FSLandClass
Placement of Mesh Textures and Auto Generated Scenery for FS2002

Version 1.4
Author: Burkhard Renk ( burkhard.renk@mail.com )
All rights reserved

Contents:

- What does FSLandClass do?

- Disclaimer and copyright information

- Compatibility with different Flight Simulator versions

- Installation

- Introduction

- Documentation of the existing land class types

- Using FSLandClass.exe

- Using the country packs

- Working with landclasses - an example

- Detailed documentation

- Deutschsprachige Zusammenfassung

What does FSLandClass do?

FSLandClass is a software system that allows you to create and work on "class" scenery. In FS2002, class scenery describes how the mesh is filled with texture tiles. To summarize the scenery model of FS2002:

- Mesh scenery gives the shape of the terrain, plains, hills, mountains. The tool you need to alter mesh scenery is called FSMesh.

- Class scenery fills the terrain with textures, auto generated scenery, defines behavior of textures on slopes, and seasonal behavior. The tool you need to work on class scenery is FSLandClass.

- the FS2002 river and road scenery type is not known at present, because it is a new mesh type. No tool exists to edit it today.

- Procedural scenery (the one most design was done in up to now) is used only for details of special buildings and airports. The tool you need to work on procedural scenery for FS2002 is GMAX, provided in the professional version.

The FSLandClass software system contains several components:

- The design program. This program allows you to create class scenery everywhere in the world. You can do it from scratch, although this approach requires a lot of work, or you can take advantage of FSLandClass country kits, which provide a starting point which is much better than the default scenery. The design program can be downloaded from http://fssharecentercom/fslandclass . The program will only access one area until it is registered and fully enabled by installing a small license file.

- Country kits. These are data sets containing a lot of geographic information, specially compiled for the purpose. They also contain TMF meta files, a command file to convert these to scenery, and ready compiled scenery for immediate use. If you only are interested in the scenery, all you need is the country kit, not the program. If you want to modify the way scenery displays, you need the FSLandClass program.

- The atlas of each country kit. You can download this from http://fssharecentercom/fslandclass to find out which area is covered by which file and which kit.

- Update strategy. The program is being continually enhanced, as is the algorithm which creates the scenery, as a result of increasing experience. Updates to the program that have been found to be stable will be available through the official site http://fssharecentercom/fslandclass. Intermediate improvements that are part of discussions with users will be placed elsewhere and announced at the newsgroup. Updates to the country kits will be done at the meta file level, so the owner of the kit can produce a scenery that incorporates the changes easily.

- Support strategy. The main forum for FSLandClass is the newsgroup support.fsrail on the Simflight news server. Go to www.fsrail.com , press Contact and you will be lead to the group. Special technical problems can be reported to support@fsrail.com .Enquiries concerning sales should go directly to sales@simmarket.com

FSLandClass products can be used several different ways:

- The scenery level - for end-users. Class scenery may be obtained from a country pack or from a product developed using FSLandClass, such as an addon scenery. To use a scenery level FSLandClass product all you have to do is to copy any files with BGL extensions to the FS2002\scenery directory. That's it. Using FSLandClass at this level only requires a country pack.

- The meta file level - for developers and experienced end-users. To work at this level, you install the country kit into the FSLandClass directory, by default c:\program files\fslandclass. Next you copy the 4 executables of the FS2000 Terrain SDK into that directory. Once this is done you can use the command procedure of FSLandClass.exe to merge new files using the TMF meta files. Using FSLandClass at this level requires a country pack, fully installed, and the terrain SDL tools.

- The editing level - for developers. Working at this level you can create an empty scenery or take a high level scenery from the country pack. Now you can edit this inside the program, exchange single squares, groups of squares, or you can export the scenery as a bitmap, modify in a paint program and reimport to get a new scenery. To do this you will need the program and eventually a country kit.

- The creation level - for developers. You can generate an infinite variety of scenery from the country packs. Since it is likely that you will know the region you have chosen to design much better than I do, it is likely that you will get much better results than I will from the maps with default settings. For example, you will know where there are palms and where there aren't. Using FSLandClass at this level requires the main program and a country pack.

- The data level - for developers. Access to the geographic data of a square is easy, and you can modify them manually. Using FSLandClass at this level requires the main program only.

Disclaimer and copyright information:

FSLandClass is a shareware program - the install kit may be distributed for free, as long as it is unchanged, but distribution of any individual files from this kit is prohibited. This does not apply to the images in the jpg format, which can be used freely.

This document describes the processes and the software to my best knowledge. No warranty what so ever is taken that the description is correct, nor that application of the tools and methods described herein will do no harm to your system or to you. Usage of the methods and tools is at your own sole risk. This document may be distributed on any medium without any charge, as long as it is unchanged.

Sceneries produced with FSLandClass may be used for your own purpose, as freeware, shareware or commercial product. If country kits are used as basis of shareware or commercial sceneries, the fee for the country kit includes the right to sell up to 100 copies of that scenery. For every additional 100 sales, one more copy of the country kit must be obtained. For specific arrangements, please contact me. Publication as freeware requires that it contains a significant contribution from yourself, typically as part of addon to a substantial work like a detailed airport.

FSLandClass country packs and scenery contain detailed geographic information for entertainment purposes only. The files have been compiled from numerous digital maps, paper maps, and other sources and while great care has been taken, the scenery is not gauranteed to be correct as in real life. The limitations of the scenery may result in it showing a nice villa surrounded by palm trees overlooking the sea where there is a swamp at the back of a oil plant in reality. By all means have a virtual holiday flying around there, but rely on other information before booking a real holiday or buying the land.

For any support questions concerning the usage of the program, please contact the support mail address at support@fsrail.com . For any contact concerning sales email sales@simmarket.com . Check the web site http://fssharecentercom/fslandclass regularly for information on new versions or new kits.

Compatibility:

The FSLandClass system only works with FS2002, not with FS2000. The primary FSLandClass executable is known to run under Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. In the event that you use Windows 98 or Windows ME and experience problems with the executable, an alternative program file is provided in the kit that is known to work with these operating systems, but which fails under some versions of W2000 or XP. Both programs are absolutely identical in any other respect. It has been observed under Windows XP that sometimes the 98 program works instead of the 2000 one. This is assumed to be cause by other programs overwriting a DLL.

It is known that the feature Satellite View requires a lot from the operating system and hardware and will cause the program to crash under Windows 98, ME and on systems with not enough free resources. This could not be cured on the timescale for this version.

FSLandClass scenery is known to be compatible with FS2000 and FS2002 elevated mesh scenery, produced with tools like FSMesh. The TexRelief scenery of FS98 will overwrite FSLandClasses to our current knowledge.

Installation:

FSLandClass program is installed into the directory C:\Program Files\FSLandClass by default. Please, do not change the last part of the directory path, as the resampler does need a defined, known path there. You should install every country kit as well as every update into the same directory. The program will then be able to read them to load geographical information. You will also need the MS FS2000 Terrain SDK programs RESAMPLE.EXE, TMFMERGE.EXE, TMFCOMPRESS.EXE and TMF2BGL.EXE in the same directory. For copyright reasons, you have to download them from the Microsoft site or any other flight simming site. The program will work without these files installed, but cannot be used to create or merge any scenery.

You can obtain Version 1.3 by either downloading the complete package or by application of the 1.3 update to an existing installation. If you install a complete package over an existing installation, make a backup of the license file first, since the complete package contains a demonstration version license which will overwrite your valid license.

When you download the kit from the web, the free shareware version has the full functionality for one area only, the island of Jamaica. The geographic data for this region are included in the kit. You need to obtain a license for the program from http://fssharecentercom/fslandclass to be able to use the program to modify scenery elsewhere in the world. Specific country kits are available which contain basic geographical data of several countries already.

When you obtain a license for the program, it will be contained in a file called FSLandLicense.dat which you will be sent in an email from simmarket.com. Unpack this file to the directory in which you installed FSLandClass. In the event that the program still insists that you have a demonstration version, please check the size of the license file - it should be 438 or 439 bytes. If it isn't, most probably your email client has crippled the file, so please use a client that is compatible with Windows text files. If you do not succeed, please contact the support address support@fsrail.com, as I can send a zipped version of the license which usually solves this problem.