KMSP - Minneapolis St Paul International Airport
Credits:Textures.com for free textures and Horst18519 for providing the font used in the signs.
VERSION 1.2 - Release 21st June, 2023
With over 800 downloads now, I decided extra work was on the cards. The new version almost entirely concentrates on Terminal 2, Humphrey Terminal. You will also see a To-Do/Completed list below.
Right now, there are few frills, just basic structure of T-2. The car park behind it has not been remodelled, and the building itself is a single LOD, which means it could create a hit for the frame rate. The Jetbridges have been positioned and seem to work flawlessly at T2, BUT I haven't revisited T1 since version 1.1.
Ground markings have been created so the AI traffic flows correctly. As I may have mentioned before, Streetview doesn't cover the drop off side, and few photos seem to exist on line of this area, so much of the front is a guess. No traffic flows at the moment. Hopefully I can fix that later.
Release 1.3 - July 18 2023
The main updates in this version are:
- Terminal 2 Parking Garage redrawn including construction offices and fencing on the approach road.
- Lighting revised for FBO area, curing the flickering lights.
Runway Approach Lighting revised for 12R and !2L + correction made to 12L Primary/Secondary setting that was causing it to show up incorrectly on the Menu.
Airlift Hangars updated, one from scratch, the other just texure modification and lighting.
Many small updates from the to-do list above, but unable to retrieve the list right now.
Release 1.4 - August 8 2023
First an apology. Version 1.3 had a Poly Terrain Error that resulted in trench across runway 12L. This was pointed out a couple of days ago, and this has been fixed in this release. Please carry on reporting issues so I can fix them.
This release concentrated largely on Concourse F, which has been completely rebuilt. It is certainly not as good as I would like, and might be improved if I could wander around the gate area and study the construction up close.
The area next to the Terminal 2 Parking booths has also had some attention, a building I believe relates to rental car cleaning. I haven't quite finished it, with touches like address numbers still missing, but the trench on 12L needed a quick fix. Hopefully nothing got broken fixing it.
For AI aircraft, runway 17-35 has been set for Takeoffs on 17 and Landings on 35 in the hope that MSFS will take some notice. Runway 4-22 has been set for no landing or takeoffs to match the current state.
Release 1.5 - September 7 2023
This release concentrates mainly on Concourse B, the Island from which smaller Regional Jets sometimes depart. All the odd gates were removed, probably after phasing out of the smallest aircraft. Although I have fitted Jetways, I have not found them to work, which seems to be an issue with scaling down Asobo Jetways. Also, I have no Regional Jets on which to test it.
The ground markings and lighting have been added, and hopefully more realistic textures.
Overall, one change I hope you will notice, is the inclusion of line markings with Black behind them. The Standard Asobo lines have a transparent background, so the lines are hard to pick out on lighter surfaces. All the hold short lines and enhanced centerlines have been replaced, along with new runway safety graphics on the taxiways. These were often inaccurate when part of the automatic offering from Asobo.
I have yet to create the LOD's for Concourse B, but I wanted to get this out on a monthly development cycle. Over time, I am generating new models whilst old models still exist, so there are a lot of textures that will eventually go away, but are currently needed.
Release 1.6 - October 6 2023
As promised, I have made reasonable progress on Concourse A though to C1, including as much detail as I can. Thanks must go to Dave Lourie of DVL-Creations for taking a look at pre-release copy and pointing out some issues, most of which have been addressed. The approach to 30L and 30R is over the Minnesota River, which has trees on the not insubstantial Bank. MSFS tends to make these trees overly large, and these have hidden the approach lights. I have trimmed the trees and given the lights a 1 degree angle to try and resolve this, without repeating the problem of approaching aircraft flying through the lights.
Fencing has been tidied up in places where it looked messy, and grass has been laid under roads and Post Office area which has been redeveloped since Asobo captured the satellite data .. about 2008. This is a temporary fix.
Some progress has been made in getting airport vehicles using the Vehicle Paths, but for no apparent reason, they will sometimes peel off onto the taxiways.
I trired my hand at tunnel approaches using the revised Terraforming, but have yet to succeed. I have left the structure in place, but right now, it is only visible as a 1 foot tall wall by the G Gates.
A new feature is the introduction of black paint under the Hold Short and Enhanced Taxi lines. Also, the white lines surrounding aircraft at the stands has been augmented with a red line on the outside. Some fine tuning is needed here, so hopefully I will have refined this by the next version, and added some missing lines as well.
Release 1.7 - November 5 2023
This version largely completes the terminal buildings from the air side, adding Gates D and G, and reworking the original Lindburgh Part with the roof and approach roads.
There is a lot of guesswork involved in how the gates look, since there are few photos or satellite images that don’t show them in shadow. I have tinkered around with things that bug me from previous releases, such as Jetways that don’t quite meet the links, and I have largely given up on Asobo Links, since they seem to frequently disconnect from the Jetway.
I am unhappy with my rendering of glass, particularly at night. Right now, there are probably three or four different attempts modeled, and I will hopefully get some feedback on which people prefer. I killed off the road traffic on the exit side of T1, since it was routed through buildings after the latest MAC project. I have placed roads, but they don’t work.
Gate G5 Jetway doesn’t work. Not sure why.
Taxiway Centerline lighting has been revisited as it was incorrect. Now, there are three lit taxiways only, B,Q and T.
The Light Orbs - Street Lights (Asobo) can finally be removed by a Poly, so I have removed them from the approach road, where a bright red glow was previously an eye sore.
Even though I have adjusted the flattening Polygon and the Building Removal Polygon, the Target and Home Depot buildings to the west of the field are still not being populated automatically. I may have to add them as models later.
All the gates now have allocated airline codes added. If you use FSLTL, you should see aircraft parking at the correct concourses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As of a few days ago, this is no longer the only rendering of KMSP for MSFS. Flightbeam have worked their magic, so I expect to see far fewer downloads. Is it worth plodding on with this project, or are their more imported neglected airports I should concentrate on? Please feel free to comment, either on here or Discord.
Work In Progress
So what next?
. Rebuild Post Office
. UPS and FedEx Bases
. Older T1 Car Park .. dreading that one.
Installation
Please remove kmsp-minneapolis-st-paul-intl from your Community Folder before installing the new version which is mgc-kmsp-minneapolisstpaulintl
As noted below, the zip file contains two other libraries that only new users will need to copy to the Community Folder.
This zip file contains four folders for the community folder.
mgc_groundmarkings
mgc_kmsp_minneapolisstpaulIntl
mgcscenery-modellib-tsassets
mnsd-modellib-airport-models
Please replace the folders in your community folder with all of these at version 1.7.
https://discord.gg/pqrvksRE
18 days ago
PlutonianEmpire
18 days ago
holdencf
19 days ago
connomar
22 days ago
21 days ago
connomar
fppilot
22 days ago
21 days ago
connomar
Chairman941
23 days ago
liamp51
I did have a request for your next release - I use PSXTraffic as my AI traffic generator. The developer builds parking data for many airports in their database; however, this airport is skipped from being added because of undefined values in the project.
The BGL file/project looks like it has a null value for either the publisher or the manufacturer metadata values. I was wondering if you could add "mgc" or whatever name you would want to show up so that AI parking history can be created for every gate. This would benefit other PSXTraffic users and even allow them to discover this scenery!
1 months ago
1 months ago
connomar
AeroMaster
One item I noticed was that the Home depot and Target stores to the west of the airport do not draw in with the scenery enabled and work fine without out.
2 months ago
1 months ago
connomar
scffvariable
2 months ago
Mach6X
2 months ago
GrilledCheese
2 months ago
pazzini256
2 months ago
WardoMon
2 months ago
connomar
3 months ago
awamech
One of the factors that MSFS Developers face is a lack of taxiway lines with a dark asphalt background. With the help of another Developer, Christopher Deyoe of YouTube Channel MyPhysicalWorld, I have been able to produce new markings, but the Hold Short markings then lose their pavement numbers, so these have then had to be created and manually placed.
Then I realized that the enhanced centerline looked naff, so I applied one or two new ones, then decided that it would be more effective to write Software to do that tedious task. So, I hope to finish that tomorrow , 6th Sept, apply it and publish sometime this week.
Thank you for all the kind comments, they keep me going.
Martin
3 months ago
connomar