Development

When did you start developing for flight simulators and what got you interested in it?

I've been a user of Microsoft's Flight Simulator since Flight Simulator for Windows was first launched and I've had every version of MSFS since.

Prior to creating my own scenery, I was always a 'taker' of scenery, so to speak, and it wasn't until FS2002 that I decided to try and improve on the simulator myself. This was for my home country of New Zealand, which was very poorly depicted in MSFS.

I started with a few simple tools, like Lee Swordy's AFCAD (freeware), and also Runway-12 Object Placer (freeware).

When FS2004 ACOF arrived on the market at the end of 2003, I purchased it on its release day and that's when I started to get serious about scenery building, as FS2004 was a major leap ahead over all previous version of MSFS.

I persevered with Runway-12 Object placer for some time, until the wonderful EZ Scenery by Abacus Publishing came on the market. It was so much simpler to use! I also used Lee Swordy's AFCAD-2 for FS2004, which was a huge improvement over the previous version for FS2002.

A fellow flight sim user and friend (here in my home city of Tauranga) saw the add-on airports I had created, and mentioned that because they were of such good quality, I should share them so that others could enjoy them; which I did. It gave me great pleasure to be able to give something back to the Flight Simulator community, especially after being a 'taker' of freeware scenery and add-ons for so many years. I learned many valuable lessons while using FS2004, and have now moved on to FSX as my preferred simulator.

What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of a project?

For me, the most challenging aspect for most of my projects is during the research stage, before building the scenery.

A lot of the smaller airports I have built, both in New Zealand, and in the Pacific Islands, have been quite difficult to reproduce because of the lack of quality imagery. Airport charts and other such information is relatively easy to come by for New Zealand airports and airfields, but very hard to find for a lot of the Pacific Island airports I have built.

Google Earth satellite images are of course a big help, but some of these are unfortunately outdated by some years, and sometimes the ground detail is partly obscured by cloud in some of the images.

The second most challenging aspect I find about creating scenery, is trying to piece everything together into a workable scenery package. This is mainly due to a lack of photographs of the real scenery. Sometimes it's a case of trying to interpret all the pieces you do have of the real airport, and to make the best likeness you can.

I have however been both fortunate, and lucky enough, to find people who have taken photos for me at various airports in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. I was fortunate enough to find someone who used to fly an Air Samoa Twin Otter for a number of years, and he provided me with good photos of a couple of the Samoan airfields I've created.

Also, with one of the New Zealand airports I modelled earlier this year, I was lucky enough to find someone (whose business it is to take passengers up for scenic joyrides from the same airport) who provided me with invaluable up-to-date information and photos.

My scenery work, New Zealand in particular, is designed and built specifically to work well with the payware Vector Landclass add-on for New Zealand. From reports that I've had from users over the years, most of my work also works well with the default FSX scenery and also with Orbx's NZNI and NZSI add-ons.

What have been your favorite projects?

I'm not sure if I actually have any favorites as such. I do know however that I have enjoyed every aspect of each and every scenery I've built so far.

If I had to have a favorite, or favorites, it would probably be some of the smaller airfields I've built in New Zealand and in the Fijian and Samoan Islands. To be perfectly honest with you, I think I get more enjoyment from actually creating the scenery, than I do from flying in the sim. I have to admit, in recent years, my flying skills have become a little rusty, as I spend most of my time in the sim building scenery.

What software packages and tools do you use to develop?

I've always been a believer in the KISS principle...Keep It Simple Stupid. I only use two tools for my scenery building in FSX; Airport Facilitator X (AFX), payware by Flight1 Software, and Instant Scenery-2, also payware by Flight1 Software. Both these tools I find easy to use, and they both accurately do everything that I require.

Who would you consider to be your mentors or inspiration in the development world if you have any?

There are two people who would fit the mentor or inspiration description for me, and they are the late Ian Thatcher, a well known freeware scenery developer, who for many years and over many versions of MSFS, gave me much invaluable help and encouragement with my scenery building.

The other person would be Robin Corn, of Godzone freeware scenery and Real NZ payware scenery for my home country of New Zealand. His beautiful sceneries gave me the inspiration to improve, not only on my scenery design but also to improve the look of New Zealand in MSFS for others to enjoy as well.

Do you develop payware/freeware or both and why?

I only develop freeware scenery for New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, and personally I don't feel the quality of my work is up to payware standards, although I have been told by many that some of my work (at the time of its creation) is up to, and even better than, some payware work.

I do my work as freeware because I want to contribute to the FS community, and because I really enjoy what I do. I find it both therapeutic and relaxing. If I created payware, then it would become a job, and I would lose the enjoyment I now get from it.

The Team

How many people work with you or your team?

I myself do most of the work for my FSX sceneries, although I do have a fellow flight sim friend (Godfrey Tier) here in New Zealand, who kindly builds custom objects for me when required. He has the tools and knowledge regarding 3D, that I don't have.

What do the various members of the team do?

Godfrey Tier and I have worked closely together on many scenery projects over the years. In the days when FS2004 was my main simulator, he made all the custom objects and buildings for my sceneries, while I built the AFCAD, flattens, excludes, and placed all the items in the scenery, and packaged it all up at the end.

Godfrey still produces scenery and objects for FS2004, and in recent years, we have worked together on a few shared sceneries. He has produced the FS2004 version of the scenery, and I have produced the FSX version. These have all been in New Zealand.

Godfrey has also built a number of custom buildings for a few of my FSX Pacific Island sceneries and continues to build any custom objects I require for my FSX sceneries.

What other developers or teams have you worked with and what were their roles?

As mentioned above, I continue to work with Godfrey Tier on many New Zealand scenery projects. In the past, in FS2004 days, I worked with Charl du Toit, who put together the Great New Zealand Light AI Project (GNZLAP), featuring GA aircraft in the sub 5 tonne MTOW category, all with genuine New Zealand paint jobs and registration numbers.

The package not only contained many freeware AI aircraft, but also paints for the payware HTAI Cessna's package. I built a number of AFCADs for this project, and also many of my FS2004 airport sceneries were designed and built specifically to suit these AI aircraft. In the final version there were over 250 New Zealand AI aircraft in the package.

I also worked with Charl on another FS2004 AI project called "A Flock of Fletchers." This package had a number of genuine NZ agricultural Fletcher AI aircraft and many genuine NZ liveries and registration numbers. I built a number of AFCADs, and a few small scenery improvements and farm airstrips specifically for this project.

Charl and I worked together on a number of other FS2004 projects. These were smaller but still an improvement, and added greatly to the New Zealand Flight Sim scene.

The very first project I worked on, way before I uploaded any of my own scenery, was called The New Zealand Retro-AI Project. I wanted to re-create, in AI form, New Zealand's commercial aviation from the 1970's and 1980's. This was my favorite era in NZ commercial aviation as I grew up with these particular aircraft, and flew on them many times. For this reason, I have retained a very soft spot for them.

Part-1 of this project featured commercial passenger aircraft in three different liveries, from three different time spans. The first was the NAC Wings of the Nation liveried aircraft. NAC (National Airways Corporation) was the name of the domestic carrier here in New Zealand, from 1947 to 1978, until they merged with Air New Zealand in 1978.

Up until that time, Air New Zealand was only the international carrier, although NAC did perform some regular international flights to Norfolk Island and Fiji, and sometimes to various Polynesian destinations. The Norfolk Island flights were flown in the Fokker F27 Friendships, and the Islands flights in the Boeing 737-200's.

The second period in time was the first Air New Zealand domestic livery after their merger (which was a mixture of NAC colors with Air New Zealand names, and the Air NZ "Koru" on the tail instead of the NAC Godwit bird on the tail).

The third period in time, was the green and blue full Air NZ livery, the same as was applied to the international aircraft of the time. You could install whichever of the three periods you wanted in your sim. The aircraft in the package were the Fokker F27 Friendship, the Boeing 737-200, the Douglas DC-8, and the McDonnell Douglas DC 10-30.

Part-2 of the package was freight, cargo and postal aircraft. The Convair 580's of Airfreight NZ, the Fokker F27 Friendships and Metro 3's of New Zealand Post. Also included were the Bristol B170 Freighters of Safe Air Ltd, the Fokker F27 Friendships of Ansett Airfreight NZ, and a couple of regular international freighters seen at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Lastly, there were the DHL Boeing 727's, and the Polar Air Cargo Boeing 747's.

There were three of us involved in this project, with one doing the painting of all the AI aircraft, another creating the flight plans, and I was the ideas and information man, who also packaged up and uploaded the final result of each.

Real Life

Do you have any experience in real aviation?

I trained at Waikato aero club in Hamilton, New Zealand, where I gained my PPL. Unfortunately I let my license lapse after 280 hours, as there were more important things that required my time and money; namely family, and a mortgage on a house.

What started your interest in aviation?

Even though I have loved aviation from an early age, it was the 60 minute joyride in a Cessna 152 that my parents gave me on my 10th birthday that really cemented my interest. The pilot allowed me to control the aircraft briefly, once in flight, and that was it...I was hooked!

Any memorable flights in real life?

To be honest, I would consider ALL my flights, both domestic, and international as memorable, for so many reasons, not least of all because I was in an aeroplane flying! Although, I do have vague memories of one memorable flight (I say vague memories, as I was only 3 years old at the time).

We were landing at Wellington in heavy rain and the aircraft, a Vickers Viscount, aquaplaned and went off the end of the runway and down the side of a small bank (which resided at the end of the runway), onto the road below. This happened in 1963 and to this day, I still have some old photos of it that my father took at the time.

What other hobbies or things do you do for enjoyment?

I've always enjoyed building models all my life, especially aircraft, space ships, and trucks, but my other big passion aside from aircraft is trains. I have a number of different train simulators, and needless to say, it all started with Microsoft's Train Simulator in 2001. I'm also into model railways, in my case, modern British N gauge.

Future

How do you choose your next new design or project?

Basically, how I choose what project I will build next, depends a great deal on what airports or airfields (which haven't been improved by others) need upgrading, so as to become more realistic. For me personally, one of my pet hates is flying to a destination (one that I have never been to before in the sim) only to find that there is nothing there, except for just a runway. It ruins my immersion in the sim, so I usually say to myself, "that's not good enough," and get about improving it.

What normally happens is that I'll build a scenery for that airport or airfield, and then re-create the exact same flight again, starting from the same point of origin as the original flight and see how my improvements have changed the experience. Hopefully for the better!

I usually won't do an airport for FSX that's already been done by someone else, unless I know I can improve on it, or can create a more updated version of it, because of changes to the real airport.

What simulators do you design for now and what ones do you plan to develop for in the future?

Currently, I build for Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Seeing as how FSX is the last flight simulator from Microsoft (at this time), I'm not really sure where I will go from here. X-Plane is a possibility, but I'm still not sure.

The other option, and one I've thought about on an off for many years, is to build scenery and routes for one of the train simulators available. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to build for both a flight simulator, and a train simulator, so it will have to be one or the other.

Your Thoughts

What are some of the most important things a site or community can do to help the developers?

I would have to say that one of the most important things a site or community can do is to constantly encourage more people to develop add-ons for this wonderful hobby of ours, no matter what the platform, be it MSFS or X-Plane. Helping these people with tutorials and access to the tools necessary to build add-ons is also of vital importance.

Scenery building, for example, is much easier than a lot of people would imagine. Aside from getting pleasure from helping others enjoy the experience of the sim more, there is also a great personal satisfaction from being able to say, "Hey I made that from nothing." Like me, others may find it relaxing, and it's also challenging and helps keep the mind active.

How do you feel about the future of flight simulation in general?

That's a hard question to answer really. I would like to think there is still a very bright future for flight simulation, but this is only if people still keep developing add-ons for all the different kinds of sims (FSX, FS2004, X-Plane, etc.). This is the only way to help keep the hobby alive. I think the flight sim community suffered quite a blow when Microsoft decided to discontinue the most widely used and most successful flight simulator to date; but here's me, and countless others around the world, still constantly building add-ons for it, and helping keep it alive. I find that very encouraging.

What would you like people to know about you or your team and work?

The same as many other developers, which is, I started building airport sceneries because I hated the empty airports and airfields that a default simulator install offers "straight-out-of-the box."

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I will continue to develop airports and airfields for as long as I can, or until I run out of airports and airfields that need doing in my chosen regions of New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

I used to have my own web site for about six years, which was "Snowman's FlightSim Addons". It was a "one-stop-shop" for anything to do with New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Sceneries, aircraft, landclass, mesh, object libraries... you name it, it was there, for both FS2004 and FSX.

All my own work for both FS2004 and FSX was hosted at this site, as well as the work of many other developers for the region. Unfortunately it was a target for hackers, and was hacked many times over the years, and I became sick of having to rebuild it after each hacking. All my FSX work now resides here at FlightSim.Com.

All my FS2004 work used to reside on AVSIM.com, but most of that was lost during the hacking of their web site a few years back, and also lost to me when I had an HDD failure at home. Thanks to the generosity of Ronald Falzon in Malta, most of my old FS2004 work has now been uploaded to FlightSim.Com as well. He had almost everything I ever created for FS2004.

Until Ronald generously uploaded my FS2004 work here, there were only a few of my FS2004 sceneries available, and these were scattered between FlightSim.Com, AVSIM.com, and Simviation.com. There are, unfortunately, a number of my FS2004 sceneries which are now lost forever.

I'm one of the early founding members of New Zealand Flightsim Forums (www.nzff.org), and am still very active there.

I also have my own South Pacific FlightSim Scenery sub-forum there:

http://nzff.org/forum/index.php?s=baccdbd25052856aa653b0f69aca7924&showforum=30

Anyone can feel free to contact me with any questions about my scenery work at the above mentioned support forum, or e-mail me at snowman@nzff.org.

I wish to thank FlightSim.Com for the hosting of all my scenery work, so that it's available for others to enjoy, and for honoring me and my work by way of this personal interview.

Lawrie Roache
Tauranga City (NZTG)
Bay of Plenty
North Island
New Zealand

Download Lawrie Roache's files

Additional Screen Shots