Hi Folks
After a lay off of 6 years doing house make overs, restoring and flying old aircraft I find, in between continuing to work 12 hour shifts to help supply the NHS with ventilators, masks, you name it - On my days off shift I am now locked in my house with nothing to do. SO I thought I would get back into the aiport design, repaints, etc and I THOUGHT .......3D modelling?
Now the last time I successfully did this I created many new buildings using my Sketch up 2014. One model of a HAS, (to use on my recreated RAF Upper Heyford), taking over a month! I travelled the country reserching lost WW2 bases (and with landowners permission to photograph and measure) produced many airfields. One At Grafton Underwood I had the honour to meet 2 of the actual B17 pilots who flew from there. They had returned for an anniversary of the base closure in a genuine Willys Jeep.
Thanks to them I remodelled this whole airfield right down to the base cinema and shop. I sent 'overfly- images' (screenshots) of the base to the 2 pilots who both thanked me and said it was very good. I met them by the bases memorial and explained as ex RAF it was something to honour all the heroes of WW2 and those who left an 'empty sky' behind them and did not return.
Now the bad bit, my PC got some damn virus that go past all my security (something new at that time)I didnt back up in time..........so I lost ALL my airfields except one small test one, my HDD was FRIED. All my 3D models, control towers etc were GONE. So at that time I packed it all in, very upset. MY missus however LOVED IT as it meant we had to go on 'day trips' etc and do boring stuff away from my beloved Flight Sim. :(
I managed to save all my progs like Runway 12, ADE, AFCAD and a copy of Sketch up 2014, however it now turns out this will no longer run as the new owners - 'Trimble' have made it 64 bit and no good on Win7!!!!
I use Win 7 as it is the LAST DECENT WINDOWS and will run FS9 2004 the newer ones wont i believe nor many of the wonderful aircraft add ons like the VC10s I used to work as an aircraft fitter, by David Maltby. Windows 10 OMG I HAD to buy a laptop with it on - dont get me started!!!
When I built my new PC's I always used to buy a LICENSED copy of Windows 7 to run the OS - NOW MS has pulled the plug on it forcing us to use the buggy AWFUL 64 bit Win 10 - THAT couldnt run a CALCULATOR!
3 questions
1) I cannot remember HOW to export my 3D models into FS2004
2) Can anyone point me to an OLD sketch up that will work or is that no longer possible?
3) Can I design my 'new' WW2 control towers, Nissen huts, guard huts etc on my crappy Win 10 laptop and then copy/paste the finished bgl back to my master Win 7 Sim PC?
Many thanks sorry I waffled on a bit. If I can model the correct control towers etc I may as well pack it all up again. FSX wont run the design progs to even build aiprports or utilise Rwy 12 etc. I really hope FS 2020 actually recognises that WE want to add airfields that MS see as 'insignificant'.
Oh finally what is a good terrain programm to change the land class please? MY airfields atm look like fields! Was it Sbuilder?? This wont run anymore when I try to load it.
Thanks