MSFS20/24 CA21 Limberlost Ranch Dev Update 5

Limberlost Ranch for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 & 2024 has been progressing nicely since my last development update!

I wanted to wait a bit before posting another update because there hasn’t been a ton of visual progress until recently. I’m just now getting to the point where all of the major models are starting to wrap up, and I’m shifting my focus a bit more towards all of the smaller models that clutter things up and really start to tie the scenery together.

With the exception of a few models, most buildings and structures here at Limberlost Ranch have been modeled to conform to the terrain around them. Almost everything at this airport is on a hill. Some hills are shallow and I don’t need to consider it much in my model design, but most are on or cutting into steeper grades. So, accounting for that, this project is taking me a bit more time to get through.

However, the results of that extra effort are starting to show. My favorite example being this retro mobile home that has been based on the Vagabond brand trailer that is parked here IRL. The design is based on one exterior photo and a handful of interior photos which I used to figure out window placements and such. Surprisingly, even knowing the brand, I couldn’t find a single photo of the same style trailer online.

With my to-do list of major models down to just a single house, I have been putting more focus into creating some of the smaller assets. Switching tasks really helps keep motivation on the project, as it leads me into being able to place models in the sim. All of the small clutter and environment models that help to tie things together visually.

The mansion (does it qualify?) near the end of the runway has this really nice garden island in the middle of the driveway. I spent a bit of time creating some new garden specific vegetation as I wanted some more diversity. This also gave me an excuse to go the extra mile and play around with the fountain a bit.

If you’ve followed my work before, then you know I’m big into dynamic features, and adding random detail that the average user probably doesn’t notice. The fountain shown here is just another example of having fun with that.

I spent some time creating a basic visual effect for the fountain which is pretty close to what I saw in my reference photos. I might make some adjustments still, but overall I think I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. It was a good excuse to brush up on how to use the visual effects editor.

And of course, no fountain is complete without some sounds to tie it all together, so I found a nice one to go with it. You can find a short clip of how it all came together below!

And that’s pretty much a wrap on dev update 5. A lot more has happened in the background since my last dev update, but none of it really worth mentioning. My longest running project is still progressing forward, and I’m now shooting for a release sometime this summer!

However, there is still a lot to do before I get to that point, so back to work!