a big improvement to NZ's look overall, but that roof on the Rarotonga terminal remains stubbornly wrong! I suspect I may have a duplicate texture that's being called at a higher priority to the correct one. I have made a couple of manual additions to the static objects library plus I have a lot of custom UK scenery installed as well. What's the name of the file for the roof texture?

Thanks for your help, Merry Christmas! santa_cool.gif


Ade

PostPosted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 5:13 am
by BigDaddy1038
Happy 2013, Everyone.

Snowman, kudos to all of the Pacific Island sceneries of yours I've run into so far--they take an absolutely pathetic, default rendering of the various airports and makes them worth flying to and exploring!

I've generally had no issues with any of the sceneries so far, with the exception of NCRG-Rarotonga. Actually, not a problem with the scenery, but a situation of missing/undiscovered libraries. I'm hoping someone might have a quick answer on this one, with the info I've been able to pull together.

I've wandered the various forums and have downloaded/installed the following libraries:
Colin Green-ez_uk_buildings_v2.zip
Dennis Waggoner-ezhangers.zip
Len Hickman-lens_ez_scenery_textures.zip
Len Hickman-lens_ez_wood.zip
Lou Frost-lfobjlb3.zip
Sidney Schwartz-airport_restaurants_ss_1.1.zip
Sidney Schwartz-ez-fuel_tanks.zip
Sidney Schwartz-ez-large_hangers_ss.zip
Sidney Schwartz-lights_ss_v2.zip
Sidney Schwartz-parking_lots_large_ss.zip
Sidney Schwartz-parking_ss.zip
Steve Ziegler-bunch_o_signs.zip
Steve Ziegler-ez-maint-platforms.zip
Steve Ziegler-small_airport_objects_2.zip
Ted Andrews-fs9rafcontroltowers.zip
Ted Andrews-fs9rafhangars.zip
Ted Andrews-fs2004_raf_building_textures.zip

Though I'm not a scenery designer, I did copy and use bglanalyze9 to try to see if there were something obvious missing in a couple of the .bgl files and I did find these missing GUID's:

NCRG_TRMBDG.BGL
b2b71ca593cb4a69ba0cd49245362fa6
00fc1632d3d6417f8626f29a1048d958
2eca4f56447749e3b36496e1b9226dec
91e80ae02dfa4504af5e46e15dbf785c
d698ad3a4ea980d621ec86b3c723b7ac

NCRG_TrmSecFce.xml
fa3ec72e78c84e7cbd5fcd31c5d470e0
fa3ec72e78c84e7cbd5fcd31c5d470df
fa3ec72e78c84e7cbd5fcd31c5d470e1
62489c02a5074cddac23981ba2904e37

These are some screenshots to show what I'm missing; hopefully it will be super-obvious to someone out there. :-)
BTW, I'm using FSX w/SP2.

Thanks, All.

Big Daddy










PostPosted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 3:13 pm
by Snowman
There is s a list of object sets ( and how to install them) for my early FSX sceneries here... http://nzff.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18159

As long as you have followed the install instructions there for them ( and activated the SOL in FSX), all should be ok.
Looking at your pics, all objects that are missing are from these sets.
All that is showing in your pics are custom objects and FSX default objects ive added to the scenery.
I have to wonder if the Static Objects library is actually activated in FSX..............
The only way for them all not to show is if the SOL is not installed correctly, or activated properly.
Youve had no trouble with later sceneries, because i no longer use objects from these libraries.

As for the BGLs you analised,............ NCRG_TrmBdg.bgl is simply the placement file for the objects.
It doesnt contain any physical objects.
The main walls etc of the terminal building and tower building for instance, are from the object set "ez uk buildings v2" by Colin Green.
The tower sitting on top of the building is from "fs9rafcontroltowers" by Ted Andrews.
The missing GUIDs will be FS9 items ive removed from the BGL for FSX, as ive re-used the basic placement file i did for my older FS9 NCRG scenery.

Rarotonga was my first pacific island scenery for FSX, and im thinking about rebuilding it without the old Static Objects Library items.

Lawrie. New_Zealand_etc.gif

PostPosted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 4:15 pm
by captsl4
Hi Lawrie.

firstly thx a lot for doing these pacific island airports, which dont really get much attn

where would i be able to get that texture fix mentioned above about the black building.

i must have missed it when your site was active.

PostPosted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 1:44 pm
by Snowman
captsl4 wrote:
QUOTE (captsl4 @ Feb 3 2013,5:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Hi Lawrie.

firstly thx a lot for doing these pacific island airports, which dont really get much attn

where would i be able to get that texture fix mentioned above about the black building.

i must have missed it when your site was active.


The Nova Fix for FSX wasnt anywhere else that im aware of.
PM me with an e-mail address, and i'll have a look and see if ive got a zip file of it archived somewhere.
If i have, i can e-mail it to you.

Lawrie. New_Zealand_etc.gif

PostPosted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 11:49 am
by BigDaddy1038
Snowman wrote:
QUOTE (Snowman @ Feb 2 2013,9:13 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
There is s a list of object sets ( and how to install them) for my early FSX sceneries here... http://nzff.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18159

As long as you have followed the install instructions there for them ( and activated the SOL in FSX), all should be ok.
Looking at your pics, all objects that are missing are from these sets.
All that is showing in your pics are custom objects and FSX default objects ive added to the scenery.
I have to wonder if the Static Objects library is actually activated in FSX..............
The only way for them all not to show is if the SOL is not installed correctly, or activated properly.
Youve had no trouble with later sceneries, because i no longer use objects from these libraries.

As for the BGLs you analised,............ NCRG_TrmBdg.bgl is simply the placement file for the objects.
It doesnt contain any physical objects.
The main walls etc of the terminal building and tower building for instance, are from the object set "ez uk buildings v2" by Colin Green.
The tower sitting on top of the building is from "fs9rafcontroltowers" by Ted Andrews.
The missing GUIDs will be FS9 items ive removed from the BGL for FSX, as ive re-used the basic placement file i did for my older FS9 NCRG scenery.

Rarotonga was my first pacific island scenery for FSX, and im thinking about rebuilding it without the old Static Objects Library items.

Lawrie. New_Zealand_etc.gif


Snowman,

Thanks for the quick reply. Turns out, whilst I'd created the Static Object Library, I'd not added it to the FSX scenery library. ( icon_redface.gif WHOOPS!!!)


NCRG is almost there--looks like the only thing I'm missing is the hedges/bushes lining the walkways. I double checked your list and all of the bgl's and bmp's are placed properly; I guarantee you it's that "one" thing that I looking at, thinking I'm seeing it, and I'm not. sad.gif

Would you happen to remember which texture set the bushes would've come from? My scenery complexity is extremely dense and the mesh and texture resolutions ar 2cm/7cm, respectively.

Thanks for your help.

BigDaddy1038