Scenery & Object Designer

by Bill Hoscheit

The quality of the scenery is directly related to level of effort. The included Seychelles Island scenery (created with Scenery & Object Designer), is a breathtaking example of what one can do with the product. In my opinion, this product offers several specific strengths. First, it offers an environment for organizing and placing tiles and objects. Second, it has a seamless compile utility which incorporates all features and options that Flight Simulator uses to determine how scenery is displayed. Finally, its major forte is the included objects and textures. Trees look like trees. Textures, from runways to deserts, are high quality and provide superior realism.

I've sampled several Scenery Design tools. While one might be able to create the same end product using almost any utility, Scenery & Object Designer provides its strength through its up-front features. It supplies a variety of static objects and textures. Sure, you might be able to create these without Scenery & Object Designer, but not without significant effort. In short, it allows users to focus on assembling and defining scenery instead of forcing one to wonder, "How do I create a realistic foliage texture for my mountains?"

I've noticed some significant drawbacks, however. First, it is MS-DOS based. In and of itself, this may not be a bad thing, but the GUI nature of any graphical design simply lends itself to the features that windowing offers. (You will understand if you are using PC-based mapping and cartography tools and want to see both at once). For a DOS-based application though, the interface is well-designed. Second, the application is sometimes inconsistent in its references to longitudes and latitudes. Sometimes object references are specific coordinates, other references are relative coordinates. Each method is appropriate, but SYD's (Scenery & Object Designer's) use of these methods can make it confusing. In all fairness though, if this is your first experience with a tool, familiarization through use will likely overcome these challenges. This is especially true if your experience has not been affected by other paradigms and methodologies.

All in all, I must say this is the premier package of its type. It offers the most in terms of features, functionality, and reducing Flight Sim's detailed specification requirements to series of check boxes and menu dialogs. It is a very powerful tool that allows novices and experts to take advantage of its features. For example, your average Joe who wants to create his/her own private airport, repleat with navigational aids and realistic features can do this easily and quickly. Also, experts, interested in the utmost realism, will enjoy SYD's ability to manipulate large and detailed scenery areas with pinpoint precision. One particularly attractive feature is its ability to control virtually all item characteristics regarding its relationship to flight simulator. This has a direct and profound relationship on performance and realism. It offers something for everyone, while avoiding excluding one type of user in favor of the other, (much like other software packages, i.e. the need for MS Works and MS Office).

The bottom line with the scenery is that this is the best of all available tools. While the challenges I mentioned do exists, they are not insurmountable, and I would categorize them more as features that I would like to see in future versions instead of holes or flaws in the existing one.

As with all things, the end result will be a direct product of the effort. Small, straightforward scenery areas are easy to create. However, creating large, or even small detailed scenery areas is work and requires time. But then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There is no reason why novices cannot create and enjoy their scenery areas any less than an expert who wants to see their own car parked in their own garages as they fly over their neighborhood. It is a package that is well worth its price and nothing I have encountered would make me want to advise anyone to avoid this product. I highly recommend it. (I would do so even more if they would include a "tracing" feature so that designers could place scenery over scanned maps, reliefs, etc. hint, hint, hint...)

This package also offers two other features. First is the Seychelles Islands scenery. This is almost worth the price of admission alone. It is a breathtaking scenery area of the islands, airports, and cities. As it is obviously meant to emphasize SYD's power, it really shows off. It is worth slewing all over each island to see all the fine building, scenery, and general textures. It is superior to any commercially available scenery area I've seen. (I own almost all with the exception of Madrid and the soon to be released Rio).

The third offering is the Object Designer. I look at this as almost a give-away item that was included in the final release. The designers at Tekmate, a Houston, Texas-based producer of companion aircraft and sim products has created a facility for creating custom static objects in flight sim. For example, you could literally create your home, with dimensional accuracy, and place it in the flight sim world.

The main interface is in the form of a help file. The help file contains several tutorials on how to create Flight Shop compatible planes, some tips and tricks, as well as the documentation for the Object Designer. While help files can be powerful, they can also be confusing and make it difficult to follow a stream of information or procedures. I fould the help file particularly clumsy. This is unfortunate, as it contains a wealth of information. Unfortunately, this is the only source of documentation for the Object Designer.

First, to create an Object, you must use Flight Shop. Instead of creating an airplane, you create your house, office, car, boat, etc. Special compiler settings instruct Flight Shop to create a static object instead of an airplane. These special files, through the provided interpreter, create placeable object. This is where it gets uncomfortable. First, you need to create, by hand, an .ini type file for the interpreter, although some examples are provided in the help file. Second you must specify coordinates, degrees, altitude, and other settings which the help file does not clearly state how one might determine these settings. Finally, the user must run a DOS application, with custom parameters, to compile the object. All in all, YIKES! One ice pack, two hours, three Ibuprofen, and four beers later, I still hadn't placed my house on the map. (Only to find later that I had exceeded flight sim's 16K per object limit. I know not to expect something for nothing, but until these features appear in a much more homogenous environment, I am choosing to avoid this feature and I am a bit and bytes kind of guy who usually enjoys some tweaking here and there.

In all fairness, it's important to remember that this is the least significant feature, and is independent of the Scenery Designer and/or Seychelles Islands scenery. I would not let this influence my purchasing decision at all and instead choose to view it as a well-intended shareware type product that I use at my own peril. No big deal, but it could have really been neat. (Especially since TekMate has made some other neat stuff.)

Well, I hope that this gives you some insight and can help you make a decision. If I can provide any additional help, please feel free to contact me at:

billh1@gramercy.ios.com

For information on sources of this product and others that are seldom available in local stores, check out FlightSim.Com's How To section.

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