Static Aircraft Collection?

[Aerodynamic]

I'm new to XP 10 and I'm in the process of trying to convert some MSFS sceneries. I have been monkeying with Overlay Editor to try to clean up some of the objects in the conversion that look weird, etc. One thing I'd really like to do is place some static aircraft at proper gates. I'm just having a hard time locating static aircraft. For example, I searched for a Delta 757-200 with winglets in the current colors and I cannot find anything. What would be really nice is if there is a way to convert MSFS AI aircraft models over since there are so many freeware models/liveries available - most of which are color-matched by the repainters. Is there any way to accomplish this? Or can someone point me in the right direction where I can find tons or airliner objects to populate airports? I can get over the limited AI traffic, but static aircraft would make the airports feel more alive when taxiing and what not. Thanks for any info.

[chris k]

OpensceneryX

Tons of Static Aircraft of all types and Liveries. Complete free to use and almost everyone already has this installed on their XP systems.

http://www.opensceneryx.com/

- CK.

[chris k]

Also look here for RoyalOak's "Serviced Aircraft Scenery" Collections to use in OE/WED:

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=core&module=search&do=user_activity&search_app=downloads&mid=99351

- CK.

[Aerodynamic]

Thanks Chris. I am specifically trying to work on a conversion of FS Dreamteam's JFK - a focus city for Delta. I browsed through the OpensceneryX site listing and cannot find many Delta aircraft at all. Am I missing something? There are quite a bit of specific liveries I am looking for and they're not in that library. Moreover, the pics of the aircraft look like the textures are rather blurry. Do they look better once placed in the sim?

RoyalOak's stuff looks promising. Thank you for the help!

[Aerodynamic]

Unfortunately neither package is really helping me. There really is not a big selection of static airliners there. Most of the ones in both packages are not true to life. There are many aircraft included for airlines that do not even operate the type. And for the ones that would be accurate, they're just not included in the packages. What's even more disappointing is that the paint schemes are pretty poor. (Crooked stripes, "melted" looking windows, poor colors, etc.) I'm certainly not trying to down the effort of the authors and I am aware this is freeware. There are lots of good objects in there, just not accurate + believeable aircraft.

[chris k]

Yeah - Some are lower res. However, I've used many and look pretty good. (i.e. the YSSY scenery - all the statics are OpensceneryX).

Yeah - some are also fictitious liveries. i.e. WestJet as never had a 767.

The only Delta Ones I see in OSX are a 727-200 and a 747-400. You'd have to make your own paintkit for anything else and re-paint them.

OR use PlaneMaker and export an existing *true* X-Plane .ACF aircraft plane as an OBJ.

P.S. You sure you got your texture resolution turned up? =) Most statics I have look OK.

- CK.

Edited July 11, 2012 by chris k

[Aerodynamic]

Thanks for your reponses, seriously. I'm very new at this and one thing that entices me about X-Plane is the scenery tools. I've always wanted to dabble in that but never had the confidence in my ability to design crap with software, etc. Plus I'm currently working on my instrument rating in the real world and I just don't have a lot of free time anymore to learn more than I'm trying to absorb now.

Overlay Editor is an awesome thing so far. I have not successfully done anything with it other than practicing moving around objects. But it's fun and I think it's something I could learn enough about to make a scenery package here and there to populate my X-Plane world. I am sort of compulsive by nature. I have a keen eye for things and I tend to set the bar pretty high for myself. (Not good when you're 5' 6". Ayo!) So I was a little bummed about the object packages because I was looking for pretty much all the current Delta airliners and then I searched for a Southwest 737 and a JetBlue A320. None of which were available. So I basically struck out last night trying to work New York-Kennedy and Las Vegas.

I'll try the Plane Maker export trick. My texture resolution is set at "very high" right now. I'm only looking at the preview box in Overlay Editor. I can tell some objects looks better than others before I even fool around with the placement. One more question. Is there a frame rate hit by exporting objects in Plane Maker?

[chris k]

Well, everything affects frame rate in theory. i.e. "draw this object" vs "dont draw this object".

Im not too sure how optimized an .OBJ becomes out of planemaker - so yes, you may be in for a "world of hurt" if you export a very detailed/mass-triangled aircraft. All depends on the Level of Detail in the original .ACF per se.

Best way to test is to "just do it" and have a look-see. Enable the FPS output in X-Plane 's Main window. (Data Output -> Display Frame Rate, click on 4th box -> display on Monitor)

P.S. You can always ask around in the community for people who may be able to paint an appropriate livery/object for you. Lots of talent out there, many of which are more than happy to help!

- CK.

Edited July 11, 2012 by chris k

[briangodwin]

Yeah - Some are lower res. However, I've used many and look pretty good. (i.e. the YSSY scenery - all the statics are OpensceneryX).

Yeah - some are also fictitious liveries. i.e. WestJet as never had a 767.

The only Delta Ones I see in OSX are a 727-200 and a 747-400. You'd have to make your own paintkit for anything else and re-paint them.

OR use PlaneMaker and export an existing *true* X-Plane .ACF aircraft plane as an OBJ.

P.S. You sure you got your texture resolution turned up? =) Most statics I have look OK.

- CK.

Chris,

 

Is there a step by step on this conversion process?  There has to be more than that single step (I did that and dropped it into WED...pretty much suspecting it would be a fail...and it was).  I'm assuming that there has to be some retexturing of the exported object because it was invisible in both WED and XP10.

 

Thanks!

 

Brian

[chris k]

In PlaneMaker, I think there's a "Export ACF as OBJ".. However that may only be in PM9... dont recall seeing it (or it working) in XP10.

 

It outputs an OBJ file; older versions push out OBJ7, which can convert to OBJ8 with Xgrinder I believe

 

Dont quote me on any of this - havent done this in a Looooong time... but thats the general direction to take.

 

- CK.

[DanielR1]

try the fruitstand aircraft library: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=27545