Hi all,
Well, the brothers from Eagle Air at Ketchikan Harbor have moved their office and floatplane base to quieter digs at Hollis, Alaska which is on Prince of Wales Island. They are planning on selling their Ketchikan location to Carlin Air and still plan to make stops at the Carlin Air facility. As a result of this move........
RTMM is pleased to announce:
You may ask, why does it say "Gateway to Prince of Wales Island". Well, currently, the most economical way to get you and (if you want) your car to Prince of Wales Island from Ketchikan is the Inter-Island Ferry Authority which runs a daily ferry from Ketchikan to Hollis, Alaska.
As opposed to Ketchikan Harbor, this scenery package will enhance hundreds of square miles with objects from the RTMM Object Libraries as well as creeks, small waterfalls, roads etc. Even though, Hollis, Alaksa is a very small community, this scenery enhancement will provide a fictionally higher level of activity to increase the "fun" factor while still being true to the Hollis, Alaska environment.
As opposed to most other RTMM sceneries, besides requiring ORBX PFJ, this scenery will absolutely require the wonderful payware known as Tongass Fjords X by Holger Sandmann and Bill Womack. Three reasons for this:
1. Hollis, Alaska is located in the far west part of the ORBX PFJ area and in the far east part of the Tongass Fjords X scenery area. It is in both scenery areas.
2. Hollis Harbor will use many objects from Tongass Fjords X.
3. When you are flying in and out of Hollis, you are going to want to be flying to Klawock, Craig and even Hydaburg....all cities inside the Tongass Fjords X scenery area.
Yes, this scenery definitely expands RTMM activity into Tongass Fjords X and I am looking forward to many future bush scenery enhancements from the RTMM staff that lie inside the beautiful Tongass Fjords X scenery area.
Hollis Harbor will prominently feature something that RTMM has been focused on from the beginnig......a number of locations that the user will want to visit because of the story lines that will draw them there.
What could be better than that.........well, wonder if your visit to a location would display some different imagery depending on the season when you visit and I don't just mean terrain/foliage. Hollis Harbor will be introducing something I am calling, Full Seasonal Immersion (FSI).
The Hollis Harbor scenery will use RTMM Season Switcher v3.3 which will soon be released. This new version of the switcher will not only switch object files, but it will switch almost any seasonal file a develper cares to create including seasonal files in scenery\world\scenery, which means the new version of the switcher will be able to switch seasonal AI Traffic files.
So that you, the user will be able to enjoy this new feature immediately, Dexter Thomas has been working closely with me and I am proud to announce that the initial release of Hollis Harbor will also include full AI Floatplane traffic in the harbor programmed by Dex......just as you see it in the announcment picture above. In addition, both Dex and Rob Abernathy have worked on faithfully depicting regular departures of the Ferry from the Hollis Ferry Dock.
So, let's delve into just what FSI means to you. Bottom line: when the season changes via the RTMM Season Switcher, so does a lot more than just foliage and terrain. What else can change besides foliage and terrain, you ask, well….just about anything that would normally change in real life….this is why I refer to this type of scenery as Full Seasonal Immersion.
Each season change initiated by the user using the RTMM Season Switcher v3.3 and also made by the user in the FSX Time & Season selection will cause a seasonally appropriate change. Some examples of things that change by season using the Hollis Harbor scenery enhancement are:
- Tree foliage including some bushes
- Number, types, and locations of
o docked boats, floatplanes
o parked cars
o people
o boxes, crates, fallen tree branches and other miscellaneous objects
o scenes that would not be fixed in place over time (e.g. campers, loggers, temporary
landing strips etc.)
- AI floatplane traffic volume according to the season
- AI leisure boat traffic volume according to the season
- FSX Road Traffic volume according to the season
- Water volume in at least one river with appropriate shoreline changes according to the season
- The Hollis Ferry and Fishing Boat departure times according to the season
- Ice in the water (including broken ice) and snow on land (some change are monthly during Jan
through May)
The seasonal changes will be consistent with the Hollis weather: cool winter (moderate snow, low activity), damp spring (snow melt off and some rain, a lot more activity), fairly dry cool summer (not much rain, most activity), very, very wet and cool fall (40+ inches of rain, more activity than winter but less than spring).
One of the destinations just outside of Hollis will be the Karta River & Lake area which will feature a relatively smooth river run....at the beginning of the river run (which you can boat to from the Hollis Island dock) is, of course, a Brad's BBQ (they do get everywhere). The following animated GIF will sequence through the four seasons at Brad's BBQ to give you and idea of how FSI looks.
So, a lot to look forward to....beta testing starts early next week....don't know how long that will take since this is a bit more complex than the average RTMM scenery addon.
Rod
