Freeware developer Ryan Whitford, known as wideloadwhitford on the FSDeveloper forums, has taken some time to chat with FSElite some insights of his upcoming Punta Gorda Airport (KPGD) in Florida. While it is the first serious project of the developer, the scenery developed with 3DSmax aims at using the features available on P3D V4 and V5, meaning it will use PBR materials and dynamic lighting. The scenery will sit on a high definition photoreal image, and the surroundings will also be on another photoreal image with hand placed autogen.
The terminal will have its interior modeled, but having optimization in mind, only the area visible from the cockpit will be rendered. While still in development, the result is already tempting. Since there are no jetways in Punta Gorda, Ryan Whitford instead took the time to create a realistic ground service environment and will release a GSX compatible scenery.
Located in southwestern Florida, the Punta Gorda Airport is currently only served by Allegiant Air, but has seen up to 50 destinations with the airline. In 2019, the airport saw 1.6 million passengers. The rest of the traffic is mostly general aviation. Every year, the airport hosts the Florida International Airshow which drew over 40,000 attendees in 2019.
Ryan Whitford hopes to release the scenery within the next two months and while the developer has not taken his final decision on this matter, he says it will most likely be freeware. Finally, the developer stated that he was already working on another airport, this time located in Arizona.
Expected Feature List
- Surrounding Photoreal texture around the airport with hand placed autogen. (Over 10,000 hand placed trees and houses.)
- Photoreal High Resolution airport background / taxiway textures / Runway Textures (4096 pixels).
- FPS friendly realistic color matched grass.
- PBR for the terminal windows.
- 3D grass
- Interior modeling for the terminal seating area so you can see from the cockpit.
- Custom and real world GSE models from the actual airport.
- Realistic Ground Clutter.
- No jetways, (the airport has none).
- Dynamic Lighting.
- GSX Compatible.
