Palma De Mallorca Airport

An update direct from the Developer today....

Here's a short update and hopefully the last before release of the upcoming Palma de Mallorca Scenery.

Beta testing has been going well so far and the team has only reported minor issues which we were able to correct very quickly. So all was going well and pointing towards a mid-August release until you know what happened! Yep, the SU5 came along. This introduced several problems for third party sceneries. These revolve mostly around the jetways and the visual docking guidance system (VDGS) which are no longer functioning correctly.

We have done extensive testing regarding these issues and have come to the conclusion that they can only be rectified by Asobo themselves. We have reached out but so far to no avail. If you can be patient for a while longer as we want to make sure that our product is working perfectly at release and therefore we need to wait until there is a solution found for these issues.

Thanks for reading and we hope you like this final set of screenshots.

So development work is pretty much complete on this wonderful airport. Other than final changes, bug fixes and optimising it's all there now. We believe our scenery is one of the most detailed out there to date. From moving escalators and elevators with opening doors, to individually modelled ceiling lights in the terminals and waving flags. We're confident this will all help to create the feeling of a living airport instead of simply static scenery.

Here are some new screenshots showing off the completed airport. All shots subject to change of course but enjoy the shots and we'll be bringing more news soon regarding a potential release date.

Here's a new and exciting entry direct from the developer:

As we are turning onto finals with our Palma Scenery project, we would like to share some of the latest developments and new features we have added.

During the development of this project, we have mainly focused on two things - Firstly, to re-create the daily operations of PMI airport as best as possible within the MSFS framework, and secondly re-creating the entire airport and all its details as it is today, whilst trying to keep the impact on game performance to a minimum.

In relation to airport operations, we have built every single parking stand, every single taxiway, and incorporated the new runway layout including accurate elevation data. Recently we have added the following features:

• A flow of ground vehicles that do not interfere with any of the aircraft.
• Ground services and equipment that represent the real-world counterpart on every aircraft stand (Accurately modelled and animated jetways, Visual Guidance System, pushbacks, fuel trucks and more).
• Accurate night lighting including all the spotlights, taxiway lights and taxi signs to allow for easy night-time operations.
• Creation of all the taxiway markings of the real airport making easier navigation to and from the runways.
• Improved ILS performance to guide aircraft more precisely into the touch down zone.

All these features have been fully implemented and are currently undergoing extensive testing. In terms of appearance, we have now completed the placement of all buildings within the airport perimeter. Each building has been faithfully replicated and we are working towards striking the right balance between great visuals and performance.

As airports are very lively places, we have aimed to recreate this with animations and additions that differentiate it from a standard scenery. We have endeavoured to create a living and breathing, active airport. We have attached some new screenshots of our project. You may notice some buildings with missing details or textures. These are currently being added individually and tested for impact on fps.

We are hopeful that in the coming weeks we will be in a position to show you the first screenshots of the final product as we shift our focus from building to testing.

Much progress of late, we have seen a huge addition of new 3D objects. Most of these do not have any textures yet as we wanted to ensure all objects and buildings fit precisely and have accurate dimensions before starting the texturing work. The ground textures are almost done and we have spent an enormous amount of time making sure they are all accurate and reflect the latest airport charts. We have also started experimenting with some new features such as moving escalators and some other cool stuff that we hope to cover in our next update. One of the next big tasks is going to be to swap all default jetways for accurate models that depict their real-world counterparts. Palma airport has several different jetways and we can’t wait to see them all in action.

As things stand, all the major building work should be completed within the next week. We are also planning to add a lot of additional buildings that are outside the airport parameters. These will be built next. We have also started performance testing on different computer systems. We are adding different models with varying LODs depending on view distance to optimise the scenery.

We hope you enjoy the new screenshots and will show you more of our progress next month.

After a short break over Christmas and New Years we are back at work and very excited to share some new developments.

The glass terminal

We have recently imported the most complex object so far into the sim. It is the glass terminal structure in terminal C.  Here are some screenshots that show you both the interior and the exterior.  Whilst we feel the current version is a good re-creation of the real-world counterpart, there are still a few things we would like to work on. This Terminal will see several improvements before product launch.
 
Finally, a few other points. We have animated the radar on top of the tower and added the first few apron objects such as buses, and AC units.  The ground texturing is coming along nicely and we aim to replicate every single line as accurately as possible.  

A new runway

Palma airport has just opened the newly renovated northern runway (24R/06L).
The renovation has not just brought a completely new surface, but also significant changes to the runway and taxiway layout. We have already been sent the newest airport charts and have seen aerial photography. We will use these to replicate the new airport layout.

Development is well underway and parts of the airport are starting to take shape.  The team is making full use of the new MSFS game engine and is experimenting with features such as fully animated lifts and hangar doors that open and close at certain times of the day to mimic the real-world operations.
Here are some early renders and initial screenshots to demonstrate where we are with this project.