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Sorry guys , but I'm brand new at this and I'm middle-aged to boot.   FS2004 was under the tree this past Christmas and now I dream about flying .  Everybody in the forum seems to be a genius and I , and likely many others find this intimidating .  Would  anyone mind terribly if I ( or perhaps some other rank amatuer ) asked what are likely emabarrasingly simplistic questions , such as :  "When I am flying out of my local airfield and am looking for my house or the village near where I live .........and it's not there because it's too small to be of any consequence ........how do I put it there ? "  I would be keen to ask other questions such as,  " Why do I keep on crashing into the ground ?", if no one minds.  Thanks guys.

no worries ask any question you want we will do our best to answer them..and welcome to the forums

Hi there and welcome!
Don't be afraid to ask, that's why this forum was created in the first place
Nobody is perfect, we all have been new to flight sim, and while that might be intimidating, you can count on support from us SimV members!

And I'd also like to say that it's really nice to see the "older" generation enjoying this kind of virtual entertainment

Thanks Daz .  So how DO I put my house on the ground when I'm in the air ?  Really .... no kiddin'.

The only way to add your house to FS is to create it by using a 3D program call Gmax, which is a free version of 3D Max.

Hi Pointerboat and welcome to simv.
[quote]Posted by: pointerboat Posted on: Feb 17th, 2004, 8:52pm
Sorry guys , but I'm brand new at this and I'm middle-aged to boot.

Welcome aboard airman!
Yep. It takes gMax, which comes with FS2002+ and a little knowledge of the Latitude and Longitude of your house, along with the elevation. FS2002 is a bit bad with placements, would be great to have the buildings in the right places though. I live in the country (kinda) and where I found the Lat/Lon of my house, the buildings of Dallas still existed. Now THAT took some time to fix! lol. Good luck mate, and have fun!

So ,  GMax is a download for FS2002 ?  I could GPS my place and put in the grand estate methinks .  Such potential .  I'll look for GMax in the download site .  Thanks again .    Terry

If you have FS2002 pro just look for the files in there. GmaxInstall.exe or something to the like.

    Welcome aboard

Might I suggest trying the lessons in FS2004 they are really great and you can start from the simplest lesson and work your way up to comerical pilot.
All of the lessons are broken down into catagories I wolud suggest you start with the basic lesson using the cessna 172. You can fly any lesson as many times as it takes untill you get comfortable.

    Lots of luck

Hi Pointerboat & welcome from another old fogey.
I've been messing around with addons for the M$ sims since FS98 & never did figure out Gmax. Not likely to if I live to be 100 which is very doubtful.

If you find it a tad daunting may I suggest you try EOD. http://www.echos.ch/eod/
This can be used to create simple API macros* like buildings. You can then import them into a conventional 3rd party scenery design application like Airport or FS Scenery Creator. I find FSSC the easier of the two myself. http://fssc.avsim.net/

*There are plenty of existing API macros posted in the Scenery design section right here. http://www.simviation.com/fsdesign_macros1.htm
This would save you the bother of creating them. You can use them to experiment with even if there's nothing suitable.

Good luck.

Yep gMax can be...confusing...at the best of times. Sometimes I just want to throw my computer across the room, but I really don't want to lose that pristine model I have spent months on. The only program worse than gMax is NWN's Toolset, and that thing is so damn buggy I just don't even bother with it. (Don't worry it's not FS related) As for lessons, you'll wanna give that instructor a few rude gestures from time to time, he's a pain in the arse.

AHA !  I thought it was just me .  Everytime my mind wanders for a moment - he announces that I'm not paying attention and I should try again some other time .  Many bad words.....red face.......almost throwing things.......you know how it goes . As Hagar says, " If I live to be a hundred............which I doubt..."  Regards to all.....Terry.

Another point for you Gmax fans. I notice this is for FS2004. Gmax is included with FS9, you will find it somewhere on CD-1, but the Gamepack you need to export in the BGL & MDL FS formats is not. The new SDKs to put this right have only been released within the last few days. If you don't have FS2002 Pro you will need the gmax Gamepack SDK & Make Model SDK.
http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2004_downloads_sdk.asp

For scenery it's possible you will also need other SDKs. I haven't checked them out myself.

I am a "late middle ager" but enjoy FS like I am a kid.

Although I have had computers for a long long time and have been using FS since FS98 I have only just in the last 6 weeks or so started adding scenery to FS2004.

I have found Airport for Windows fairly easy to use.  Once you get past the "how does this workspace relate to the scenery" thing it all stats to fall into place. As a matter of fact I don't even use a background bitmap of the area.  I find once I place the first object I "relate " to it's symbol on the workspace.

Here is what I use.
-Airport for Windows 3.0 build 188.
-TCalc for nailing the Lat & Long with amazing accuracy!
-The latest BGLCOMP.EXE from Microsoft.
-All the freeware scenery API's I can find.

Pointerboat, when you find or make a house that looks like yours and generate a BGL file to place in FS9 AFW will also generate an Exclude file which does just what it sounds like....it will "exclude" the built in FS9 scenery so your house will show.

Don't get me wrong...Airport for Windows cost me some of the little hair I have on my head!  :) But as they say at some point "the coin dropped" and it started falling into place.

GMax....I did the tutorial....designed a couple of VERY simple objects but the learning curve looks like a 1000' cliff.  :'( I do "see the light" though as the tutorials built in are very good.

Now....let me say this...all the effort you put in to learning Airport for Windows (or any other scenery adding software) will be useless when FS2006 comes out as MS is moving to XML scenery 100% I hear.

But we are in luck.  The people who write AFW have started a version called SceneGenX which uses the same graphic interface as Airport for Windows. GMax will be the scenery drawer of choice as it's output can be crunched by another program to generate FS9 object numbers.

LIke I said, I was just about to delete Airport for Windows and admit to myself this was all "over my head" when I managed to place my 1st object. I place a wood wharf just offshore on a Pacific island.  I jumped around this room giving High 5's to nobody but me!!!  ;D

If you find a freeware house that looks alot like yours placing it really isn't that tough.  Using Gmax to build the house is going to test your patience to the ....Max.  ;D

FaxCap