How To...Modify Scenery With FSLandclass And Developer Packs

By Ray Hallock

In this article I will describe how you can modify existing FS scenery to more accurately reflect your local area using a developer pack (note: developer packs used to be known as country packs).

Requirements

FSLandclass program by Burkhard Renk
A Developer Pack
The FSLandclass Atlas
FS2000 Terrain SDK (FILE: FS2000_Terrain_SDK.EXE available at http://www.microsoft.com/games/fs2000/downloads.asp)
A desktop magnification program (optional)
These programs are freely available from many shareware websites such as shareware.com. They will display whatever is under your mouse cursor in a small window on your screen but greatly magnified. I found that it was very hard to click the small squares in the FSLandclass window (even in the built in zoom mode) without using this tool. I used Magnify 1.2

This tutorial shows the steps to modify a scenery area using FSLandclass and a developer pack. I used the Canada West developer pack in this example. I modified an area to more accurately represent my home town which was virtually left out by Microsoft.
NOTE: The finished scenery illustration also contains macros created with Abacus FSDS and placed with FSArchitect 2002.

Let's Get Started...

First (of course) install FSLandclass. There are two program files included. They are: FSLandClass98.exe and FSLandClass.exe
I am running Windows 2000 Professional and found the only one that worked for me was FSLandClass98.exe.
NOTE: You can install FSLandclass in any folder on your hard drive, BUT you will have to remember where it is. Next install the FS2000 SDK. It does not matter where you install this either since you are going to copy files from the folder to the FSLandclass folder. In fact once you have copied the files you can uninstall the SDK if HD space is a concern.
Copy the files resample.exe, tmftobgl.exe, tmfcompress.exe, and tmfmerge.exe FROM the Terrain SDK folder TO the FSLandclass Folder.

Install the developer pack. This is a two step process. One step asks you to define the location of your FS2K Scenery folder, and will then install a country.bgl file there. This file contains already modified scenery and can be used just as a scenery add-on with no further modifications. I determined that I still needed further modifications to make my area more accurate. In my case the new scenery file was called CanadaWest.BGL.

The second step installs the binary files needed by FSLandclass for the area covered by the developer pack. This step will ask you to define the location of your FSLandclass installation and will put a whole bunch of files in there for you. These files will have names similar to LCE71N20.bin

NOTE: The file names refer to the Lat and Long coordinates of the “chunk” you are going to modify.

FINALLY: Install the atlas files. These are a large set of .gif files with one HTML file to load them all. You have to open the index file for the atlas (in my case AtlasNorthAmerica(West).htm) in your internet browser to see the atlas which basically is a grid map with the file names (similar to LCE71N20) displayed. This allows you to quickly find the file name for the area you want to work on.

Let's Make Some Scenery

At this point FSLandclass is functional and we can start modifying scenery with it. These illustrations give you an idea of what we are going to do.

1: Microsoft Default Scenery (Cockpit View)	Microsoft Default Scenery (Overhead View)
There should be a town on both sides of the river here. NOTE: The island in the middle and the bridges ARE NOT default but were created in other scenery programs.

2: Developer Pack Default Scenery (Cockpit View)	Developer Pack Default Scenery (Overhead View)
FSLandclass Developer Pack scenery file has added some detail. (Note town now on left)

3: My Modified Scenery (Cockpit View)	My Modified Scenery (Overhead View)
I have made the town on the left larger and given it a city center and I have added suburbs on the other side of the river.

So How Is It All Done?

Here it is step by step with illustrations.
Step 1: Start FSLandclass
Step 2: Select FILE/READ. You will see the following dialog box.

This is basically the four directions. Notice the file name in the bottom box. This is where you want the filename you selected from the Atlas to appear. BUT you do not simply enter it. Notice the buttons to the left and right, top and bottom of the dialog box. Clicking any of these buttons causes the focal point of the program to change and by doing so changes the file name automatically in the lower box. So you just keep clicking away, left, right, top, bottom...until the correct filename shows up here. When it does click Read.

FSLanclass will load the specified DEM and will look similar to this.

Step 4: It will take a little experimentation to find the exact area you want. FSLandclass does not provide a very large image to work with which is why I use the MAGNIFYER.

FIRST click ZOOM STATE and pick one of the corners where you think your town may be. By experimenting I determined it was in the SOUTHEAST section so I selected that to zoom it in more. This allowed me to see some tiny colored squares that indicate a landclass tile, but still way too small for my old and tired eyes. But with Magnifyer also running (you can see the blow up on the right) it is much easier to select a colored tile block. The small window on the right is the Magnify window showing what is under the mouse cursor on the left.

When you click on any of the squares you will see the following dialog box.

Step 5: This box tells you the current landclass in the top box. You can use the scroll bar on the right to see what the number means. In this case it is 101 which is City Center with blocks – leave forest green, light winter. So just change it to whatever you want and click OK.

Continue clicking tiles and changing them until you are satisfied enough to give it a try. Notice I said give it a try. Sometimes it takes three or four tries, loading FS2002 and viewing the scenery each time, to get it right.

In my case I found I had suburbs farther up the river and on the other side where none actually exist. This is because the tile I modified actually spanned the river. This did not affect the river in the scenery, but required changing one of the tiles near the south bank of the river to prevent it from showing buildings on the north bank. Experimentation is the key.

So Let's See What It Looks Like

Step 6: After you have completed the changes above, click on FILE/WRITE RESAMPLE. This will create a bunch of new files in your FSLandclass folder, one of which will be the (in this case) lce62n20.bgl. FSLandclass assigns the .bgl file the same name as the geo coordinate file. You can rename it to anything you like.

Step 7: Copy the new .bgl file into the FS2002 main SCENERY folder. Unfortunately these mods will not work in subfolders (i.e. Add On Scenery/My Town/Scenery) but must go in the main scenery folder in order to work.

I just gibe my new files obvious names so I can tell they are not FS default scenery files when I am browsing folders (with Windows Explorer)

Step 8: Start FS2002 and go to the closest airport and take a look. You will be impressed. I was!

I would appreciate hearing if this brief tutorial has been of any assistance.

Ray Hallock
royboy@eagles-nest.net

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