Honey Badger's Tinker Shed

[Honey Badger]

Okay. I'll admit it. I have created a map. It was a test map, but it was still a map of a real location. Now to move on to the big stuff. The map I created is of Lafayette Regional Airport (KLFT) on a large island (I forgot the set the the base as land. As far as most maps for YS go, this thing was made by a two year old. I plan to work on a map of Louisiana split into Northern and Southern maps to reduce lag. The KLFT map was made to test my skills and I decided that map making was easy and pretty fast. Detail would only add a little more time to the process. I'm going to start with South Louisiana then move onto North. Major airports will be done with some smaller airfields mixed in and Helicopter bases. The oilfield requires tons of these so a few bases from major companies will be made as well. A bonus: Tons, I mean TONS of start positions. The current KLFT map has 50+.

To Do:
HUM
PTN
BTR
HEZ
MKV
OPL
LFT
CWF
LCH
DRI
ORG
L89
6R1
3R7
2R1

Helicopter Bases:
Undecided

A screenie of the beta KLFT:


If you look close (don't hurt yourself), you might notice that half of the taxiways don't touch the runway. A little inside hint: only a quarter of the start positions are being used in this pic. All the aircraft in this are player flown and have not yet moved from the start position.

[Gunny]

Not to shabby for your first try.

[halberdier25]

One interesting thing I did (which may be worth a shot) was make an airport in that MSFS airport-creator application (very easy to work with) then trace it. Just a thought.

[usp2333]

Hey Nice Job!! looks very good for a 1st try.. Although i haven't even tried to make one myself. KIU (Keep it up)

[Honey Badger]

That was done with a highly pix-elated image. That's part of the reason why the taxiways aren't at a set thickness and the 2d buildings aren't quite squares. I'll look into JR's idea, but would it be easier to use a satellite image?

[Gunny]

Use a reference image to get a better picture of the airport.I use a faa diagram and a satillite image.Also get a copy of TF58s and Neocons and skippers how tos on map building between them any question you have will be answered.Good luck.

[Crazypilot]

If only scendit had background images,It would have been easier making the airports with it because you could just trace it.

[Gunny]

It does its called a reference image but it must be eather a .png or a.bmp to use.But just tracing wont be much good for runways or taxiways you need to get a lot more accurate for those.

[waspe414]

Hey, that's what I do. As long as you use the rectangle tool, it usually works out fairly well.

[Honey Badger]

If only scendit had background images,It would have been easier making the airports with it because you could just trace it.

That's basically what I did for this. The image was very low quality so it was hard to figure out everything. That and it was like gunny said, an airport diagram. m Everything was labeled so when I zoomed in, it became hard to tell what was airport and what was notes.

[waspe414]

Prior to making a map I go to Google Earth and take screen caps of the whole general area, tighter ones for higher detail, and, depending on the airport, up to five of the actual field itself. You can stitch these together in an image editor, or match them up in Scenedit (takes ages). For every zoom level, be sure to include the GE ruler of a known distance so you can scale the image properly in Scenedit.

That gives you pretty high resolution where you need it, and general shapes where you don't need to be as precise.

[Gunny]

I concure with wasp about the screen shots.And the rectangle tool is also good but if you get stuck try the thick line tool as well.Heres a trick I picked up I make my runways first to there true dimensions length X width than I rotate the runways to the reference CAUTION: Do not use the FAA diagrams for anything but the generel information it contains as most are woefully out of date as to field locations of hangers & services.Always cross reference with the photos.

[VNAF ONE]

airnav.com usually will find the dimensions and detailed information about any airport in the US and maybe outside as well. I use this website in conjunction with an open window of Google Earth with the "ruler" tool and a ground reference bitmap in the ys scenery editor. With these things, you can create an accurate runway to start using given dimensions from the site and if you need to, measure and guesstimate some marking dimensions to your best ability. Every airport is different. Always SAVE YOUR RUNWAYS! When you save your runways, you save the hassle of having to do them later if they are practically the same or especially if an airport has two identical runways such as NAS Oceana or something like that. I found that it is really accurate to trace the edges of taxiways and tarmac over the reference bitmap with the thick line tool as Gunny mentioned above. Then you can fill in later without making too many mistakes. Also when you do this, all you have to do is select the thick lines and you can use the same points to put your taxi lights without having to trace inaccurately the taxiway edges. Just a few tips you should probably consider and you'll get awesome in no time with a little practice. Start with some place you like or somewhere relatively easy and work your way up. I still haven't got the guts to do KJFK .

[Welshy]

Halb, do you mean AFCAD, If so I wish it worked for YSF, I am a pro with it but I find Scenary Ed to tedious

[halberdier25]

Halb, do you mean AFCAD, If so I wish it worked for YSF, I am a pro with it but I find Scenary Ed to tedious

Yes. Couldn't remember the name. The "nodes" are really convenient for tracing in ScenEdit because of the way the line tool works.

[Alpha Star]

Wayyy better than my first one. I still dont know how to tell how long the runway is! maybye a video tutorial will be good!

[Crazypilot]

Yeah I once made this really simple map with a simple flat island with one single grey runway strip in it.I ran it in ysf to discover the whole map was the size of a 747.

[MrFunnybone]

LINK

[Crazypilot]

Dunno where it is I was just messing around with scendit and following that really simple tutorial that's on this forum somewhere.

[Honey Badger]

Break out the happy dance! I repainted half of a halftrack (pun totally intended) with only gepolyx and notepad! This is for a little secret project (not another one!) Rise and I are working on. Painted with permission.