[Boris The Spider]

Thanks for all the replies guys. It's great to hear from my old cronies.
I'm glad the overall response to my post has been positive. I was concerned that I might have to put on my flame-retardant suit. LOL!

lofi, thanks for the info on why houses etc. might appear in the "wrong" places. That is very useful information that will be of great benefit when I dive into map making.

fly, thanks for the vote of confidence. I will try my best to live up to your (and everyone else's) expectations. (BTW, I'm glad to see that Catherine Bell is still in your sig. GRRRR!)

I have a lot to learn about map making (everything in fact), so it will be a while before I even release any WIP's.

Maps are the one thing that will help keep interest in this sim alive for a long time IMO. It got me thinking though about what map to do. What came to my mind was Spain, circa 1937 or so. Is anyone else working on such a project? If not, where would be a good place to find topographical and historical maps of Spain during that time? I suppose I could go to the library (we have a great Main Library here) and check some books out but getting the info uploaded to my computer might be difficult, not to mention the possibility of violating copyright laws.
Or am I trying to bite off too much for a first-time project?
I would also consider, once I have learned use of the tools (which I have already downloaded) to enter into a map making project with others which might actually be a better place to start.


Now I want to address one other issue...
Cannon, you are one of the most respected skinners ever in the IL-2 community. I was going to ask if I could just rearrange some of the objects on your map but it's obvious you don't want anyone touching it. Fair enough. But given your attention to detail as evidenced in your skinning abilities, I'm surprised that you are so vehemently objecting to any "corrections". As with using others templates I intended to make it clear that it was just a modification of "your map".
To quote lowfighter;

However, don't FORGET that you use TEXTURES and OBJECTS which the authors didn't give you permission to use

The work done here is not like the skin templates you made where you would draw the panel lines from scratch and develop your own weather/paint/texture layers which gave your skins the indelible "CannonUK" signature. That was truely "your work". I see this as very much a community effort. I agree that obtaining permission and crediting properly is mandatory to preserve the "intellectual property" values of created work but to flatly refuse to have anyone touch your work for it's betterment? I had no intentions of changing anything other than to realign some of the objects. Yet you seem to think that if anyone touches it they would add what? The World Trade Center buildings in Paris?
As said, it is YOUR work and if that's what you want I'll not breach that directive.

As for me, if, and when, I release anything and someone can make it better, I would encourage them to do so. All I would ask is to just give me credit as the "original author". I don't pretend to be the schnizzle of anything as there are many others probably more talented than me, and there always will be. But I've seen some excellent templates come out since Team Normandie started releasing our works and I believe that we, as a team, contributed to sparking others to attempt the same things. And the results have been at times quite spectacular. I hope that this is what will continue to happen here at AAA and I hope that I can add my small part in making this great flight simulator the Best Of The Best.