Introduction
When I try to remember what the scenery looked like in
FS2000 I seem to have amnesia. I can vividly picture FS98 and vaguely
remember FS95 but FS2000? A blank!
Why is this you ask? Age? Well, yes, I am starting to
reach a point in my life when "senior moments" are becoming daily events
but no, I don't think it's that. I do remember thinking the rain effects
were pretty cool but not liking the runway lighting which seemed too big
and "blocky" after the more refined effects in FS98. But the scenery? I
don't remember. And here's the reason—because I almost never looked at it.
Why not you ask? Well, I will tell you even if you didn't ask! I almost
never looked at it because my computer couldn't handle it and I hated the
stuttering and jerking of FS2000 so much that the only time I ever flew in
FS2000 was in conditions like Snoopy's famous line that begins all his
"novels" — "It was a dark and stormy night." Yep, that's how I dealt with
the stutters in FS2000. Turn down the detail, turn off the lights, go to
1-mile visibility and fly white-knuckle approaches in IFR. When I wanted
to see where I was going, I went back to my beloved FS98. Stayed there
until FS2002 came on the scene with an occasional flirtation with FS2000,
mostly to fly the wonderful Wilco 767 PIC. (In marginal IFR
conditions of course.)
Then along came FS2002 and yea verily, it worked! It
stuttereth not! And, to paraphrase the Bible story of creation, "And it
was good." (Well, it was until I overloaded things with too much AI
traffic sending my frame rates back into the single digits, but that's
another story!) And so I discovered that flying VFR, or at least VMC
(Visual Meteorological Conditions) was fun and a feast for the eyes.
Though I never thought it was perfect, compared to everything that had
come before it looked wonderful. For the first time, just cruising along
seemed like fun, or at least, better than watching TV.
So when a Dutch artist named Ruud Faber came along with a
payware set of replacement textures called FScene2002, I didn't think much
of it. I read on the forums that Ruud was a well-respected contributor of
freeware enhancements for previous FS versions, but I still wasn't
interested in paying for a set of replacement textures that I didn't think
I needed. As my old grandpa never said, but he might have if he had wanted
to, "If it ain't broke don't fix it!"
But after several reviewers in other places—before I saw
the AVSIM light I confess I did sometimes frequent other sites—spoke
highly of the textures, I finally weakened. Okay I thought, I'll buy one
season for Europe. Let's see what it looks like. And the rest (as my old
grandpa never said but he could have if he wanted to!) is history!
The concept
Have you ever tried to paint one wall in your house? Oh,
you say, it's really not that bad in the rest of the room. I just want to
get rid of those crayon marks on the wall facing the door where my 2 year
old went through her Impressionist period before turning professional. But
once you paint one wall, you see how incredibly grungy the rest of the
house is! You can't stop with one wall being freshly painted and the rest
in the "old" colors. So much for buying "one season" of the European
replacement textures! "If summer looks this good," I said to myself,
"imagine how winter will look!" I was hooked. FS2002 looked like a
renovated house, sparkling with new life.
Well, that's only part of what you will experience if you
download and install some of Ruud's amazing textures. The generic stock
textures will suddenly seem dull and uninspired compared to the far more
lively, interesting and generally more realistic scenes that you will see.
You will fly VFR because you really do want to see the scenery and not
just because you can't remember what that ADI thingy is for. "Scenery"
suddenly becomes "scenic." Now there's a new concept!
Before I go any further, let me try to explain what does
and doesn't affect the realism and "believability" of what you see in the
FS scenery world. Now if you're like me, you really don't care about the
details of how it all gets done. I wouldn't know the difference between a
pixel and pixie dust and frankly, I don't give a hoot. But basically there
seem to be three things that make the scenery come alive. One is
mesh, the second is landclass and the third is
textures. (Yes all you "experts," I'm sure this is not the whole
story, but I'm writing for other "scenery dummies" like me here so let's
just leave it at that. If you already know better, scroll to the end of
the review, see how many stars I gave him then go hang out in the forums
and talk to other experts and leave us ordinary folks to bumble along as
best we can.)
As I understand it, mesh is the underlying "framework" of
the scenery that creates the contours of hills, mountains, valleys etc. It
gives the scenery its "shape." If the mesh is based on real world data it
will give a realistic "shape" to what you see. The "finer" the mesh, the
more complex and real the shape, but this can get hard on frame rates. A
fine mesh based on real world data will give you scenery that resembles
the real thing—but in shape only.
Landclass, as best as I can understand it, determines
what kind of terrain features will be displayed. Again, if it is based on
real world data then the landclass files for a particular location will
display urban textures if there is a city there, or desert, or tropical
jungle or whatever. Whereas mesh determines the shape of the terrain,
"landclass files" determine what is displayed on the surface of that
terrain. If the landclass files are accurate, you will see city textures
where a city is supposed to be, forests where forests are located in the
real world, rolling farmland etc. Though generally they reflect the "real
world," the stock landclass files are full of errors and many areas of the
world are very poor representations of reality. Accurate landclass files
can have a significant affect on whether what you see corresponds to
reality or not.
Lastly, but perhaps most important for the casual viewer,
texture files determine what you actually see. In a way, the mesh is like
the frame on which an artist stretches his canvas, the canvas is the
"landclass files" and the textures are the paint strokes. The textures
will show you crops, fields of grass or suburbs filled with streets and
houses made of tickey-tackey (if you don't get that one you weren't around
in the sixties) or harsh desert stretching off into the horizon.
It is these textures that Microsoft provided in a generic
form that Ruud has so brilliantly enhanced. With the eye of an artist and
an incredible amount of patience and talent, he has created vibrant,
colorful, realistic, interesting and for the most part, very realistic
renditions of the real world, with unique features for various
geographical areas and seasons.
Product features
So far Ruud Faber has created three full sets of
textures. These are for Europe, the USA and Canada and for
Australia and New Zealand. Each comes in four seasons. Recently he
also released as a freeware addition an awesome set of night textures that
make the night urban scenes of FS2002 come alive.
Let me tell you what you will and won't get. As Ruud
points out, you won't see your house. The textures will not make the
scenery "photo-realistic" though if you have fine, accurate mesh and
accurate, real-world based landclass files, what you will see will be
recognizable in general terms. Airports, roads, buildings and weather are
not affected. Autogen will blend in well but is not absolutely necessary
as the new texture files tend to be far more "3D looking" than the
originals. Very importantly, it will have absolutely no discernible effect
on your frame rates.
All that will happen is that the generic textures that
Microsoft gave us will be replaced by far more realistic and interesting
ones. The scenery will be more colorful, more realistic and vastly more
interesting. But it will not be "real world." These textures are less
"generic" because each set has been created for particular regions. But
nonetheless, they are still "generic." The English countryside will look
far more like England than with the generic MS textures, but you still
will not see Farmer Albert's pig farm just down the lane from Mrs.
Hogwell's Flower Shoppe.
FScene2002 texture sets
I have been blessed by an opportunity to spend some time
in Europe and can say that the European texture set looks very realistic.
European pilots have been high in their praise for the first set that Ruud
released, which was the four-season Europe set. Snow coverage was less
"blanketed" and more "scattered." Towns were smaller. Fields were smaller
and greener. They were ecstatic that for the first time, Europe looked,
well, "European" and not like the USA. (Europeans find things like that to
be quite important, though Americans find it hard to grasp why.
Fortunately the Atlantic Ocean keeps the two separated most of the time so
it usually only involves hot words on the forums or in the United Nations,
which is about the same thing.)
Though my time in Europe has been all too short, I have
spent the last 25 years living in the USA and in that time have flown over
just about every part of it. I can tell you that although Microsoft did a
better job of creating an illusion of the American landscape, Ruud Faber
did a far better job. Though I am slightly less impressed with the
Canada-USA set than the European one, I still find it to be a huge
improvement over the stock textures. Rural terrain looks far more complex
and interesting than the generic textures. The cities and particularly
suburbs look vastly more real.
Last but not least, Ruud recently turned his attention to
the lands "down under." I spent the first half of my life living in New
Zealand and have flown over large parts of Australia and New Zealand as a
professional pilot, and can tell you that Ruud's work, though based on
"detective work" (his words) and not personal experience is still well
worth having. Combined with the many freeware landclass files that you can
download for Australia and the wonderful enhancements that are available
for New Zealand (see Maury Pratt's recent review on New Zealand scenery from 'Godzone'), these two
wonderful, vastly different countries will "come alive."
Closing thoughts
Are there any faults in the textures? Obviously this is a
totally subjective question. Ruud is an artist and has given us an
artist's rendition of thousands of square miles of "scenery." At times the
green of a field may seem too "green" but then I see a farmer's plot
bursting with new shoots of corn and I say "nope, it really can be that
green." That square is too yellow. Oops, there's a field of mustard
flowers in the real world and it just glows like molten gold. Who knows
what is "right" and what is not? It will always depend on the light, your
perception and even your mood. All I can say is this: Since I bought
Ruud's texture sets, my enjoyment of FS2002 has been immeasurably
enhanced. I enjoy looking at the scenery in ways that no previous
experience of flight simming has ever given me.
The only concern is price. I don't think for a second
that Ruud is overcharging. When you think of the time he must have put
into this project, it is hard to fault the price. But buying four seasons
worth of textures for three different regions does add up to a pretty
hefty slice of your pocket money and you may want to think about that.
Personally, I think it is well worth it. After all, the "feast for the
eyes" is part of what the hobby is all about. Let's face it folks, it is
all about "optical illusions." What we are all paying for is to ask some
very talented people to "pull a con job on us." What do I mean by that? We
are asking the folks who supply the programs we buy to create an illusion
on a screen that we are really flying in a "real world." If something
makes that world more "real" and more "attractive" then it meets the
criteria for me of a good buy. Ruud's textures are a very good buy and he
does offer some package deals that will help you save on the total cost.
Purchase is simple. The zip files are quite small and the
download time is minimal. All you do is make a backup copy of your
original texture files and then move the new ones in and overwrite the old
ones. Ruud's instructions are clear and simple.
Is there a "down side?" Other than the price, there is
none that I can see. No effect on frame rates. Nothing but a better, more
interesting world to fly over. I strongly recommend that you check out
Ruud's textures at his FScene2002 website. It is not a "must have" purchase,
but if you can afford the price, I doubt you will regret it
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