Atlanta & Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport

I need some opinions!!

After about 2 weeks of 10-12 hour days learning how to create mods, yes I'm retired , this is what it all comes down to. I want to try and mod the Atlanta Airport on one map, and the city of Atlanta on another.

The buildings will be no trouble, the only problem is going to be the terminals. Each one is 700 to 750m long and the center building is 110m deep.

I figure I could build them in modules. each terminal would be 4 sections @ 140m x 32m and the center being @ 140m x 110m.

The question here is, can the sections be built that big? If I am reading this right.

T3 (Industries):
Higher and more impressive than T2
40m < X < 200 m
40m < Y < 200 m
30m < Z < 300 m

Not so good with math, but does "40m < Y < 200 m" mean, max 40m x 200m, or do they mean that the max X and Y must be no more than 200m and Z no more than 300m?
If this is the case, I should be able to have a carpet size of up to 200m x 200m, for T3 Industry. Is this correct?

Below is a pic of what I am talking about




Here is a pic of the entire airport.





The airport is roughly 3 mile in each direction, but if I am not mistaken, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but the CXL map is approx. 6.5 miles across it. So that leaves about 12 square miles for commercial, residential, and industry.

I'm not skilled enough to know if that's enough space left to keep the map alive.

Also, I will be using a lot of pre-existing mods, and so for every one I build, I will be able to check for compatibility issues against others before I upload it.

If it will work, I'm ready to get started. Am I crazy or what HA, HA, HA!!!
Well, I'm open for opinions!!!! Or maybe a Dr.!!!LOL

 

I took Mr.X2's train station (the one I built) and set it in game side by side to each other, finding that we have a possible rotation of 45 degrees on our buildings, and also that they will set side by side in all angles.

This is why I figured building it in sections. I can pretty much use the same texture on each building, just rename it as I go along. Not tot mention, if I could use the existing airport class as a template and just charge a little less for the construction, the player would have to finance one section of a building at a time.

Like in real life, it would take time and money to establish a full airport that size. I could take the number of passengers that the original airport .class file has set, divide that by 5 and this is the number of passengers in each terminal section. Sounds like it would be a fun little challenge.

 

Ran out of time on my edit, LOL

I am off to check out some land that The Funky Monk told me about, to see if I can work around making the map, since it is 99% flat. And I can elevate the streets to form what little hills I do have.

Only problem is, I need flat land with no water, especially since both maps have sunken freeways. Then again, I could raise the land, but that would take a while.

Unless, like I said, anyone know where I can get some desolate, used up, dried up, flat waste land, if those of Funky Monk's don't work? And no, LA is already taken!!!! LOL...........I can say that, I was born in California. .......

 

OK Part 1 of this build,

I think I am going to start the Airport area first, since it will most likely take less time, I have plenty existing mods that will help, and the buildings I need to mod are for the most part, a lot of 2 story square boxes, with flat windows.

Things I still need

1. It looks like I am going to be building the map myself, so this is going to take a day or two, since I have a lot of sunken freeways, and the water level needs to be either very low, or none at all. Don't know if you can do that though. I'll find out.
2. I must learn the night lighting. Very cool stuff you guys, and doing an airport, it's a must have.
3. When it comes to the runway, well, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, but I think they are created as simple flat textured plains. That's another we will finds out about.

But first things first, laying out the land.

This brings me to;

A Question; Probably for The Funky Monk.
I notice many maps that are cut out exactly like the image in Google Earth. Is there a way place an overlay on the map for roads, freeways, and building placement, especially for the runway, and then remove it later?


OK......And we're off!!!!

 

Yes, I have already downloaded his airport pack. I laid it all out in the game to see what I can use. Pretty impressive.
In fact, that is what one of the things that inspired me to get into modding, since I live about 20 minutes from our airport. We even have an underground railway, something like that in CXL, that takes passengers from one terminal to another, and shuttles cargo all over the airport. There is soooo much that can be used to create this.

By the way, once I got all the little bugs out of the .class file for the train station, it worked just fine. Actually better than I expected. Nice job on the tutorial!! Thanks.


Right now I am working on learning mapping still. There's a lot to load to learn when it comes to modding in CXL.

 

Thanks for the advise nicko2u, but I thought real hard about the amount of time it would take.

And yes, your absolutely right, it would take a while. but did the math on the airport, something other modelers may want to look at prior to building a large model.

1. 5 terminals would each consist of 5 sections ( 5 separate models) and 2 others would consist of 7 sections.
2. Each section would have max (T3) 10,600 triangles l1, l2, l3 and l4.
3. 39 sections could only have a max of 413400 triangles.
4. Most will be duplicated from other sections, only with different names.


Most of my models consist of way more poly count, such as the Porsche 911 below. She had over 1,600,000 triangles.
She took about 2 weeks to build, but I had a blast building her.





Below are a couple other models that have high poly counts. Some don't include the textures.

Dragon, over 250,000 triangles.




Some of the texture work in his mouth.



Most of this detail in his mouth was done using a bump map.
The actual model is below




Anyway, I enjoy jumping into the deep end! LOL


I will be using a simple flat map for the entire build, since there is no water. And if I need any small hills or valleys, I will create those in game by adding and subtracting elevated roads.


I'm going to be starting on this project Monday. Woohoo. LOL And if all goes OK, I hope to have the airport finished by the end of June.


I probably should take your advise, But we live and learn!!

 

Question about the map.

If I make my map myself using the free version of World Machine, I can only export in 512 x 512.
In my opinion, this is going to make my map look bad. Is this a correct assumption?

If this is the case, I would not wish to spend $95.00 to make a flat map for a $25.00 game. And if it is the case, would someone be willing to make the map for me? It is only a simple flat map with all recourses, and covered in trees. No Water on the map at all.

Or is it mandatory to have some water on your map? If so, a little bit in the corner would be enough.

I am still working on the map tutorials, and will try and make one myself, and just see how it turns out. But I also need to find a way to incorporate the google map overlay, so I can match my model to real life.


Thanks again all,