FS2002 / FS2004: Scenery Design FAQ
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sami:
Written by Hans Pċlsson.
The design of scenery for FS2002 / FS2004 can be, somewhat easily, divided into three different categories - objects (houses, hangars, antennas, cars and all other static objects that can be imagined), near proximity (taxiways, aprons and other areas within the airport area) and surroundings (the terrain around the airport, forests, fields, cities). Different tools suit differently when designing each different part - below you'll find a list of popular tools - far from complete - for scenery designing.
Apart from the programs mentioned here you'll need several small add-ons, but these are mentioned in the documentation for each program. You'll also find that a grasp on numbers, a will to tweak some code and patience might be useful!
Objects
gMax - http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax
This tool, introduced to the FS community with FS2002, is the little brother of 3DS Max, and is in most ways identical to that program. This means that the learning curve is quite steep, but once you know your way around this is a very powerful tool. gMax requires you to install some plug-ins from Microsoft, these are found in the gMax gamepack SDK;
www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2004_downloads_sdk.asp#gmax
FSDS2 - www.abacuspub.com/fsds2/
FSDS has been around for ages, and is besides gMax the most competent tool. However, to ensure compatibility with FS2002/2004, version 2 must be used. FSDS2 is a payware program.
EOD - www.echos.ch/eod/
EOD is a free tool developed by Matthias Brückner. The interface is quite simple, but the program is all you need to build not too complex objects.
Near proximity
AFCAD 2 - available at FS Nordic
AFCAD 2 is created by Lee Swordy and is, in short, a masterpiece. The first version, for FS2002, was mainly used to edit the way AI traffic behaved on ground, but since the structure of FS2004 is different from the one in FS2002, AFCAD can now handle many of those things that previously had to be done with Airport for Windows or FSSC. Very well documented, and easy to use. A must-have!
Flight Simulator Scenery Creator - www.avsim.com/fssc
Also this program is a tool developed by a single individual, however supported by a lot of users. Also available in Spanish! With FSSC you create things like aprons and taxiways, place objects (houses etc.) in the API-format, exclude the default MS scenery and so forth. Easy to learn and get going.
Airport for Windows - www.airportforwindows.com/
Airport for Windows deals with the same things as FSSC, but is an "older" tool that might not be quite so accessible for beginners. Airport is not fully compatible with FS2004, at least not in the same way as FSSC. However, the developers of AfW are creating a new program - SceneGenX - which creates scenery all based on the new XML format that MS introduced with FS2004.
SceneGenX - www.airportforwindows.com/
A brand new tool, descried above. Still under construction, but seems to be real good!
Surroundings
Ground2K - available at www.avsim.com and other sites
Ground2k4 - the FS2004 version - is a complete tool for changing most of the things around an airport: roads, rivers, streams, coastlines, cities etc. Very popular, but requires that you manage to find out how to calculate coordinates in FS2004 compared with the real ones.
CoastLineMaker - flightsim.computing.dundee.ac.uk/fsirmuti.html
This program is primarily meant to edit coastlines and rivers/streams. But it also can be used to modify "dry" landscape, to some extent. Also, it is much less work to place your background mage in CLM than in Ground2k4.
EZ Landclass - available at www.avsim.com and other sites
EZ Landclass is really nothing more than a Excel spreadsheet with macros! But it still makes it easy to place forests, fields and more, these things that make out the LandClass (LC). Requires, as many of these tool do, SDKs from Microsoft:
www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2004_downloads_sdk.asp
TerraBuilder - www.terrabuilder.com
Terrabuilder is not yet fully FS2004 compatible, however a large update is in the making! The free version of TerraBuilder is called TerraBuilder Lite, and is the tool to use when you want to make such advanced stuff as ground textures based on aerial imagery. Not the easies program to start with, but good tutorials are available.
LWMDraw - available at www.avsim.com and other sites
A simple (interface, not usage) tool to create LandWaterMask- (LWM) and VectorTerrainPolygon- (VTP)polygons. One might say that it has been replaced by Ground2k, but it still works. Tricky - yes, well documented, yes!
As stated above - there are a multitude of free, great tools available for those who wish to create scenery on their own. This list probably lacks most of them!
Below are a few links to websites that you can not live without - use them!
Gmax Support - www.gmaxsupport.com
The AVsim Forums - forums.avsim.com
Scenerydesign.org - www.scenerydesign.org - This is "guru" Arno's website on scenery design. In short "a scenery designers heaven"!
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