Simviation Forum - Scenery vocabulary

Jan 30^th, 2010 at 9:37pm

starlifter5 Offline
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I've just finished reading the excellent Scenery Installation article by Doug A. A very thought out explanation. I've come across a couple of new words in the last few days regarding scenery. Words such as landclass and mesh appear regularly in scenery downloads. I'm fairly computer savy but these words have me stumped. Is there another tutorial somewhere that provides definitions?

Thanks

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Reply #1 - Jan 31^st, 2010 at 1:13am

hellcat-44 Offline
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When I think geographical scenery in CFS2...I'm thinking mesh and textures. Mesh is essentially terrain...texture is basically color and surface configuration...the color of a sea and the "texture" of it's waves for example.
So...is that clear as mud,,,, or maybe rock? Undecided

hellcat

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Reply #2 - Jan 31^st, 2010 at 4:54am

Tango_Romeo Offline
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This refers to FS2004, but the Landclass System applies to all M$ flight sims...

As you already know, FS2004 covers the entire Earth. You can fly anywhere and get a pretty good representation of the
types of vegetation and urban sprawl appropriate for the region you are in.
In order to do this efficiently, Microsoft came up with a clever way of representing the entire globe using what they call
landclass. The FS2004 landclass system is based on a grid of 1km x 1km squares, which cover the entire Earth.
These 1km x 1km squares are called LOD13 cells by developers. Each one of these 1km x 1km squares has a
particular value assigned to it, that tells FS2004 which available texture, from a list of possible textures, is appropriate to
be displayed for that 1km x 1km square area. For example, a value of 121, tells FS2004 to use a texture that
represents a busy urban area with hi-rise structures.
The landclass system does a very good job of representing the Earth in FS2004, without taking up an excessive amount
of resources (RAM and disk storage). At this point in time, it is not possible to cover the entire earth using photographic
textures. Even if the photographic textures were available for the entire earth, the disk storage would exceed that of
even the most powerful PC system today.
If you are interested, Microsoft gives a good, and technically detailed, explanation of FS2004 landclass at the link below
(scroll down to section 7 for the landclass explanation).
http://www.fsinsider.com/articles/Global_Terrain_Technology.htm

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Reply #3 - Jan 31^st, 2010 at 5:02am

Tango_Romeo Offline
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While scenery is the one thing in CFS2 that I do not build....

The scenery in CFS2 is exactly that a MESH with depth that is not unlike a thick screen or weave. This is different from CFS1 which used what I call 'sheet scenery', as it has no depth. That is one reason that we do not have railroads in CFS2, when we did have them in CFS1...they tend to sink into the mesh.

And BTW, Doug Attrell hangs out here under the nom-de-guerre of Hagar. He may well respond to your question, though most of the scenery guys hangout on the Scenery & Panel Forum. Wink

Many Hands Make Small Work P-51 Contract Lost - Build Swifts

FLY FOX FOUR KOREA: http://www.simviation.com/lair/cfs2korea.htm GET FOX FOUR EXTRAS: http://www.simviation.com/lair/cfs2kwextras.htm

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Reply #4 - Jan 31^st, 2010 at 5:52am

Hagar Offline
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Tango_Romeo wrote on Jan 31^st, 2010 at 5:02am:

While scenery is the one thing in CFS2 that I do not build....

The scenery in CFS2 is exactly that a MESH with depth that is not unlike a thick screen or weave. This is different from CFS1 which used what I call 'sheet scenery', as it has no depth. That is one reason that we do not have railroads in CFS2, when we did have them in CFS1...they tend to sink into the mesh.

And BTW, Doug Attrell hangs out here under the nom-de-guerre of Hagar. He may well respond to your question, though most of the scenery guys hangout on the Scenery & Panel Forum. Wink

You're doing fine so far & I have nothing to add. I should point out that I'm no scenery guy either. I stick to the basics.

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Reply #5 - Feb 6^th, 2010 at 3:22pm

starlifter5 Offline
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I Fly Sim!

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Thanks for you answers and patience everyone. I never thought I would download so much scenery.

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