Hello all,
This should possibly have gone in the "object libraries" subforum, but it doesn't seem very active and seems more geared towards helping users with library install issues, so I'm going to try it here. Feel free to tell me to move it.
So, I've been bitten by the scenery design bug. It all started innocently enough - I was cheating on Misty's in warmer climes, flying around Papua New Guinea playing with Air Hauler, running a bush operation in my trusty Beavers in and out of ORBX's completely awesome sloping, slanting, rough mountain strips that come with the Tapini and AYPY "experience" packages. The Tapini strips had AFCADs but no runways in the AFCADs so I learned how to add a zero-width runway using ADEX. Easy nough. But the AYPY strips are even more fun, and had no AFCADs at all, so I learned to make an AFCAD from scratch. Also easy enough. And then I realized via Google Earth that there are a couple "missing" bush strips around the Kokoda track that ORBX didn't build. So... I learned how to create photoscenery using SBuilderX. I thought it would be a real challenge to build an accurately sloping, slanting strip, but it turns out that if you place the photoscenery in its real-world location, ORBX's mesh is accurate enough that it just works perfect, clings to the mesh. Of course blend masks, autogen annotation, and object placement went along with that. Annnnnd... now I'm hooked ;-).
So I was going to attempt to build some similar sloping, slanting rough mountainside bush strips in Misty's world. Of course if I end up with anything worth sharing I'll be glad to, though that may be questionable lol. I'm just in the scouting location phase now, but I'm wondering about a couple things:
1. These won't be real-world strips so I can't just use photoscenery for my runway image. I assume creating a custom texture poly in SBuilder using satellite imagery of a gravel or dirt runway is the way to go for this? Or do you guys use a different technique?
2. Along those lines, is there a collection of runway photosceneries somewhere that I can use for textures? Or am I making my own out of actual gravel runway imagery from Google Earth? That's fine too, would be fun.
3. Objects: now this is where I'm fuzzy. I've been using Misty's scenery for a year or two so I have the object libraries installed. To use objects from those libraries, would I just add them using the Sbuilder Object Library Manager?
4. General question about objects: does the end user (if it's not me) need to have the library installed? Or, if I just use a couple objects from a library, can I include them in my scenery folder somehow?
5. Is there a catalog somewhere of the objects available in each library, or is it a matter of adding them to SBuilder and just browsing thumbnails?
6. And lastly (whew), can anyone recommend a good runway edge marker object - like a nice white cone or something - that I can use on my PNG strips? I've been sticking with default FSX objects thus far for convenience, but there doesn't seem to be anything suitable in default FSX... just an orange traffic cone which is invisible from any distance.
Thanks much for any guidance on any or all of these. Newb questions, I know... I've done my best to search but just can't find these answers.