Abbaye de Mont Saint Eloi, another WOFF WIP

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Greetings All,

Over the last couple of weeks I have taken a break from my airfield PE updates to return to a joint project that was started some time back by one of our resident 3D model artisans, Fullofit. He's had a passion for some time to see one of the most famous WWI Western Front landmarks in the WOFF landscape and took it upon himself to craft the needed item - the Abbey at Mont St Eloi. After he'd knocked together the undamaged visage he asked if I would take a crack at creating textures for it, which I did. And, as is often the case with these sorts of projects, one thing has led to another and I ended up building an entire facility for it with custom landscape tiles. Along the way Fullofit has built additional models that were needed for the facility that include the Abbey gate house, gate house keeper's residence, and wall sections. Also used in this, and also crafted by Fullofit for an earlier WOFF project, are the graves for the cemetery. He and I have things far enough along that it seems a good time to post a few teasers for you all to take a look at. Both Fullofit and Robert Wiggins now have a beta of the mod that they will be testing and if that goes well Fullofit will build the damaged version of the Abbey for a second facility file so that the look will change after the shelling of the facade by the Germans later on in 1915. While he is doing that I will be finishing up the needed landscape tiles for autumn and winter after which we hope to make the mod available to you all. So, without further ado...

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So many projects, so little time.

Cheer!

Lou

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Wow. That's amazing. Can't (patiently) wait!

Stunning stuff as usual old chap!

Wow! Can't wait for this one. Thank you!!!!

Splendid work, Fullofit and Lou! Keep it up

Nice!!!

Fantastic work!

Those twin towers mark the gateway to Vimy Ridge and Jasta 11 territory in Bloody April. Well done !!!!
Cheers,
Shredward

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Thanks for the accolades and encouragement folks, it is appreciated, and after the last week on this project, much needed. Fullofit and I had a fairly large curve ball thrown at us when it was discovered that there are landscape tile issues during the summer months with the in-sim town of Mont Saint Eloi. From the looks of things two of the main landscape tiles meet right where the town sits and neither one of them wishes to play nice with the other nor with the town mask itself. The following is how things look in the stock town when the many wheat fields turn to gold:

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After putting so much time and effort into actually having the abbey in the sim we did not want it perched on the edge of a town that looked so mismatched, with houses sitting in the middle of fields and numerous dead-end streets going nowhere. Soooooo, while Fullofit created eight new generic, low-poly houses that I could texture and use in the town, I took on the project of building two additional facilities with custom landscape tiles that would mask over the offending fields and allow me to redo portions of the town to get it all looking a bit more proper and to better tie it into the surrounding landscape. Keep in mind, when you drop a new facility into the WOFF landscape the tile for that facility wipes out any buildings and/or trees it covers, which means you have to repopulate the area you mask over, (thus the need for additional generic houses for the town). After a week this is where we are now at:



Take note of the damaged abbey towers now completed by Fullofit, which is what you will see from 1916 onward once we have this one wrapped up. Props yet again to the devs for this fantastic sim and the unimaginable hours they must have put into it over the years, which every one of us who builds mods for it is painfully reminded of every time we take on the task.

Later all,

Lou

Beautiful!

I like the fellow flitting about in his aeroplane in the foreground! But to add to the praise of the others, this is really wonderful and I hope to be able to incorporate all this careful work someday!

Lou, Fullofit

Awesome! Thank you both for taking the time to create these mods!
Cheers!

Cheers!

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First of the new year teasers! Fullofit and I are getting close to done with this - very close.



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What a great landmark, well known to soldier and airman alike !
Cheers,
Shredward

awesome....have you left enough room to fly between the towers?

oh, I'm sure we'll find out...!

It looks pretty tight, but if it is possible, it will give a whole new level of meaning to "thread the needle"!!

Gaw1, hope this answers your question.



Cheers!

Now THAT is just showing off

Sandbagger, are we not supposed to do that?

"If you build it, they will fly through it"

like, Wow !

YIKES!...

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Yes, well, that's all very nice, but real men do it with a DH-2 between the full towers.





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I have a feeling this is not going to end well.....
In fact , history may have it wrong, and the truncation of the towers was not due to German shelling at all

Haha, nice flying chaps. This is looking wonderful, congrats!

Lou,



Shredward, mystery solved!

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Oh, the humanity!

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Just like a Hun :
Bring a sausage to a sewing bee

Ask Navarre - he died practicing

Doesn't one normally overestimate the size of one's sausage?

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Good Morning All,

Fullofit and I have wrapped this one up and the file has been sent to Sandbagger for inclusion on his User Mods Page, but for those of you who might be itching to try this mod out and don't wish to wait, here is the link for a JSGME ready zip file: Abbey at Mont St Eloi LINK

For now this is a standalone mod so you will have to disable all the other airfield and landmark mods you may have installed. Keep Panama Red's PE Facilities Models enabled and do not worry about the overwrite warning you get as things will revert back when you uninstall the Abbey. You will have both versions of the Abbey, before and after the German shelling of late 1915. Let us know if you see any issues with this, though hopefully Fullofit and I have worked out all the kinks. Also, Robert will be adding this to his Consolidated Mods Package at some point in the not-too-distant future at which point you will be able to use it along with your other favorite mods.

Enjoy!

Lou



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Lou, Fullofit,

Congratulations on this achievement! It's a beautiful piece of work. I'm about a thousand miles away from my PC all week so it will be a while before I can enjoy it. Thank you for all the great work.

Raine, I should have expected you to check in on this work. You are the first to acknowledge this significant mark of WW1 history.

Best Regards

Robert, great to hear from you (and can't wait until this is in the Consolidated Mods (slave driver that I am)!

Cheers,

G

Robert and Fullofit, great job! Can't wait for it to be integrated into the Consolidated airfields mod. Until then, maybe we should start a skills competition--who can fly the largest aircraft through the twin spiers? Unlike Fullofit, I don't recommend starting with a Zeppelin, however!

Maybe a Gotha? Only one way to find out!

Hi Bob, I can't take credit for this mod. It's the work of RAF_Louvert and Fullofit.

Ah, shucks. My apologies to you and especially Lou!

My dotage is is apparently catching up with me sooner than I thought.

Beautiful!

Looking forward to putting this in game.

Regards,

Jeff

Bob, you know I can make that model “fit” a Zep, Just sayin’

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Fullofit, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

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Lou, you sound like my parole officer, ... erm, ... I mean my Commanding Officer. Yes, that’s the ticket.

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What we've got here is - failure to communicate.

Oh look, a parking meter.

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A parking meter? Where?! I saw it first! Give! Give! Give!
Oh, it’s just Yoko Ono.

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Oh my god, no. And - and - she's singing. Make it stop! In the name of all that's holy, MAKE IT STOP!

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Quick! Drop a quarter in the slot. It works for parking meters.

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But what if it works like a jukebox instead? I'm not taking the chance.

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Last time I dropped a quarter into the parking meter it displayed a 60. That means I lost 100 pounds.

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I know where at least twenty of those pounds went.

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The pub?

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Yes, let's call it the pub. And a long, bulky coat should cover the pub quite nicely.

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Does my pub look big in this coat?

Fullofit! Louvert! You two louts knock off the chatter and come up and sit here in the front. When I was your age...

Ohhh, Moooom!

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Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

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So folks, this mod has been finished and available for a while now and I was just wondering if any of you eagle-eyed aces, (apart from Fullofit), have spotted the little Easter Egg I placed in it. Seems appropriate to ask seeing as how tomorrow is Easter and all.

Post a screenie if you think you've found it.

Cheers!

Lou

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Well at my age, if it's not the size of an ostrich egg, I'll never find it!!