P3D v4 PBR Update EDGT Bottenhorn (P3Dv5)

[Christian Bahr]

Hello dear FS-Developers!

Would like to tell you on this way gladly, that the airfield EDGT Bottenhorn, located in Hessen/Germany, is in the beginning. The freeware project is already well advanced, so that it will be coming soon to a release. Therefore, I would like to present this project here.

The following features are planned:

EDGT Bottenhorn, Hessen - For the flight simulators FSX, FSX: SE, P3D

- Aerial photo: 8,5 km²
- Aerial resolution: 30 cm
- Aerial photo Variations: summer, winter, night
- Autogen vegetation and buildings
- AI-Car Traffic
- SODE controlled wind projects
- Scenery Configurator LITE from 29Palms Scenery Design
etc.

The top-current DOP20 orthophotos were licensed and come from the Marburg office for ground management

Here are a few screenshots:

Picture 1: The motor sailplane Hoffmann H36 Dimona from Aerosoft / Joachim Schweigler

Picture 2: The district Bottenhorn in the municipality Bad Endbach near Marburg in Hessen, Germany

Picture 3: And of course, they should not be missing: The Living People! Animated persons in Bottenhorn

Picture 4: Current state of expansion in EDGT Bottenhorn

Picture 5: Cessna C162 Skycatcher from Flight1 in EDGT Bottenhorn


More Pictures and information can be found in the german-speaking Bahrometrix Forum

 

[Ripcord]

Looks nice!

 

[HolgerSandmann]

Hello Christian,

wow, now there's a trip down memory lane. When I trained for my gliding/sailplane ticket back in the 80s our base was EDFN (Marburg-Schoenstadt) and we made the occasional trip to EDGT. Looking forward to the final package, it looks fantastic already!

Cheers, Holger

 

[Christian Bahr]

Hello Holger.

I was not aware that the Bottenhorn airfield is very popular. The idea to create the airfield is not mine, but from a friendly Simmer, who lives near the airfield. But thanks for your kind words

greetings
Christian

 

[manschy]

Awesome, Christian. Even it is a small airfield, its details and realistic appearance are stunning, as always! Looking forward to do some Touch&Go with my Phantom
No, just a joke. Keen on visiting with a Robin or Mooney...

 

[scotth6]

That is looking really good Christian. Amazingly detailed and precise.

 

[Christian Bahr]

Hi!

We have decided to restart the project EDGT Bottenhorn.

Because there was no license for the aerial photo, we would not have been able to release the scenery. But now we have bought an aerial photograph of the competent state office in Hessen in Marburg (GER) and can publish Bottenhorn after its completion as usual and without any restrictions. A fellow Simmerer (Ryan) made about 300 photos of the airfield near his home. Here are a few P3Dv4.2 impressions of the current state of development:

Picture 1: The Runway in Bottenhorn will get a natural terrain slope, the scenery will bring its own interpolated 1m height model (mesh).

Picture 2: View from the bottom to the top

Picture 3: The seasonal variations of the 15cm/px aerial imagery

Picture 4: EDGT Bottenhorn in the GIS software - here the autogen vegetation in the form of point features

Picture 5: Bottenhorn main building in four-view layout

Figure 6: Preview of dynamic lights in the 3-D software

Picture 7: In the contrasting backlight the worked out details look very good

Picture 8: The main building has about 8,000 polygons and is represented by 3 textures a 2048x2048px

Picture 9: Just about every detail was worked out: shutters, gutters/downpipes, spotlights etc

Picture 10: New static cars, garbage cans and the new terrace work together here

Copyright Orthophotos: (c) 2017 Amt für Bodenmanagement Marburg in Hessen (Germany)

Thank you very much Ryan for the many great on-site photos!

The development of the airfield Bottenhorn is now entering the decisive phase. While the aerial photo theme is complete, more 3D models need to be created. The ever shorter to-do list is a great incentive.

 

[robystar]

Very nice by all means, but you said it was for FSX? How come you have your great avatars in it? So in the end, it will be for P3Dv4.2, right?

 

[Christian Bahr]

The one does not exclude the other. Bottenhorn is initially developed on the platform that I myself use for my flights. That's the Prepar3dv4.2
But I know that there are still around 33% FSX users. After current planning the airfield Bottenhorn is then also created for the FSX.

The screenshots are from the P3Dv4.2. Therefore, there is also the avatar in the picture to see ;-)

 

[Christian Bahr]

Hi.

In the meantime, work continued on Bottenhorn.

On the one hand, the natural and realistic lighting for Bottenhorn was created and, on the other hand, further 3-D models were created. There will also be animated people. There are currently 10 Living People in Bottenhorn.

The signs in Bottenhorn

Picture 1: The original and the virtual pendant

Picture 2: The sign forest of Bottenhorn

Picture 3: The signs in their natural environment

Picture 4: Attention is paid to the many details on the airfield

Picture 5: Animated people on the terrace

Picture 6: The bench is very gratefully accepted by the Living People

Picture 7: A scene within the scenery Bottenhorn

Picture 8: The acquaintances from Peru were to visit. There were country-specific delicacies: guinea pigs on a spit

Picture 9: Evening mood at the campfire

Picture 10: Warm and natural light in Bottenhorn.

The color values for the dynamic lighting in Bottenhorn were taken from a list of color temperatures (Kelvin).

For the two lights on the terrace, I assumed 60W incandescent bulbs that have a color temperature of 2700 Kelvin (warm white). From a list for color temperatures, I could then determine the corresponding RGB color values. I then entered these color values in the FX file. For the spotlights in the driveway and the studio, I assumed 500W halogen lamps. These spotlights have a color temperature of 3000 Kelvin. Again, I was able to extract the RGB color values from the Kelvin list:

Watt / Kelvin / RGB-Values
60 W / 2700 K = 255,187, 87
500 W / 3000 K = 255,180,107

Overall, it should be noted that one pays too little attention to the topic of color temperature in the P3D. Because if you look at one or the other scenery, then the dynamic lights are partly artificial. If one deals with the subject a bit and takes into account the color temperatures of the lamps used, then it is possible to create atmospheric and realistic lighting without much effort.

I now think I have actually made a more natural sound. Of course, you never know what it really looks like in the evening with the lights on. Unless you were there yourself.

 

[scotth6]

Fantastic Christian. I really appreciate your info and insights regarding lights. That is a great method. As it happens I install lighting in my job, and I always take notice of it in sceneries. Unfortunately the office staff at my company still don't appreciate the nuances of colour temperature .

Cheers,

 

[Christian Bahr]

Hello.

In the meantime, my EDGT Bottenhorn airfield project continued. For example, the Living People were personalized. This means that the animated persons have individual characteristics. They wear watches, cappies and wear sunglasses:

Furthermore, further 3-D models were created:

A great feature is the Living Animals, which have for the first time moved into a Bahrometrix scenery. First, a deer was animated and programmed as Sim object. This deer acts as AI-Traffic and runs a fixed route at certain times. The special feature: You can select the deer as avatar and control it like an normal P3D-Avatar:

A fun video ...

Bambi goes crazy

 

[GHD]

I like it

 

[jtanabodee]

I love it so much. Such a small airfield, you can add the detail as much as you want. I am going to do that with the airfield near me. But I need to finish the huge one, ZBAA, first.
May I ask about vegetation? How did you do that? Do you have any link or document that I can read how to do?

 

[Christian Bahr]

Thank you very much, this is an advantage if you create a small airfield in the country. There is more room for maneuver in the design of the details. Other as in the major projects Dortmund and Muelheim Ruhr X. I follow your large project ZBAA with interest, great what you got to see so far from you.

Vegeation is the standard method of the FSX / P3D SDK. It is autogen vegetation. I have no documentation about it. But it's no secret that I use GIS software for that. There is the free GIS program "QuantumGis". Many development colleagues work with it. This not only autogen vegetation or autogen buildings can be processed. Among other things, you can process your aerial photos, elevation data and vector data.

In my German-speaking forum, we regularly discuss all sorts of scenery design. Maybe you will be able to translate the posts into your or the English language. Then maybe that would be a documentary like you asked: http://forum.bahrometrix.de/viewforum.php?f=3

 

[jtanabodee]

I am studying about GIS software. I hope I can do those tree automatically in my region. It is sad that sometime there is no information such as building footprint or vegetation in Asia.

 

[Christian Bahr]

I am studying about GIS software. I hope I can do those tree automatically in my region. It is sad that sometime there is no information such as building footprint or vegetation in Asia.

Maybe there is something similar here in the forum. If there was nothing here, then I would be very surprised.

If it's just a small region that you need, then you can build the footprints and vegetation polygons with the GIS itself. But if it is to become a whole country, then of course that would require a lot of work. On the page Geofabrik.de there is an overview of freely available shapefiles. The vegetation is also stored in these shapefiles. Or you can extract all OSM data directly from the extract.bbbike.org page for its region

But all this would go too far in this post

 

[Christian Bahr]

Hi.

The airfield EDGT Bottenhorn is now online. The scenery can be downloaded as usual without registration and without additional barriers from the Bahrometrix download page:

Download EDGT Bottenhorn

At Bottenhorn, pronounced also Boddehe'nn, it concerns the special landing place EDGT Bottenhorn which lies in Hessen in the district Marburg-Biedenkopf.. The Bahrometrix sceneries still lacked some of the latest elements of modern scenery design. This was made up and so seasonal volumetric grass was installed in the scenery and some buildings have been given seasonal variations. Both the 3-D grass and the seasonal buildings automatically switch when the season changes.

Another improvement concerns the avatar technique. The avatar Gerhard included in the package has got new motion sequences (Motion Capture) and can, among other things, perform a Tigerjump. Just try it out!

As a special gimmick there are for the first time animated animals in the Bahrometrix scenarios. These are Living Animals, they complement the already existing Bahrometrix Living People. So beware of takeoffs and landings in Bottenhorn: Red deer roam the grounds.

Special thanks go to Ryan the photographer, who has provided his professional pictures of the airfield to the project and he is involved in the cost of aerial photography. Big thanks to the great beta-test team that has contributed to the fact that Bottenhorn has become a detailed and realistic scenery. Thank you Scotty, Roland and Steffen!

Have fun with Bottenhorn

Features
- ORBX color-matched orthophoto 15cm/px with all seasonal variations
- Volumetric grass with seasonal variations (switched automatically)
- Seasonal buildings and objects (switch automatically)
- All buildings of the airfield with many details as well as static objects
- Dynamic lights with natural shades (warm white)
- Sloped runway with with natural gradient, tuned to 19m mesh setting
- SODE-controlled wind objects (wind turbines and wind vanes)
- sporadically occurring animal crossing on runway
- Soundscape in the form of natural sounds
- Controllable avatar Gerhard
- Animated People (Living People)
- Animated Animals (Living Animals)
- Self-created Aerodrome Chart and Visual Operation Chart
- Scenery Configurator LITE from 29Palms Scenery Design

Orthophotos: (c) Office for Soil Management Marburg 2018

 

[scotth6]

Brilliant work Christian. Thanks so much for sharing your efforts.

Cheers,

 

[jencas]

Absolutely stunning. Thank you very much for this brilliant freeware.