OAHU for AFS2 in development - Share our excitement!

  • This is impressive teamwork, never thought anything like this would see the light of day...

    Thanks to anyone putting so much time and effort in it, can't wait! ;)

    Regards,

    Peter Splinter

    i5-7400@3,4 GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 1660 Super, Pico 4, Quest 2 , 'Vintage' Pro Flight Trainer, X52 Pro, VKB pedals

  • Looking through all those beautiful images again....

    :)8):)

    Freeware? Well, if the team does not care for any donations, my money goes to flight-sim.org, will be a BIG file to host. ;)

    Close to Orbx quality, and seems to be bigger then all Orbx scenery together. Respect!

    Regards,

    Peter Splinter

    i5-7400@3,4 GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 1660 Super, Pico 4, Quest 2 , 'Vintage' Pro Flight Trainer, X52 Pro, VKB pedals

  • Yes, the initial goal was to limit the scenery to just the island of Oahu. Oahu seems to have most everything you could imagine packed in one compact area. With all the natural beauty of the island chain in the middle of the Pacific with iconic land features like mountains, beaches all around the island, natural harbors, Diamondhead crater and the sheer beauty of Kaena Point cliffs, the North shore with the huge waves and surfers, the Kaneohe Bay with the Marine base in the middle, and those reach for sky buildings in and around Honolulu.

    I think we have really outdone ourselves with the architectural presentation of the city of Honolulu. These are not your standard cultivation boxes and rectangles, these are high rise buildings with complex textures, colors, night lighting, proper location and proportions, etc.

    Practically every tree in the city was planted one by one to ensure the correct images. The water and beaches have been upgraded to a higher standard than we normally see in our sim. Many of the iconic buildings have been created in 3D from scratch by talented artists. In the port area each of those containers, cranes, ships and parked cars have been placed by hand, one by one.

    For us aviator enthusiasts there are enough airports that everyone should be happy. There is the outstanding PHNL Honolulu International with runways long enough to land the Space Shuttle and super modern terminals and garages and sharing these runways off to one side is Wickam Air Force Base with some of the largest and most modern 5th generation fighters.

    We have animated traffic on the freeway arriving and departing the international airport and Wickam AFB. On final approach you will be flying among commercial airliners that are actually flying in AFS2. You can glance over at the moving Goodyear Blimp and an animated hot air balloon. As you taxi up to the terminal you will see a lot of ground traffic moving about to and fro. Do notice the detail of the extensive ramp area, lot of striping and paint on the ground, and lots of static airliners and support equipment. I am still amazed at the amount of detail in these new terminals, especially the new 5-story control tower building. Of course, those fancy parking garages are nothing to sneeze at either. There are thousands of 3d cars in and around the terminals.

    Moving around the island you will want to fly at sunrise, sunset, during the day, and at night. There will some something special for you to notice during each of the periods. Just about any helipad will be something special with their own unique detail, animated construction equipment, trucks and cars, etc. They all have night lighting. Oh, catch the authentic light patterns of the custom light houses around the island.

    The U. S. Marine Corps Base Hawaii received special attention and enhanced animations so it will receive a separate write-up and discussion. Moving on around the island, Dillingham, a long time civilian airport known as a glider port due to the thermals close by has its own animation.

    The Radar Dome complex and large satellite dishes high atop the most Western point will require a few turns around a point. We added a small grass runway close by for those that wish to explore the area in more detail. Watch for some real eye candy off shore (hint: 3 masts, lots of sails) and be alert for the hang gliders that seem to appear out of nowhere.

    Moving on around the island to the SE corner we find the old Barbers Point NAS, also known as the John Rodgers Field, but, now known as Kalaeloa Airport. The U. S. Coast Guard maintains a presence in one corner where you will find a treasure of helicopters and C-130s sporting the world renown red, white and blue colors of the Coast Guard. We have some special animations in work for this area. Already flying patrol are a pair of C-130s and not too far away you will see a civilian owned P-51 fly low to ground and making some sort of flight pattern. The local FBO usually has a couple of Cessnas or Cherokees in the pattern with the student making their touch and goes. Busy place.

    In the middle of Pearl Harbor, you will find Ford Island with an operating 5,000 foot turf runway, authentic control tower, the Pacific Air Museum with a growing static display of some of the larger planes among other things.

    Sometime later I will discus the miles and miles of elevated H-3 Interstate Highway including the tunnels through the mountains, the bridge to Ford Island (yes you can fly under it), and some of the other highly improved areas.

    Of special interest to some, will be the animated Pride of America cruise ship that is in constant motion as well as a sister ship that is loading or off loading passengers at the Honolulu Cruise Terminal.

    Please keep in mind, this Hawaii Revisited is a Work in Progress and we reserve to the right to add, change, delete or do whatever we please so don't get hung up on details.

    Just so you know, all the other main islands will be included, and that will include all the airports in full detail. I do mean full detail, practically every one of them could pass as payware. Many might be at a level you have never witnessed in AFS2.

    I will try to expand this as we move along. There is much more to say about Oahu, especially the animated buses, trams, and street traffic. I will take each of the other islands and give you an insiders view of what will be coming your way. There is no doubt in my mind that this scenery package will blow your socks off.

    Just because I failed to mention something does not mean it is not included. It may just be that the work in not complete enough to talk about.

    Oh, I guess you read that Kenneth has left the team, so we are without a scribe. Should you have a talent that attracts you to wordsmithing and assembling documentation for an upcoming massive scenery release please PM me. Someone has to continue posting screenshots and I am too busy flying to do it myself. I may come back and read this and correct some of the typos and grammar, also might not.

  • The 'enlightened' one has a way with words, now the itch is even growing stronger...

    Can't wait to hop around in the R22 for close looks or get into Larry's Lynx for a fast flight around the archipel!

    Regards,

    Peter Splinter

    i5-7400@3,4 GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 1660 Super, Pico 4, Quest 2 , 'Vintage' Pro Flight Trainer, X52 Pro, VKB pedals

  • Our last two airports were added last night. Each of the larger outer islands have 3 or 4 very well developed airports. Many of these could easily pass as payware level. All are exceptional for AFS2, especially as freeware.

    As time permits, one of us will come back to this thread and pass along more information for you. Here is what the location screen looks like today. It is indeed an island hoppers dream.

  • Speaking of smaller airports being developed . . . here is my first look at the upgraded Princeville, Kauai, airport. Princeville is an upscale resort with a private airport located on the North Shore of Kauai. Known for exquisite golf courses and beautiful views of the shoreline and water. All airports on Kauai are now complete with just some small touchups remaining.

    As I was flying around this morning I was taken aback at the level of detail the team is adding to these high visibility areas. Most flight simmers will probably never be able to afford a real world vacation to a resort like Princeville, but, we can spent unlimited time flying around in the sim and day dreaming.

    These are all custom 3d buildings and structures with hundreds, maybe thousands of trees, each planted one by one. Enjoy.

  • This gigantic and magnificent achievement is truly worthy of a Payware addon :!::love:

    In any case, all the credit goes to you! RESPECT:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

    Best wishes 😉

    Pascal

    AFS2 / FS4 / MSFS / - Intel(R) Core i7 -12800HX 4.80 GHz - DDR5 4800MHz 32 Go - NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 3070 Ti 8 GB GDDR6X - 2x 2 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4

  • This model must have an extraordinary reserve for the return to Switzerland :/:D

    Best wishes 😉

    Pascal

    AFS2 / FS4 / MSFS / - Intel(R) Core i7 -12800HX 4.80 GHz - DDR5 4800MHz 32 Go - NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 3070 Ti 8 GB GDDR6X - 2x 2 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4

  • Fantastic!

    Eu acredito que é havaiano, um dos lugares mais bonitos para voar ... Confesso que meu coração estava cheio de felicidade, pois já consigo imaginar pousar com o 777 em Honolulu, Kona etc ... e, claro, panorâmico voos com Cessna e Beechcraft, será maravilhoso e agradeço muito à equipe envolvida neste projeto!

    Felicidades.

    Giovanni.

    :): thumbup:

  • We are starting to think we may see the light at the end of the tunnel. But, as they say, it could just be a train going the wrong way.

    We were discussing the best approach to releasing the scenery once we have the necessary orthos and final checks and such. Of course, everyone knows that a work in progress is exactly that and things can and do get changed and rearranged and such, but, we are thinking a good order is to release Oahu as a stand alone area, followed a week or two later with Maui and Kahoolawe. The third release would be the Big Island of Hawaii.

    If all is going well, we would double back and release Molokai and Lanai to be followed by the 5th and final release of Kauai and Niihau.

    The logic is that you user could start flying island to island right away and this piecemeal release would give you time to explore each island a little longer and yet could still do some island hopping.

    Overall it will be a massive undertaking and also a massive amount of data so you might want to start considering making some space available or adding a new storage drive.

    I was out flying around some of the out of the way places a little earlier today and I happened upon the Makena area of Maui. I remember leaving a nine iron on one of the greens when I played there so I made a couple of circles around the course, but, didn't see my club. hmm. It must have been a different day than when Google was taking photos. 8o

    This is using my temporary working scenery so our release scenery will hopefully be a better quality.

  • Hello Gang,

    I need some feedback from our dedicated followers here. I am struggling to come up with an acceptable concept for the documentation for our massive scenery package. It seems that our team members are not very vocal in their desires, but, do make a few brief comments from time to time.

    We tend fall into two camps, one that has very minimal wants and needs and therefore thinks that your wants and needs are the same, i.e., a brief or maybe no discussion at all about Hawaii, history, geography, POIs, etc. In other words, give me the link for download and let me go fly. Who reads the manual, anyway?

    The other extreme, that includes yours truly, wants to give you probably more than you want or need - a brief history of the Islands, a paragraph or two describing the geography, major attractions, what you see when flying around the islands, the POI (s) that attract the tourists, and some personal comments from my 4 vacations to Hawaii, including a recent cruise around the islands and some screenshots and photos of the Islands.

    Because we are giving this scenery package to you, gratis, I thought I would ask your opinion. Oh, a big concern of our group is to make sure we are complying with copyrights, especially when using online photos or screenshots. (nobody wants to give permission for something that is free). My opinion is that there are enough copyright free photos online that I can make a "show and tell" document that will pass muster.

    The difficulties for me, a non-writer, is how to make the document interesting, without boring you to tears. I realize the end use is a scenery package where no other exists for this flight sim, so in this case something will be better than nothing. But, this is a truly extraordinary package, prepared by professionals, and being given to the community with no strings attached.

    Now here is the rub, every single website, travel brochure, book, and so forth, wants to talk about the hotels, resorts, bars, music, nightlife, restaurants, ziplines, bus tours, golf courses, hiking trails, biking trails, riding stables, water sports, fishing, boating and sailing, and the best deal on car rentals.

    For my part, all of the above is out the window. We can either fly to it, from it, over it, near it, around it, or under it. Our choice is simply fixed wing or rotary wing, fast or slow, high or low. So what is left to discuss is what you can see and where you can find it.

    This can be a narrative, which in my case would be a rambling discussion, or maybe a bullet list with either the exact location or a general location. I can recommend short flights, medium-length flights, and somewhat longer flight and give a few recommendations or I can simply give you a link to the free sectional chart download site and tell you that all the airports are available in the completed scenery package.

    A lot of effort has been made to include some animation and movement; cars, trucks and buses moving along the highways, boats and ships moving in the, ah em 'water', airplanes flying unassisted, wind turbines turnings, sailboats sailing, etc. I would at least want to include a list with a general idea of what they are and where you might find them.

    Our artists have spent hours and hours, and more hours, creating custom 3D structures, buildings, and adding textures for POIs that look just like the photos in the travel brochures so it would be a real shame to pass them up because you were looking the other way and missed them in your fly-by.

    We have a whole new group of static aircraft created just for this scenery, including a few repaints for our one helicopter that we can paint and the precious few airplanes that have a paintkit. It would be a shame if you failed to acknowledge those.

    Please let me know your thoughts.