Question Procedure on upgrading legacy bases / crediting legacy base developers

[Carmen A]

This is an open inquiry.

I'd like to practise my terrain texture generating by looking at some legacy addons with good runway and taxiway modeling (specifically, those based on real airports such as [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2766"]SFIA[/ame]).

As these bases do not have surface tiles, their positions may need to be shifted to match the actual ground position displayed in the terrain texture (derived from sat imagery). This is due to scaling issues between Orbiter and the real world, as explained by base developer WHAP way back in 2008.

The problem is getting permission to move these bases by contacting the original authors - I have no idea if user "jer10" is still active in the Orbiter community or even a registered user on OF.

What are the rules of engagement?

 

[C3PO]

You need permission to distribute material from other people's add-ons. But if you make a new config file to line stuff up, you free to release that. Just direct the user to the required downloads, and specify which files are needed.
Getting permission from the author is the best way, but that's not always an option.

 

[Carmen A]

That should be workable - surface tile addon has to use a custom CFG anyway and I don't believe I need to cosmetically alter the taxiway mesh if it looks somewhat like the real thing.

Thanks for the quick response nya :3

 

[C3PO]

One option is to put a dummy mesh, with the same name as the required one, in the addon. This prevents Orbiter from crashing if the user hasn't got the correct mesh.

 

[Carmen A]

Very well, if you see a towering black monolith instead of SFIA, you know the install has something missing from it

 

[Carmen A]

San Francisco International update -

I will not be using jer10's mesh and base cfg at all.

Reason:

The scale is totally wrong. I don't enjoy landing on runways twice the size of real ones. It takes away the immersion.

 

[wehaveaproblem]

I have found it very easy to over-scale bases in orbiter... as the current WIN is really. When you have the earth as your playground, an airport doesn't half seem tiny...

That said, SanFran doesn't have to take an XR5, which simplifies things somewhat!

and as an aside, your creativity is quite prolific, keep it up! otherwise you'll haveaproblem like the AIA procrastinators!