Is Terrain Mesh scenery for you? Here's my take on this new addon.
Brand new to the Microsoft flight simulator is add-on scenery using terrain mesh technology giving the flight sim world the texture or shape of the real world. This is the same technology that Microsoft used to create the original world in it's release of Flight Simulator 2000 both standard and professional versions.

Those readers using FS98 must understand that the world created in this version is based on a ground level of zero and everything that rises above that level is made using polygons to simulate the shape of the earth. In FS2000 the ground level of the world is based on actual terrain heights and therefore is not flat. The shapes of the earth are created using digital information available for the entire globe thanks to satelites and other sources for digital information.

When FS2000 was released, in order to allow the simulator to run in slow computers, that is, any computer with less than 128 meg of RAM, a cpu chip of less than 400 Mhz, and a video card without 3D capability, the terrain complexity was much reduced. This made for areas of the world where there is no shape other than coast lines. I'm referring to islands specifically. This is extremely disappointing for Caribbean flyers given the real world beauty of this part of the planet.

Microsoft finally released an SDK for FS2000 covering scenery and terrain which discloses the technique used in creating the scenery as well as some tools needed to accomplish the making of bgl files for the simulator. The SDK isn't written in the clearest fashion and if you are interested in making terrain in your area it will take some work to decipher the method used. I found it interesting that once you create your first terrain scenery using their methods you realize that the SDK could certainly have been written to make the task much easier to understand. 

When the terrain mesh scenery first hit the net I grabbed it, installed it and then flew my favorite plane around in it. It was a dramatic improvement over the standard world found in FS2000 which in turn is a dramatic improvement over FS98. To be able to fly in your favorite area of the world and to see the mountains and valleys the way they are in the real world is quite thrilling. But, no islands except a few of the larger ones have shape.

I contacted scenery designers, Chris Fisher and Eddie Denney regarding how to create bgl's using the SDK information and tools. I tried several levels of complexity and the results were very interesting. I must tell you up front that in order to get the most out of using terrain mesh scenery you MUST have a worthy computer. One of our pilots has a Pentium P-III, 900 Mhz with the hottest video card out today and gobs of RAM on board. He is experiencing NO stuttering or slow frame rates when using the scenery. I am running an AMD K6-3, 400 Mhz with 128 Meg of RAM and a Viper 550 video card. I get stuttering or computer pausing ALL the time while using this scenery. A few lucky souls have slower computers and are able to run this scenery pretty effectively but they have just compiled the right combination of parts to accomplish this. It is not the norm.

The scenery world in the 'off the shelf' FS2000 simulator appears to be compiled at a level 6 of complexity which means that digital information of the earth is taken at every 611.5 meters (1.5 miles) of distance and from this model the shape of the land is formed. This means that islands with less than a few miles of land surface will have so little information of offer the model that the land comes out flat in the finished bgl. Compiling your own terrain will allow you to make the complexity to fit your computers ability and may certainly improved what is available in the stock simulator.

FS2k scenery as it comes with the simulator. The airport is just as it appears out of the box.
Eddie Denney scenery of U.S. Virgin Is. The standard airport is still used on top of the new terrain mesh scenery.
This is Chris Wilkes Virgin Is 2000 scenery. He created the mountains and airport from scratch using the design tools available in 1999.
Chris Fisher and Eddie Denney have taken digital information from USGS maps called DEM maps (Digital Elevation Model) at 1 degree of arc distance and have compiled scenery for the continental United States at a level of 8 which is 152.9 meters (.37 miles) of resolution. This gives a LOT more shape to the earth. Eddie Denney has also done scenery for Alaska and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Chris Fisher has done additional scenery for Hawaii. Roel Stausbach has scenery for Southern Africa (from the equator south). Richard Alvarez has scenery for the Balearic Islands off Greece. Efrain Ruez has scenery for Puerto Rico. Rafael dos Santos has scenery for Brazil.

I'm sure that as time passes we'll see the rest of the world become available. I have downloaded and looked at digital models for the South Pacific but I haven't had time to create scenery for these areas as yet.

To install the terrain mesh, here's what works for me and several others have confirmed that this is a good way to go about it. It doesn't matter where in your hard drive you place the folder holding the scenery as the data is found by FS2000. I have mine in a structure like this:

You must keep the scenery of each designer seperate from the others so they can be updated, removed, turn-on or turn-off, independently. When you open the Scenery Library editor and add the scenery into your system, move the terrain scenery way down to the bottom of the list so it appears as the third item. This places it just above the default world and below any other add-ons like airports in these areas. 

You could install all the bgl's from one designer in one folder but some people have reported that the computer runs better when you separate them into smaller groups. Keeping each state or country individually may make it a lot easier to edit them at a later time.

I have a whole bunch of the terrain sceneries installed and they fill the space between the 'default scenery' and 'propellor objects'. In your display settings, make your terrain texture distance around 25 miles. The remaining settings have relatively little effect on the final performance of the computer, at least in my machine.

One problem that seems to be cropping up is floating runways and rivers. This is a problem in the creation of FS2000 and so far Microsoft hasn't released an answer to the problem. One possibility is to exclude all the original details and create new ones. Of course you are talking about a LOT of work. In view of that, it might be just an inconvenience until a correction appears from Microsoft of one of the talented scenery creators already hard at work.

There is no question that terrain mesh scenery will make your flying more enjoyable but the high quality scenery that Chris Wilkes puts out is hard to beat and it doesn't make your computer fall apart when running it. I don't have all the answers about this scenery and I know as the days go by that more solutions to better terrain are on the way.

Install it and give it a fly. Good luck and have fun!

See you next month!
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