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Cessna 172 over northern California, using MegaScenery and ActiveSky. |
Fast forward twenty-plus years, and I am a training physician who still loves aviation and flight, and apart from a few free introductory flights at a flight school or two, does not have the time or the money to pursue flying just yet. Even though I bought the Cessna ground school kit, complete with the Cessna Private Pilot's instruction manual, pilots log book, E6B flight computer and a series of Cessna CD-ROMs, I did not have the time or the money to take to the skies. Maybe in the next 5 years or so.
Meanwhile, I kept on flightsimming faithfully on my various PC`s over the years. Like all of you, I drooled at the out-of-reach shiny new graphics cards, and by the time I would save enough money to buy that card, it would be out dated already and so on and so on. Kind of like a pretty girl you see riding in a subway carriage. By the time you muster up the nerve to go up and talk to her, her stop is here and she's out the door gone forever with a shake of her silky black hair, her visage receding into the twilight forever...
OK, I have no idea where that came from!
Nevertheless, I am writing this article and sending a bunch of screen shots, because I would like to contribute to you guys to what I have lately been seeing and feeling in terms of the state of flight simulation, as it pertains to FS2004, and to the kind of hardware and software configuration I have, which I feel, is "as real as it gets".
Cessna 172 Skyhawk over the western suburbs of Chicago, using FScene USA summer textures, USA Roads, Active Sky. |
Cessna 172 Skyhawk over Miami, using FScene 2004, USA Roads, Active Sky. |
In this article I am going to list the hardware I currently have and the various software programs I have downloaded, some payware, others free, some big, some small (all good) that I feel make my flightsimming experience unbelievably realistic. I will punctuate these claims with screenshots so you may judge for yourself.
No I am not in FS heaven just yet. That will happen when I'm done with my training and start private practice later this year. Ah`m a-gonna git my paws on one o` dem Alienware Area 51 with a 30 inch flatscreen and dat dere Geforce 6800 GT PCI express (skillfully concealing the price-tag from my wife, of course).
I am a bit of an artist, and even though FS2004 broke the dam when it came to reaching higher and further for "as real as it gets", I guess after a while we all started realizing it was far from perfect. For one, everything was way too dark! Out in the real world, on a nice summer afternoon, its so bright and there is so much natural contrast it can make one wince slightly. Not so in FS2004. The autogen, though exciting at first, gives a big hit on frame rates, and so on and so forth. Thus began my never-ending quest for third part software and add-ons to enhance and enrich my flight-simming experience.
Morning over Oakland in a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, using MegaScenery Northern California |
MegaScenery USA with Pwover16 water effects. |
But I run it with a CH Flightstick Pro and a CH Pro Pedals USB setup. After I got it, life was never the same and now I can't imagine life without these two flight controllers.
Recently I installed something which truly blew my mind: The TrackIR 3 Pro with VectorPoint Expansion. I was using the great program Active Cockpit before this, but TrackIR3 with the VP expansion was nothing I had experienced before. In the virtual cockpit I can look left, look right, look down, up, bend left, bend right, look over the cockpit, roll my head, move in close to the gauges. It gives a whole new meaning to the term "virtual reality". I think the meat of this product is the Vector Point expansion, as opposed to the TrackIR 3 pro alone, which just acts as a mouse pointer in the VC.
Cessna 172 skimming low over San Francisco Bay, using MegaScenery USA, Active Sky, Pwover16 (water effects). |
Cessna 172 over San Francisco, using MegaCity San Francisco with Active Sky. |
These three hardware items make flightsimming as real as it can be, given you`re still on the ground. I have flown in a Cessna 172 before and apart from the heavier feel of the spring tension in the real Cessna yoke and pedals, it's a pretty decent parallel. Though the CH Pro pedals seem touchy and prone to over-turn compared to the real pedals, even with calibration. Also, the real Cessna 172 responds instantaneously to sudden bank corrections using the yoke, (for example if you're fighting gusty crosswinds) as compared to the CH Flight Yoke, even with its sensitivity at a 100%. These are small criticisms though.
On to the software. I think Ruud Faber changed the face of the terrain in flightsimming, and for a long time I just heard his name all over the place but didn't want to put down the money to install his FScene scenery texture packs. But when I finally did install them, I kicked myself for not having installed it earlier.
I won't rave about this; I'm posting screen shots, as pictures speak a thousand words.
Cessna 172 over San Francisco using MegaScenery and Active Sky. |
Cessna 172 Skyhawk over St. Louis, using USA Roads, FScene and Lens Flare. |
If you guys haven't heard of it before, specially anyone who is into designing photorealistic flight-simulation scenery, have a look at www.keyhole.com. For a small yearly subscription, you can get a beautiful 3-dimensional look at the world as seen in color from satellite photos, complete with zooming in/out, panning, tilting the view in 3D, showing the real terrain layout at any altitude. I have used the views from this many times to compare it with my flight simulation experience, and to fine-tune it to make it look photoreal. (I wish someone like Ruud Faber could have a look at it, because I know he could put it to great use in future products.)
Cessna 172 Skyhawk over the suburbs of Tampa, using FScene summer textures, USA Roads, Active Sky. |
TrackIR3 with Vector Point activation. |
Many a times I have been driving somewhere looking up at the sky, marveling at the magnificent pastel-colored beauty of a cloud-filled skyscape, or the way the sunlight made certain clouds glow a fiery yellow/orange; and that what incredible resolution the human eye possesses...and I wondered which Flight Simulator product in the future would look exactly like THAT one day? FS2010 maybe...
Other freeware I installed I will touch upon briefly in point form in case this article gets too wordy: (plus I have to get back to reading my semi-boring medical journals). See my screen shots for examples of different freeware and payware.
San Francisco harbor, using MegaScenery, Active Sky, Pwover16. |
Sunset over Baltimore, using FScene USA summer textures, USA Roads, Lens Flare, Dawn-Dusk effect. |
b) Pwover16: I found this simulation of water and sea surface to be the right combination of beauty and realism, though I still feel the inland rivers are too blue and need to be more muddy greenish to grey-blue (depending on sky conditions, depth of water, natural sunlight etc.
c) Airport Environment Upgrade 6: Makes the airport buildings, taxiway and runways look more photoreal. Though there is a version 7, I feel it is too bright and too contrasting to look realistic with my personal setup (not to say it won't look good on yours.)
d) LensFlare: (version 3). A beautiful product that increases the effect of looking into the sun. Gives that sunny glow effect and magnifies the lens flare, best viewed at sunset or sunrise.
e) Dawn-Dusk Textures: This gives that golden/orange glow to the horizon you see at sunset from a planes cabin window.
f) Touchdown Effect: Name says it all.
g) Resized Autogen Buildings: I prefer this file for the sake of increasing frame rates, as it simplifies autogen detail of buildings. I can hardly notice big differences in this vs. default.
h) Clouds With Improved Contrast: makes the default clouds brighter and whiter, they way they really in real life. It works well with ActiveSky.
The last thing I did was obsess over the color configurations for my monitor and graphics card; I spent hours fine-tuning the contrast/gamma/brightness/digital vibrance/red-green-blue variables until I felt I got something as real as looking at an aviation aerial photo (www.airliners.net is a great resource for aviation images). Also, through ActiveSky I have set max visibility around 25 to 30 miles, which seems most realistic to me compared to aviation photos on an average clear day. Autogen switched off increases frame rates, so when I'm concentrating on fine-tuning my flying skills with the yoke/rudder/TrackIR setup as opposed to casual "eye-candy" flights, I keep it off.
Ground school materials. |
CH Products yoke and pedals setup. |
They say every great hobby eventually becomes an obsession, and I can see where that saying came from. All of us have our own very personal experience of Flight Simulator, and this is mine. I wanted to humbly share this with all you guys out there in case my flight simulator configurations are able to help enrich the flightsimming experience of others who are as passionate about flying as I am. And in the same way, your feedback might help enrich my experience.
So to those who are new to flightsimming, and to those who are veterans much more than me, I say may your wings take you where you so desire. And to the guys at Microsoft, I say thank you. And to those tireless, creative people out there who bring us the freeware and the payware day in and day out, thank you so much. Heaven truly lies in the unending frontiers of our imagination.
Adnan Arif
kingnothing75@yahoo.com
