Surface Base Lone Star 2060 - Earth Terrain & Aerospace Infrastructure

[Carmen A]

Thanks for the mention of the JSC and its included addon, Hillington Airport.

The next test after work today will be to put Hillington into the wide-area tiles. From what I've seen so far the coordinates should be precise and the hi-level Hillington surface tile included with JSCv2 should correspond to the actual location.

You should totally make Downtown Houston as 3d buildings

Yeah, simple 3D skyscrapers, just a few, matching the tile colour of the downtown area. Nothing too many like Orbiter City but enough to give you a sense of immersion.

Likewise I will populate Sealy, Katy, etc with key buildings. Many of these American towns/cities have major roads running arrow-straight through them and it'll be fun to model a freeway. Or in our case... unlimited speed Autobahn :3

 

[Hielor]

Thanks for the mention of the JSC and its included addon, Hillington Airport.

The next test after work today will be to put Hillington into the wide-area tiles. From what I've seen so far the coordinates should be precise and the hi-level Hillington surface tile included with JSCv2 should correspond to the actual location.

You mean Ellington?

 

[Carmen A]

Yep, as you can tell I'm not living in Texas.

Yet

 

[Quick_Nick]

Cool! Just don't go buzzing my house. (virtually next door to Ellington now)

 

[Urwumpe]

I looked at a panorama of Houston, the few buildings that have a special shape might still be done with a few polygons and a good texture.

 

[Carmen A]

Agree - deltawing wanted to model some but I suggested a few blocky skyscrapers should do a good enough job. We won't be staring at them much after all (and this is a low resolution / high fps terrain).

 

[Urwumpe]

I would say, doing it pretty much a bit like the Skyline of Chicago in FS4 (landmark buildings only) should do the trick.

 

[Carmen A]

You have my agreement there - I'd even be happy with FS98 style of low res. Have good memories learning how to fly a helicopter in city streets!

delta did model a nice house earlier on as his first 3D modeling project. But I'll lay off putting out addon requests until I have something to release :3

 

[deltawing777]

h

You have my agreement there - I'd even be happy with FS98 style of low res. Have good memories learning how to fly a helicopter in city streets!

delta did model a nice house earlier on as his first 3D modeling project. But I'll lay off putting out addon requests until I have something to release :3

unfinished and done with google sketch-up. Looks like carmen has inspired me yet again!

 

[Carmen A]

If you ever convert it to msh from that Google modeller we can hold races from WIN to your house and back.

Just hope the neighbours don't complain about the noise and smoke. Wonder if XR5's six SSME-type engines complies with Texas emissions control legislation.

In the meantime here's a pretty pic of Brazos County: (since the texture is only 700kb and ... 1 poly, the framerate is like, 150)

 

[Urwumpe]

I think more critical are the no-rocket-flight zones around the oil platforms in the gulf of mexico. After all, the engines just emit hot helium ions.

 

[deltawing777]

I think more critical are the no-rocket-flight zones around the oil platforms in the gulf of mexico. After all, the engines just emit hot helium ions.

We are Texas Air national Guard...We have clearance to guard the strategic oil reserves. Location:Classified
http://orbiter-forum.com/picture.php?albumid=505&pictureid=4389

 

[Carmen A]

We are Texas Air national Guard...We have clearance to guard the strategic oil reserves. Location:Classified
http://orbiter-forum.com/picture.php?albumid=505&pictureid=4389

If you can bring in USS Saratoga from the Moon in time to fly aerospace control for the ANG exercise this coming Saturday we might as well get the VSA started :3

It shall depend on saturday of course.

 

[Urwumpe]

If you can bring in USS Saratoga from the Moon in time to fly aerospace control for the ANG exercise this coming Saturday we might as well get the VSA started :3

It shall depend on saturday of course.

you mean that Saratoga?

 

[Carmen A]

2359h 15 Feb 2011 update:

Runways 12L and 12R added for William P Hobby Airport
Textured area has been increased by 300%. Texas as far as the eye can see :3

 

[deltawing777]

Not that you dont have enough on your plate already carmen but maybe our base of operations could be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellington_Airport_(Texas))
This is military
And while your at it check out our airshow. They are having a NASA Space exploration vehicle there
http://www.wingsoverhouston.com/woh_performers.htm

 

[wehaveaproblem]

Nice project btw carmen, good luck with it.

 

[Carmen A]

Thanks WHAP :3 Perchance might you have a billboard for sale/lease? I could use a LOT of these for signs on the Texas equivalent of unlimited speed autobahns, to mark private ranch airfields, etc

Wonder if anyone has a Goodyear blimp, tethered aerostats and balloons too. Could use these as static decorations.

The suggestion of using Ellington as a base is valid, since it will be a while before we develop the Texan infrastructure with buildings and base facilities. As the opening post implies, the project is mainly to add a number of little privately owned airfields/ports in the countryside. Unfortunately, since I like Texas, I ended up making far more than that.

However since we are going to have a lot of runways (far-future superhighways for landspeeders and contragrav vehicles included) we should spread out the OMP start locations to make full use of the terrain, which is huge by Orbiter standards.

For instance, the Deltaglider is happy with 1500ft little runways (Clark Sky Ranch). Contragravity can use the Hobby Airport located near the city centre - they have no jet/rocket blast and there is a conveniently located "concrete pad" looking object there to use as a capital ship landing stage.
XF-72s as expected, can use the military airport and XR5s.... should be put somewhere far, far away in the countryside and linked to Houston by rail and superhighways. I don't think anyone likes the prospect of having 6 SSME-type engines going off next door. George Bush Intercontinental is sadly too close to built up areas for this, but DG-EXs can be used.

Oh, speaking of contragrav - we need lorries and buses without wheels. Like Back to the Future

 

[wehaveaproblem]

I don't actually have any of the billboards as separate meshes atm. The only 'working' ones I have are on the ORL start/finish lanes.

I could relatively easily tear some out from there though, and make them into a stand-alone mesh for you if you like? say 5 signs in a row or something? I'll label the textures for them tex1, tex2, tex3 etc, so you can just drop in whatever advert you want by renaming textures...?

thoughts?

 

[Carmen A]

@WHAP - I'll just need individual signboards of various sizes (I can just spawn a few of them for an array, more flexible). The signboards at the side of the runway look pretty much perfect for the job - are they the 1024x256 ones?

I would definitely like to experiment with such a signboard as a standalone mesh, thanks for offering :3