Dulles: Behind the scenes!

[Product Overview] We have requested from Flightbeam and Amir some insight details about the Washington Dulles work. What were the challenges, what does it take to shoot in the airport ? What is this McClane thing... Everything you wanted to know about the Dulles project is here... well, almost.

Amir, where can we find McClane hero of Die Hard in Dulles ?
McClane was initially in the scenery but last minute was left out due to last minute swarm of updates, right before release. He’s going to be included in the 1.1 update which will be out this week hopefully. He will be in multiple locations, one of the control towers and near the forest near the 1C approach.


How did you manage to program all the people movers around the airport ?
-          For the “people movers”, they are animated along invisible tracks created in 3dsmax. I basically model the track, and lock the vehicles onto these tracks and have them follow it. Each vehicle has it’s own track and speed. The people mover’s tracks try to represent actual movement at IAD, during my survey there, I took many notes on vehicle movements.


There is a circuit located in the west of the Air and Space Museum. What is it exactly ?
-          The circuit you see west of the museum is actually a police training center, owned by Fairfax County police. The ironic thing is, I’ve been there for training. After high school I was in law enforcement, and I’ve been there on multiple occasions. They teach you firearms training, and vehicle pursuit techniques.



What does it take to develop such a scenery ? Can you tell us how you work at the beginning of a new airport project ?
-          For on-site photo surveys, we have to get special permission from the airports. In most cases, you have to pay a media fee which is around $200 an hour. The initial survey is a tour around the airport where I take literally thousands of photos of the terminal exteriors. The second phase of the survey is done inside the terminal, where I take notes of the atmosphere around the airport. Everything from oil stains, to vehicle movements is notes and photographed. The third phase is during development of the airport, we usually attain several contacts which are employed at the airport on the airside. They then help me with lingering questions, and updates made to the airport during development. We usually always have pilots emailing us with even more information, which is extremely helpful. In total we end up with almost 5,000 photos, all extremely high resolution, to bring this airport to life in the simulator.


Did you have to cope with some specific challenges this time ?
-          I think the biggest difficulty encountered is the sheer number of trees around the airport. There are very dense forests and it’s difficult to represent that in FSX without a huge number of polygons. So, I had to come up with a brand new optimization technique to make a total of 75,000+ hand-placed trees without affecting framerate. The trees will only show if you’re facing them, and also uses the standard LOD technique. Other than that, it was a sheer joy working on this airport, as with all the other airports.

Hope these answers are adequate! Thanks again and very best,

Mir

Flightbeam Studios


Thanks very much !


ADX / July 14th 2013