Jump to content

Wine Country: Introducing KSTS Sonoma County Regional Airport!


Recommended Posts

Can we use this as a stand alone airport like the few airports that are designed to be used with just FTX Global? I'd like to get this but don't want the NorCal region.

I'd actually buy a lot more ORBX airports if they could be guaranteed compatible as stand alone with use of just Global.

The NorCal region costs only a few bucks more than an airport, so I'm not sure what benefit there is in depriving yourself of the 12 months of work a team of nearly a dozen people put into making NCA with vastly more accurate LC and vector than FTX Global can offer you, not to mention the hundreds of POIs, photoreal areas, unique textures and upgraded default airports? Seems a feeble argument to me in all honesty.

Buy one less airport and get the region, simple as that :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 107
  • Created
  • Last Reply

This is looking great and a good place to explore from Redding or SF... have been to Bodega Bay looking for birds but alas, after Hitchcock they seem to have long gone . I will most definitely get both NorCal and this new airport. Too much good stuff to loose out on if not.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi everyone,


Thanks so much for the nice comments! Definitely makes it all worth it, it should not be too long now :)


 


UPDATE: I have added a coverage map to the original post. Apologies for not having it originally, it was 2am and I was too tired :)


 




Dude, you really didn't model the whole freaking city of Santa Rosa, CA, did you?


 


Man, the airport would have been more than enough for me. 




 


Yup, took a good month and a half to do just by itself..


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks again guys :)


 




Will we be able to disable the terminal interior like Homer? Please?




 


Yep of course, will definitely make it an option


 


 




Noob question but how does one get into and around the terminal building?


Thanks




 

You can use BOB or slew.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Where is Sonoma in relation to the other California ORBX payware airports?  Anything within easy reach of a GA aircraft?

 

The closest payware NCA airport is KSQL San Carlos in the SFO bay, about 65nm southeast (KHAF will also be about the same as that once I complete it later this year). All the other NCA airports (KTVL, KMRY, KRDD) are within 140nm flying distance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The NorCal region costs only a few bucks more than an airport, so I'm not sure what benefit there is in depriving yourself of the 12 months of work a team of nearly a dozen people put into making NCA with vastly more accurate LC and vector than FTX Global can offer you, not to mention the hundreds of POIs, photoreal areas, unique textures and upgraded default airports? Seems a feeble argument to me in all honesty.

Buy one less airport and get the region, simple as that :)

John, the issue isn't the money, I can afford to buy the region if I wanted it. As you can see from my signature I have purchased regions in the past, but no longer do so since they are not a real benefit to me and the type of flying I do.

To be frank, the ones I have purchased like PNW and the whole AU package, we're purchased out of curiousity and because they were on sale. However, they rarely got used after the initial purchase and a few weeks of checking them out, just because they weren't areas of interest to me. I don't think of them as money wasted, but I now know they are not for me and prefer to just use airports of interest with Global and a good landclass. Plus I prefer not to buy regions anymore due to the issues that come with them, like increased disk space required, possibly worst performance due to increased autogen and vector data, compatibility problems with photoscenery I may use for the area, confusion as to what mode or regions need to be switched off,things of that nature.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the regions, they're just not for me, or areas I'm interested in exploring down low.

That being said, I'm an airport guy and have little interest in the fine details that lie between point A and B. Not to say that I'd be happy with a blank void between the two, but with Global, UTX, and some landclass, it provides enough eye candy until I reach my destination and will be even better as more ORBX landclass packages get rolled out which will further eliminate my interest in regions.

I am delighted that some stand alone airports have been released like the Palm Springs and Sedona that don't require anything. I've purchased Palm Springs and will get Sedona at some point. I've even purchased KTVL and Jackson Hole and run them without the regions, just Global and UTX and they work fine with no noticeable issues, however I know that purchasing these to run without the corresponding region can be a risk because they may not work correctly. I've been lucky so far I guess and have needed to make any flattens, excludes, or other mods to make them work alone with Global.

I would love to buy this Sonoma airport and Monterey, if they hhd some special patches that could be installed to run them as stand alone airports.

I understand that a lot of work goes into regions and that the airports designed to fit them are part of the business model, but I think that it cuts off some possible sales of these airports for people like me who don't care about or want the region, and just desire the airport.

Keep in mind, ORBX is the only developer who markets a few stand alone or Global airports and some designed to be used with regions. All other developers just make airports or airports with some surroundings but area able to be run with just stock, Global, or GEX textures and a vector package like Vector or UTX.

I own tons of these "stand alone" airports from Aerosoft, LatinVFR, FlyTampa, Flightbeam, FSDT, etc., and have been happy doing so for the last 10 years, and would love to add a bunch of airports like Sonoma to name one, if compatibility with just Global could be done.

In a way I feel bad for some of the devs that produce such nice airports and that not everyone can buy them since they may not want the corresponding region for whatever reason. I don't know how the devs get paid who make the aiports, but if they get a commission, then they are losing out on some market share due to this.

I'm not sure if you answered my original question indirectly or not, but will this airport be able to be used alone or will there be major incompatibility issues running in alone over Global and UTX?

John, please don't take my post as being demeaning or insulting, as that was not the purpose. Like I mentioned, there is nothing wrong with the regions, it just personal reasons why I prefer not to purchase them, money or cost not being one, but would still like to be able to use some of the airports that go to some of the regions if compatibility can be guaranteed. If not, I understand and will wait for more of the Global series of aiports to come out and will stick to those or try my luck at running this alone if compatibility can't be guaranteed.

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure if you answered my original question indirectly or not, but will this airport be able to be used alone or will there be major incompatibility issues running in alone over Global and UTX?

 

Hi Gordon,

In any case, whilst the scenery is designed to work hand in hand with NCA, you should be able to use the scenery if you don't mind a few visual errors such as mismatching mesh, photoreal and vectors such as roads and waterways. There might also be some issues with the tree autogen, since it uses NCA specific eucalyptus and oak types.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks again everyone!




Hi Misha,


 


any airport- and city-pics at night available?


 


Wulf




Hi Wulf, I haven't developed any night lighting yet, that is usually last.


 


 



Yes I'm aware, unfortunately the imagery and sources I had available were not new enough to include this extension (they only completed it about the time I started developing it!), so I had to go with the old configuration.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

331q6gw.jpg


 


 


These shadows are incorrect. When they're that dark, they should have a sharper outline (on a sunny day). On a cloudy day they tend to look lighter and more blurry.


Mind you.... I see a lot of developers making this same mistake, they really don't study shadows in real life and make too many assumptions and yes, I know they're (baked) static shadows.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks again gents!

331q6gw.jpg

These shadows are incorrect. When they're that dark, they should have a sharper outline (on a sunny day). On a cloudy day they tend to look lighter and more blurry.

Mind you.... I see a lot of developers making this same mistake, they really don't study shadows in real life and make too many assumptions and yes, I know they're (baked) static shadows.

Well if you know they're static, why bother pointing it out? Every developer does this to allow models to sit on the ground more realistically, and it's not a mistake. We are well aware how shadows work in real life and it's very much deliberate. Compromises must always be found with older platforms, and FSX doesn't and never will have dynamic shadowing, we have P3D for that :)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Gordon,

In any case, whilst the scenery is designed to work hand in hand with NCA, you should be able to use the scenery if you don't mind a few visual errors such as mismatching mesh, photoreal and vectors such as roads and waterways. There might also be some issues with the tree autogen, since it uses NCA specific eucalyptus and oak types.

Thanks Misha, I may give it a shot then.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

and FSX doesn't and never will have dynamic shadowing, we have P3D for that :)

That's true for FSX, but you can program in pre-rendered shadows that change over the course of the day, to represent a realistic and ever changing view of the airport under different light conditions.

FSDT did this with CYVR Vancouver and it works and looks surprisingly real and doesn't seem to cause any performance hit. The only problem is that I don't think ORBX has the tech to do this yet. I think FSDT uses their Couatl scripting engine to make it work, but ORBX could probably figure it out and developers something similar and call it Shadow Flow and the devs that develop for ORBX could implement it into future work or past releases.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ObjectFlow does the same, for example that's how Jarrad's clock moves at Spokane. But time changing textures are much much more labor intensive than they appear. It requires rendering 12-16 different sets of textures then swapping them on the fly based on a time variable. Which comes with a performance cost since all textures are loaded into the memory for each hour-switch. Doable but must be weighted with time vs benefit.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Misha,


 


This looks like a fantastic product and you are a very talented developer.  My only nitpick is that the static Horizon Q400 is wearing an outdated livery.  All of Horizon's Q400s now have "Alaska Horizon" written across the fuselage with the eskimo on the tail.  6618150123_a427c222aa_z.jpg


Link to comment
Share on other sites

All of these types of nitpicks are why previews from developers become less and less.  Misha, your work is great and please keep it up.

 

Agree with you Danny.

 

Living on the other side of the world it would not be out of place to me  if there was a walrus lolloping down the runway.

 

This is yet another excellent airport from Misha just one of a very talented team who most of us appreciate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...