A history of Windowlight

[toprob]

I've been collecting a few links from the very early days of, well, me, on the internet. This is so I don't forget what happened and when, as I approach my seventies:)

Lucky there's the internet archive, the Wayback Machine, which has kept tabs on me going back to 1996. So that's 27 years I've been dabbling on some site somewhere. First up was the site I made for my work, Target Copy Centre in Northlands Mall:
http://web.archive.org/web/199701152308 ... ycent.html

Target.co.nz was a lot of fun, but I have no idea how effective it was reaching customers -- it certainly didn't take the world by storm.

As a sideline to Target in 1999 I used my free website offer from Ihug and started OnTarget, which was mainly a Microsoft Publisher tutorial site, after I was given MVP status by Microsoft because of my work on the Microsoft newsgroups back when they were a thing.
http://web.archive.org/web/199910050439 ... /~robcorn/

It was probably the end of 2001 when the OnTarget site pivoted to flightsim. One of the perks of the MVP Program was being able to buy anything in the MS store for a fraction of the retail price, with a yearly credit which never seemed to run out. I ended up buying all the games just because it didn't cost me anything, and one of them was MFS, version -- umm.... 2000, I guess. It was really FS2002 which got me interested in making scenery, because it came with Gmax. This was new to most simmers, and I started out just offering hints on how to use it, hoping that locals throughout NZ would make me some nice scenery.
http://web.archive.org/web/200202050356 ... htsim.html

By week 27(?) -- I know that because the webpage is called that -- I had become pretty obsessed which the sim, summed up here:
http://web.archive.org/web/200208090652 ... eek27.html

By 2004, there was a new-look Windowlight home page, I don't remember that one, but I kind of like it. The news story here has me taking my computer to the Wigram open day, and letting people try the sim. Back then we had 'kiosk mode', where they could fly but not mess with anything.
http://web.archive.org/web/200404101310 ... /index.htm

Another design change in 2005, quite ugly this time. These were the days of the Godzone Magazine.
http://web.archive.org/web/200503050852 ... /index.htm

Yet another redesign in 2006, I remember the hei matau, representing the 'G' of 'Godzone'.
http://web.archive.org/web/200607031254 ... /index.htm

I'll always have Windowlight.co.nz, if only to keep getting my email:) The whole thing started as a joke, my partner back then was thinking of starting a business, but was worried that people would not accept her because of her accent. I said she should make a feature of any perceived limitation, and call her business 'Herbal Accent.' I had just imported a 1MP digital camera, costing $2500, and thought about using it to take catalogue photos for my copy centre customers, but as it didn't have anywhere to plug in a flash unit, I told my partner that I should call the business 'Windowlight', as in 'Photography by Windowlight', because there was no other option. When it came to get my own domain name, I went with Windowlight, and here we are, at the far end of a rather uninspiring career!!:)

[ZK-DWF]

I would suggest an inspiring career. It's always great to see what you've turned your never-ending array of skills too e.g. railway scenery

I still have all of your CDs neatly packed away in a folder. I peruse them occasionally, and always have fond memories of that scenery.

We haven't seen you flying on our 'Sunday Night' flights for a while. You're always welcome to come and join us. Dust off that Staggerwing and give it a fly.

Regards, Dave

[Charl]

Ah that trip down the Rabbit hole... I did like the Godzone logo of 2006.
Your last link makes mention of the AI for Wanaka, I'd forgotten that one.

For me there was a Golden Period in the decade 2004 - 2014 kicked off by Christian's mesh and topo.
From there your sceneries could sit comfortably on the terrain, and the AI could happily follow.
Wanaka was a favourite, and I made several video clips around it.
I always liked this one, and thought it was wholly under-appreciated by the community! It was not trivial to make, in FS9.
The Breitling Fighters which I think you allude to in that link, was my first and last excursion into "Serious" video - there are bits in there which are not too bad!

Doing NZ AI was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot about places in NZ.
Big day was when the combined downloads went over 50,000.
Some big files too - over 40MB!

I remember turning you down when you offered to host the GNZLAP project which populated your airports and seemed a natural fit.
For some reason I never did explain the reasoning, which was simply that the GNZLAP would get a lot more downloads on the big flightsim sites, and was filled with references to your work.
That way, I'd get maximum exposure, and by inference, so would Godzone.
Ah well.

But it ain't over. I have a Thing for years ending in "4".
MSFS 2024 is going to be very good indeed, be nice to see a Windowlight scenery in that one.

[toprob]

For me there was a Golden Period in the decade 2004 - 2014 kicked off by Christian's mesh and topo.

Yes, although I've had enough counselling in my life to know that there's no such thing as the 'good old days', otherwise you'll forget to see the value of today, those were definitely the good old days! Full of possibilities, where everything was difficult, and anything seemed possible. I still have no idea how you actually made those videos back then.

I can certainly understand why you'd want to go it alone with your project back then, we tend to have a vision, and we don't want it somehow diluted. That's definitely me, back when I decided not to get involved with Orbx. What they had planned was always going to be a success, and I'm pleased that it has grown to what it is today (unimaginable back then.) But I had a vision which I could not put into words, and if I went with Orbx then it would be their vision.

And I recall downloading the Netherlands scenery, in the very early days, 50 megabytes! Took a week and required a quality download resumer, all on dial-up.