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Beginner airports

Q

Qantas767

Messages
16
Country
australia
Hi, I am quite new to scenery making, and I want to create a proper airport. When I say that, I mean using GMAX to create realistic buildings and ground textures as apposed to just editing the airport with ADE. Could someone please point to me a nice easy airport to try and create,
thanks.
 
If you want to do an airport with realistic buildings then you are going to need photographs of those buildings.

That will be your number 1 problem.

In our post Sep 11 world many airport security staff do not like people taking photographs of airport buildings.

You should look at some of the smaller airfields around where you live though. As long as you ask permission first and tell the airfield manager why then they may allow you to photograph their airfield.
 
thank you for you response, although Around my area is really quite limited with only 2 airports, which both are too big for a 'beginner'. Are there any other options, and can I use other peoples images as a guideline for texturing as long as I don't use the actual picture?
 
If you choose the right airport google streets can serve as your "reconnaissance person" at least to a degree. First airport? I would choose something small with 3 or 4 hangars total on the field, that's me though, I've never been a fan of large projects and I get sidetracked easily. Others can start a huge project with no clue what they're doing and stick with it to the bitter end, learning as they go, and ultimately releasing a world class scenery. Once you get gmax figured out you'll be able to knock out models at a fairly brisk pace but if you're new to the program it will take a while to get up to speed and a small field has a much better chance of getting finished before you lose interest. Later on larger airports won't seem so large. You can use anything as a guideline as long as you don't use the actual photo/imagery directly, that said I'm pretty sure there isn't a modeler on the planet that hasn't "borrowed" a window or a door or something from a photo found on the web. Mining google images for photos is sometimes nearly as much fun as building the models themselves and you'll almost always pick up some little tidbit of info about the airport in the process. There are also sites that host photos specifically for 3D modelers to use in texturing, check out www.cgtextures.com for example.

Jim
 
thanks for your advice, I'm currently looking for an airport with your description, but would you have any suggestions? thanks,
 
Chan Gurney airport (KYKN) is pretty small. Only 15 or so buildings on the field, and it's in a small town in South Dakota, so there's not a ton of scenery work either. Flown in there a few times myself, it's a nice airport, and would be a good beginner project.
 
Qantas767 said:
thanks for your advice, I'm currently looking for an airport with your description, but would you have any suggestions? thanks,
Click to expand...
I would assume you'd be interested in an Aussie airport? I could suggest a few in the US but I'm not very familiar with AU, I'd suggest YCOM but Ant already did that. Maine? There's some public domain 30cm US/CAN border imagery (2009) available for KEPM, Eastport Maine right on the Maine/New Brunswick border, I thought about doing that one myself, there are like six buildings, lobster traps in the photoreal water... I doubt google streets would help you much on that one though, you'd probably need to find someone in the area to get you some photos I'd think.
 
Thanks I think I have an idea of some airfields I could try and create. I'll look for some small regional Airports around America possibly. Maybe Ill try with Eastport airport
 
I actually do have one slight problem, the taxiway starts at a certain width but narrows down a bit as it goes along, is it possible to model this in Gmax?
 
It's possible. The way I create my taxiways is by creating splines that outline the edges. Once all the edges are outlined, a poly select modifier is added (to create the initial surface. This can also be done by using any of the other select modifiers, as well as a surface modifier), and then I add a patch select modifier when I want to see what the final mesh will look like (and to get an estimate of the poly count). What you get is an object that perfectly matches the taxiway's shape, and you can easily modify the splines if you decide to make any changes to the layout. When I'm satisfied with it, I then convert to an editable poly so I can start slicing it up for texturing.

Note: While this method should be available in GMAX, some of the modifiers may not be there. Worst case scenario, you can convert directly to an editable mesh.
 
Lol, I skew engineer too Henry :)

I'm partial to cgtextures but here's another one that has some good stuff too:
http://www.mayang.com/textures/

This one has some good tree photos shot against blue sky which makes an alpha transparency mask fairly easy to do:
http://free-textures.got3d.com/index.html

There are more, google should reveal a few and of course there are payola texture sets available here and there for a price. I've personally got a thousand ultra-res photos I've taken myself of airport buildings and fixtures, I should put some of the better ones up somewhere so others can use them too, I may look into that...

Jim
 
Obtaining textures can be a tricky thing.

It is inevitable that you will have to create new textures even if you have full access to an airport (for example, if two hangars have a 2 metre gap between them then you simply cannot photograph those sides to you have to mock something up.

Like Jim, I have a library of building pictures that I can use to build up any textures that may be needed.

Try airliners.net and jetphotos. Type in the code of the airport and you will get a bunch of pictures.

Also try photo sharing sites like panoramia and flickr. Try a search for the airport name on those sites may show up someone's holiday photos.

Also try the sites of any businesses (eg flight schools, flying clubs etc) at the airport you have chosen. That may show up a few.
 
for my KNLC project, scoured the internet clean trying to find pictures of the little hazardous waste disposal buildings. ultimately found them in the background of a photo taken by a family during an airshow :-) too small for textures but at least the buildings are the right shape etc.
 
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