Development

Roger, when did you start developing for flight simulators and what got you interested in it?

Two things happened in 2004, well, probably many things, but only two that are relevant to this subject. First, I noticed that in FS2004 the suburb of Ottawa where I lived (Orleans) wasn't represented in MSFS. Then a little while later, on the Ottawa City web site, I found a mass of aerial photographs of the Ottawa area while looking for something else. At about the same time, I also stumbled across a little program (that opened in Excel) called EZ-Landclass. I was ready to go...or so I thought!

Three weeks later I was cursing myself for ever starting the project as it was so boring! I was tempted to stop but that would have meant three weeks wasted, so I went on for another three weeks. When Ultimate Terrain was released for FS2004 I loaded it up and guess what? Orleans was still missing. I contacted the team at Ultimate Terrain and they added the area in their next update.

The second thing which happened in 2004 was that my wife said to me "Roger, don't you think you should perhaps give up scuba diving?" Thinking about this, I realized there were good behavior bonus points to be earned and I hadn't dived in a while because we hadn't been anywhere warm, plus I had always thought that if I ever stopped diving I would learn to fly. So with this in mind I went along to the Rockcliffe Flying Club. Later, she told me that wasn't what she'd had in mind! In the first two weeks of flying I noticed that there were at least three grass strips near Ottawa that weren't modeled in FS2004, though they were on the aerial photos I had seen. Another coincidence, I was pointed towards a new and user-friendly scenery program for FS2004 called SceneryGenX that even I could cope with, and the rest, as they say, is history. I was doomed.

Tell us about the nature of your designs and what you do?

I make airfield scenery which (to the best of my ability) tries to replicate the real life location as much as possible. If I can't create the buildings so that they are at least recognizable from the air then I don't attempt the airfield, so the starting point is photographs.

Scenery creation differs very much from person to person. What satisfies one, might not satisfy the other. For me the most satisfaction comes in knowing that every building uses photographic textures and looks 100% real in terms of looks, size and location, plus all the signs and even garbage bins, etc. Rockcliffe would fit that description; I kept the museum building by Flight Ontario, but everything else about the scenery was mine, even down to the individual taxiway lights with little red flags. At the other end of satisfaction would be an accurate terminal building, plus some hangars which are roughly the same size, shape and color as in real life.

Because of this need for photos I usually only make scenery of airfields that I have visited (which means mostly Canada). As I do not fly 737's they tend to be small (landing-fee-free) airfields. I think the only place I have ever paid a landing fee in Canada is at St Jovite CSZ3, near Mont Tremblant in Quebec.

What do you consider your best or most popular work?

Sidney Schwartz, a fellow developer and friend thinks my best is Dutch Harbor. The most popular (by downloads) seems to be Dutch or Merrill Field. My Caribbean sceneries (I spent two years living down there) are also pretty popular. Personally I think Aasiaat in Greenland is a nicely complete scenery. Overall, though, my main focus has been on northern Canadian sceneries, such as Pond Inlet, in what was a big empty space in FS2004.

Roger, what do you find to be the most challenging aspect of a project?

The most challenging aspect is all the Photoshop work I have to do so that I can make usable textures from photographs. The difficulty here is that many photographs have cars, planes and other objects in the way which have to be removed. If a photograph is taken at an angle, this again presents another boring challenge. After that, making the actual buildings is a real pleasure!

What have been your favorite projects?

Definitely the smaller ones! There is quite a lot of boring (and often frustrating) work which needs to be done in order to create a scenery. This is one of the reasons why I prefer creating smaller airfields as this 'boring' aspect is over and done with a lot quicker. Holger Sandmann once said to me that very few people realize how many thousand mouse clicks were involved in the creation of his Misty Fjords scenery. I sympathized with him, but reminded him that he did volunteer, as had I with my sceneries.

Like Holger, there have been times when I wondered why I was doing it. The answer is simple, it's addictive even if some elements bore you to death! Perhaps I'm not the only one to think like this, as I noticed that X-Plane developer, David Marshall also prefers to make small airfields (Nelson BC). Is it the same for X-Plane developers?

What software packages and tools do you use to develop?

I use Photoshop for creating textures, FS Design Studio for making buildings and SceneryGenX for the creation of airfields and the placing of objects in .mdl format (not .bgl's).

When using SceneryGenX, I really like the fact that I can see exactly where the buildings or the 100LL tank is in relation to the edge of the apron. Both FSDS and GenX are part of the newer generation of scenery-making programs which are incredibly user-friendly compared to the older design packages which had steep learning curves and put many people off, myself included.

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

I would have to mention Gary Summons as his early UK sceneries really showed what could be achieved, even with the crude tools then available.

The Team

How many people work with you or your team?

Just me. Sid occasionally gives me a hand when I ask him (usually on big stuff). Lately though, he has said he is stopping making scenery.

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

I slightly helped Flight Ontario make an FSX version of Rockcliffe by taking photos for them, which I also used for my updated FS2004 version. I then made an updated FS2004 version of Toronto City Centre, adding new buildings to the Flight Ontario early version with their cooperation.

Real Life

Do you have any experience in real aviation?

I do. As I mentioned earlier, I learnt to fly back in 2004 (this was mainly at Rockcliffe Flying Club). I took it on as a full time job, five days a week and have never looked back. I've been flying ever since. Canada is the most amazing place to fly over! Where else can you fly 300 miles in a straight line on the basis of only two radio calls, and then repeat that again and again to rack up 3,000 miles in a straight line? You can land on any lake and set up camp on a beach for a week. Your only visitors are bears, moose, raccoons, and perhaps the occasional float plane pilot willing to share a coffee. Perfect!

Flying is similar to scenery creation, it's addictive. In my opinion both need to have warnings attached.

Roger, as you've flown a fair amount, have you had any memorable flights in real life?

Flying up the west coast of Canada and Alaska was a pretty memorable experience as was flying down the Mackenzie River to the north shore. Another flight was flying along the spectacular north coast of Baffin Island.

That flight sounds fantastic. What aircraft did you do it in and what do you remember most about it?

The Mackenzie and the west coast and Alaska trips were in a Cessna 180 on floats (a friend's plane, when I was a novice). After that a Super Cub on wheels (mine) usually with a second Cub for company. For some reason I never got to grips with the Cub on floats, but on wheels it is perfect. You don't need an airfield, just a football field. What I remember most about long trips is the total divorce from everything else. It reminds me of scuba diving; when you are diving you are ONLY diving, there is nothing else in your mind. Same with flying. If I remember rightly Harrison Ford said something similar in his in-Beaver interview.

Would you like to share what you do in real life?

I was an architect and have now retired three times. Maybe this one will stick!

What other hobbies or things do you do for enjoyment?

I like to read and enjoy music (40 years spent watching Eric Clapton play at the Albert Hall is great). I also like to walk a lot; fresh air and scenery!

Future

How do you choose your next new design or project?

My next project is usually determined by what photographs I have of a particular area (from a trip). I then create a whole bunch of them.

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

I design for FS2004 only, as it's the simulator with the most Canadian scenery (over 700 Canadian sceneries at FlightSim.Com alone). I find that my use of FS2004 (which isn't very much, maybe a couple of hours a week) is in areas where I have flown for real. I like to remember a particular day flying down the Mackenzie for instance, or between two islands in the Caribbean. My FS2004 flying is all about reminiscing.

In what ways do you see development changing in the future?

I don't really know what can change. The technicalities of flying a 737 from Ottawa to Toronto as part of a virtual airline doesn't interest me, though it is well catered for in FS2004 and other simulators. For me it is all about what's outside the cockpit, and after 11 years we still haven't made even half of the airfields in Canada. If you look at it this way, FS2004 still hasn't reached its full potential in terms of scenery and FSX, which looks to be producing scenery at about the same rate, seems it will never catch up. The same is true for P3D, and X-Plane. FSX, P3D and X-Plane all display scenery of a (slightly?) better quality than FS2004, but mostly it remains better quality but inaccurate scenery.

The only quantum leap seen in the last 10 years has been with Ultimate Terrain, which turned FS2004 from a game into a simulator, and a chart could be matched to a view out of the cockpit. And this was what, nine years ago?

Unfortunately I don't see how a multitude of airports with real buildings could be similarly created without spending a great deal of money on development. This would then put the final retail price out of reach for 99% of users. So I guess I am forced to conclude that nothing much will change, unlike David Marshall. He was right in one respect, when he said he was surprised at how far flight simulation has advanced in the last 15 years, but I think he was wrong when he said it will continue to advance in such large strides.

The relatively small advances of FSX over FS2004 is indicative of this slowdown. Yes I agree, 3D grass is nice, and in X-Plane, shadows in the cockpit are also nice, but if you were to take a screen shot from each simulator and ask your average Joe which was which, they would probably find it difficult, unless you highlighted something specific. In my opinion the differences are small.

I don't see a quantum leap coming any time soon that will put us all in real-life streaming video. The only simulator that has the potential for major improvement in my mind is a railroad simulator, which, I'm sad to say, doesn't really interest me. Nevertheless, after watching a video taken from the driver's view of a freight train from Trail to Nelson up the Kootenay, I can potentially see how a small software step could change that "as is" on YouTube to something that is usable in a train simulator. However, a train simulator is extremely predictable, the only variable is speed; this is not so with flight simulation.

Your Thoughts

What can sites like FlightSim.Com do to support you and the hobby better?

Based upon my own experience, it would be nice if FlightSim.Com could encourage more folk to learn to fly for real as it really is a fantastic experience (albeit addictive). A good plane can be bought used for the price of a good car, and when you sell it in ten years time it will sell for more than you paid for it. Is this true of cars? So maybe more links to real aviation?

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

Maybe they should know that when I ask for a response to a question regarding my own scenery I really do want a bunch of emails in reply! Sometimes I really wonder if anyone is really out there?

173 downloads in two days but only one email? What help is that? It is not just me, other designers have noticed this apathy. John Stinstrom made a military base 7 years ago, and I downloaded it to update the AI and repost it (with his permission) along with a small nearby municipal airport that I was making (Cold Lake CYOD). I found his AI didn't work and I told him so. He tried it and found he had made an error, though he initially told me that he had first presumed I had installed it incorrectly as there had been over 7,000 downloads of it and nobody had ever told him it didn't work! Flight simulation is a community hobby, as such, people who download should do their bit.

Roger Wensley

Download Roger Wensley's Scenery