An updated version of this scenery package is included in my new Bay Area Bridges bundle, along with all my other previously released bridge scenery packages for the area and some other extras.
The San Mateo–Hayward Bridge (often referred to as just the San Mateo Bridge) is the longest of the highway bridges that span San Francisco Bay; in fact, it is the longest bridge in the state of California, and currently 25th longest in the world, at 7 miles total. The bridge is a combination of a 2 mile long 'high-rise' section opened in 1967, and a 5 mile causeway trestle whose original construction was in 1929. The bridge crosses San Francisco Bay between the cities of Foster City and Hayward, carrying California State Route 92.
The bridge is a important visual landmark for pilots flying in the Bay Area, particularly on approach to San Francisco International Airport, where it is used as a landmark in the charted visual approaches to Runways 28L and 28R.
Features
- Hand-modeled recreation of the San Mateo–Hayward Bridge (and its toll plaza just east of the bridge itself), along with a basic rendition of the Werder Pier on the San Mateo end of the bridge.
Note: Unfortunately, Asobo's vector data here doesn't quite align with the underlying aerial photo, so I can't match the bridge up exactly to the aerial imagery without causing problems with vehicle traffic on the bridge. It's not too noticeable though.
- LOD models to reduce performance impact.
- Added night lights to the bridge: road lights from native object library, boat guidance lights custom in Blender.
- Some light terraforming and vegetation tweaks around the bridge ends.
- New in Update v 1.1: Added POI pin to World Map, some positioning and scaling tweaks on bridge and toll plaza in preparation for combining all my Bay Area bridges into one package; recompiled with most recent SDK version.
Installation
- Download the ZIP file and extract the "whitearcades-sanmateobridge" folder to your Community folder:
For the Microsoft Store version: C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_\LocalCache\Packages\Community
For the Steam version: C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\Community
Other Scenery By Me
(all available on flightsim.to)
Golden Gate Bridge Lighting Enhancements
San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge night lighting enhancements
Dumbarton Bridge
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge
Carquinez Bridge
Benicia-Martinez Bridge
Antioch Bridge
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Cedar Point
Kings Island
Six Flags Over Texas
Busch Gardens Williamsburg
dimkzr
This is million times better than the joke of a bridge we have in the vanilla sim.
I only wish that the night lighting could be seen from further distances. Because currently you can't see any lights from KSFO, and even when flying up close, half of the bridge is unlit:
https://i.imgur.com/v1PhUGC.jpg
TheWhiteArcades author
Right now the bridge is using native MSFS light objects for the roadway lighting; at the time I originally put this bridge together this seemed like the most predictable way of making the lights show up the way I wanted, but you're right that on a long span like this one the further-away lights disappear once you get a little away from the bridge. I think this happens on some of the Asobo-modeled bridges as well (even the Golden Gate, IIRC).
There's some other improvements/updates I've been looking to make on this and the other Bay Area bridges; I'll probably mess around with incorporating the roadway lights into the model at that time.
2 years ago
Jonnieb
Was the name of the file on the old version different?
TheWhiteArcades author
The package itself has the same name, but the ZIP file changed to reflect the new version number.
2 years ago
blondejfx
excellent work thank you
fStopper
Nice, thanks.
dspbuckle
Well done! Any Just missing the electrical towers, but as a pleeb myself, I approve 100%
TheWhiteArcades author
I think *technically* the power towers are present as default objects, but they're extremely hard to make out (and there's no power lines strung between them in any event). I know that was the case for the Dumbarton bridge, but I didn't look too hard for the poles on this one. Might take a stab at modeling them for a future update at some point.
3 years ago
Flewpast28
you do great work, Thank you
Forkboy2
Awesome, thanks, much needed.