History

For a few years now, FS enthusiasts have been able to use add-on scenery that covers the whole of the Netherlands. This scenery has been developed by a small team of scenery and aircraft designers resident in the Netherlands. Most members are purely amateur but a few members are also professional designers. Before the team was actually formed, most individual members were already designing add-ons independently, but in 1998 Thomas Diederich took the initiative to bring these designers together to form a new design team. Because there was no single scenery package of the Netherlands available for Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 and 2000, the team decided to design its own virtual scenery of the Netherlands as a complete freeware package and to make that scenery widely available to all through the Internet. The scenery package was first launched on FlightSim.Com a couple of years ago and has since won several awards for scenery design. This short article explains how the team works and how this scenery came about.

Specializations Within The Team?

All members of the team also have their own specializations. Some members are really good airport designers and others are terrain wizards. Other members of the team direct their talents towards web site building and support (answering the tons of e-mails received through the design team's web site), whereas others are involved in software development for the benefit of our vector editing program, a scenery design software package specially developed for the Netherlands design team by Guido van Wijngaarden.

The diversity in the team is very important. This enables the team to build on past experience and develop new tools and ideas. Sometimes though, this diversity makes it difficult to form a clear vision as a team. Many discussions take place within the team on how the next scenery release should be and what changes should be made. At the same time, these discussions enable the team to distinguish between what is important and what is not so important and to outline and determine new development activities for future releases. Feedback from users and people involved directly or indirectly with the world of aviation is also of utmost importance.

Three members of the team are, in fact, general aviation pilots. This is also important, because people with flying experience have a specific knowledge of what aviation is all about and what things are important to build in virtual sceneries. Sometimes, these pilots take to the air in specific regions of the country so as to enable other members of the team experience and view the real aviation world, thus enabling all team members to discuss and build new textures and scenery objects.

The team is also assisted by a few commercial companies and in some cases even government institutes in order to acquire the right information or to get good pictures. Without this information, it would be almost impossible for some of the scenery objects to be made. An example of this can be seen in the scenery package where all of the windmills are positioned at exactly the right spot on the ground. This information originated from a government database system which included all ground coordinates and other essential information.

Basic Terrain Designers

These are the people working on the basic terrain of The Netherlands, which includes the general infrastructure of the entire country, i.e. from villages, towns and cities, to rivers and canals, and numerous other landmark buildings and objects in all corners of the country. Although the larger cities like Amsterdam (Erwin Horjus), Rotterdam and Den Haag (Jeroen en Mark Arends) are important for flying VFR, smaller towns and villages with specific landmarks are also essential to virtual sceneries. This is especially true for areas near airports and aerodromes.

The designers build these 3D objects using a variety of tools like FSDS, SCASM source code and Gmax. In order to avoid objects being designed simultaneously by different members, all objects are allocated to individual members responsible for certain regions within the scenery. These objects are then collected and placed in the main or other relevant scenery file.

FSDS Design overview of the Hef Bridge in Rotterdam

In an effort to synchronize communication between the various developers, the team uses an internal web site which can be used to report newly created objects, changes to existing objects and any problems that may have arisen (including recommended solutions). All designers receive periodic reports in their mail-boxes so as to ensure that everyone is aware of all pending designs. Important new scenery objects are also reported on our web site for all to see.

When these 3D objects have been created they then have to be collected in our scenery database. The team has two Visual Basic programmers, who have developed the team's own Vector Editing Program (for internal use only). This software package has all the necessary tools for scenery design and compilation and can be compared with all the goodies of the most popular scenery design programs all combined into one interface. The initiator and head of this project is Guido van Wijngaarden who originally developed this new software package. Another team member and VB programmer, Johan Caljé, writes new add-ons and the program's special user-interfaces.

This tool has a built-in database where all textures, objects en meta-information is stored. All designers in the team have a copy. With the use of this editing program designers can then place, rotate, move or scale macro-objects at their exact positions. What they actually see is a part of the Netherlands in which they can perform editing functions. The program has several built-in tools which enable designers to create woodlands and forests, roads, railway lines, towns and cities etc. Objects can be positioned either manually or even automatically with the use of so-called scripting techniques. Sometimes we get information from several knowledge-sponsors (government etc.) These sponsors provide us with the exact coordinates of scenery objects.

Overview of the Vector Editing Interface (for internal use only)

A specially written script enables the automatic insertion of these objects in the vector editing tool. Any additional changes can then be made by hand. The windmills in our scenery, all of which are officially registered historic landmarks, are a good example of how this scripting technique works. After a script has positioned standard windmill macros in the scenery, the team then made manual changes to the type of windmill, so that we now have different kinds of windmills all over the country.

After a designer has made several objects or terrain updates, this data can then be exported automatically and placed on an FTP server so that other team members can then download the latest data and import it into their own interface. This ensures that all members work with currently updated information whilst creating their own designs or completing their own design projects.

On completion of a project or number of projects, the interface can then be used to compile all current information. All data can be manipulated. This may include only certain regions, or even the entire country and all new objects. The newly compiled BGLs are then tested and any problems which may have arisen are then reported back to all members of the internal web site forum. This process is repeated time and time again until a new release can be planned (the design life-cycle).

Airports

Airports are every important to flightsim enthusiasts. When you fly from one airport to another, there are at least two places where airspeed is decreased and where you fly relatively low. This is where virtual scenery should be at its best. When airspeed and altitude are both low, users expect to see a lot more detail. Scenery detail and object density at departing and destination airfields is therefore extremely important in the virtual world. In our team we have some excellent airport designers. To design these airports, designers generally use software packages such as Airport, Groundmaker or ASD or even just source code compilers like SCASM and BGLC. Our scenery designers generally use a combination of such tools, although some designers prefer just to stick to one or two programs they feel really confident with.

All airports have their own specific problems. You need to know how buildings look and how they are positioned in the real world, but you must also be acquainted with the airport's specific procedures and with it's VFR references and how it is positioned in the real and virtual world. This requires frequent visits to the airports you build as well as good preparation work in the way of scaled drawings, object dimensions and good pictures of the entire environment. In the Netherlands project, the team has built all airports and aerodromes currently in use in the Netherlands. But by far the biggest obstacle for designers to overcome is getting hold of accurate and up-to-date information, not only on the airports themselves but also on any important details in the close vicinity of those airports. This is important for VFR flights. By example, Kees Sonneveld has put all the reporting points in the CTR of Rotterdam in the scenery. Now, you can use the approach charts of EHRD and visually see the reporting points. Graham Oxtoby has put several details around Teuge (EHTE), to enable circuit flying whilst orientating on the objects placed in the immediate vicinity of the aerodrome. The same has been done at other airports like Hilversum (EHHV), Lelystad (EHLE) and Midden Zeeland (EHMZ).

Also important are the VFR approach charts. These enable you to fly to and from airfields and learn about procedures en route. In the scenery we have built more detailed terrain around the field. In normal areas we only place larger roads. In the close vicinity of Beek, Seppe, Budel and Eelde, we have also placed minor roads and detailed forests, which are also found on the approach charts.

Another significant obstacle for designers to overcome is getting the framerates right whilst including all the details you want in the scenery. There's no point in producing highly detailed airports if bad framerates prevent you from flying.

All of our airports are built with one thing in mind: all flightsim enthusiasts must be able to fly the scenery, whether they use high-end computers or just low-budget computers. This is why we have built our airports with various density settings: from normal, to cater for the low-budget computers to higher settings for those with faster computers. In the upcoming new version of our scenery, i.e. version 3, as a team we have reached an agreement on the maximum framerate level we would like to achieve for each individual density setting. We have also reworked numerous scenery objects in order to improve framerates. This can be very difficult, as was experienced with the Schiphol Airport (EHAM). Schiphol was designed by Arno Gerritsen and Tom van Maastrigt. Arno is one of the technical scenery specialists in the team.

Preview of the new Seppe aerodrome

We also have a specific procedure to test all of our airports. In the past, we have experienced errors in the scenery that needed mending and now, based on past experience, we now check everything rigorously before our scenery is released. This means that each airport or aerodrome now goes through various standard test phases before being released. On completion, each airport or aerodrome is uploaded to our FTP server so that all individual team members can put them through these rigorous flights tests. Criteria include bleed-through testing, object dimensions and position, ground and object crashes, texture accuracy and detail and above all, framerate and overall airport accuracy (positioning, radio frequencies etc.). This is extremely important because all scenery components need to fit like a glove in the scenery as a whole.

New Projects

There are several projects new in the upcoming version 3 of NL2000. Without revealing all, there will be a new version of Texel Aerodrome (EHTX), a completely new Schiphol (EHAM) and a new Seppe/Hoeven (EHSE). Nevertheless, all airports in version 3 of our scenery will include new numerous enhancements and modifications.

We are also working on a new mesh and autogen version of the scenery. We are very happy now that Microsoft's new FS2002 scenery SDK has been released. The new mesh version of the scenery will include the creation of altitudes in our rather flat country, as well as land-classes and landable water (a very uncommon thing in the Netherlands). This might be hard to believe, but despite the vast amount of surface water characteristic of the Netherlands, there is only one registered floatplane in the Netherlands and that aircraft is based at Lelystad Airport.

The upcoming new version of the scenery will also include many new scenery objects and textures. One example here includes higher smoke stacks and flares accurately positioned and with working obstruction lights, as well as other special effects. Some of the textures used will also include much greater detail and seasonal effects. The cities of Amsterdam (designed by Erwin Horjus) and Utrecht will also include various new landmark buildings and many more bridges (Johan Caljé). As in the virtual scenery, our country is absolutely full of all kinds of bridges.

Maasvlakte near Rotterdam

Information, Information And Even More Information...

Most time-consuming and most difficult of all when designing scenery on this immense scale (i.e. covering the entire country) is getting hold of all the information you need. Although The Netherlands is not really a big country, it's not always easy to just get in a car, drive around the country and collect all of the photo material and information you need. Most team members live in the West of the Netherlands and also have families and private lives, apart from scenery design and flight simulation. This means that we also depend on people outside of the team who enjoy photography and help us out by submitting some of the photos they take, either at airports or of important landmark buildings all over the country. This is always highly appreciated.

Military airfields are also a tremendous problem. Bert Kuyper is the designer of all the military airfields in the scenery. So, how do you get good information about these fields when photography is restricted and even the perimeters of these airbases are "out of bounds"? At military airfields, most of the important objects found there are generally secluded, hidden by trees or even made invisible to the eye, even from above. This means that it's almost impossible to produce a military airfield in the virtual world with the same degree of accuracy as the civil airports, although even these are now greatly restricted since the 11 September disaster in the US. Although the general layout of these airfields is correct, a lot of the additional design is based on mere guess-work or, where possible, on photographs that have once been published. Even public air-shows can help when the opportunity arises and these are always visited by various members of the design team.

Good Scenery Design Is Time-Consuming...

When you find the time and have collected the information you need, you can then start the actual design work. Working alone and designing only one object each evening for a scenery package as complex as ours, would require months, even years to complete.

If you work as a team and have everything well organized, it's amazing what you can actually achieve. Whatever the case, scenery design on this scale is always time-consuming and cannot be done by one person alone. This is where the strength of the team lies... a lot more can be achieved in a much shorter time span if all efforts are combined into one.

Web Site

In order to communicate with the users of The Netherlands NL2000 scenery package, Christian Bionda, has built a web site specially for the FS-community. Here you can read ongoing information about the current project and follow the progress of the team, or read FAQs, the manual and even download required files. The web site also includes numerous screenshots from the current scenery as well as screenshots of upcoming goodies and new projects.

A forum has also been set up to enable users to remark on the scenery, to make recommendations for changes or new scenery objects, or to ask for advice on any problems they might have.

To visit the web site, follow the link: www.nl-2000.com

So How Does This All Fit Together?

If you have a large team like ours, efficient communication is the key word. This is why we organize meetings at a minimum of 4 times a year. Some of these meetings are for discussing design issues and progress and others are for organizing workshops where team members help each other out when problems arise. Of course, these meetings are not enough so we keep in constant contact with each other, almost on a daily basis, through the Internet (Chat, FTP, private forum and mail). Without the Internet it would be impossible for us to work as a team.

Team meeting (after a long day talking...)

The internet gave the possibilities to meet each other, connect each other and communicate with each other. Also the internet gives us the possibilities to release The Netherlands 2000 and to communicate with our users.

As a team we can help each other out when problems arise or when technical issues need to be addressed. We encourage each other to do things better, to improve our work and to stretch our limits. The sky is the limit, as they say. Every member has his own personal qualities and talents and can therefore help other team-members to produce scenery like the current NL2000 scenery or even make significant improvements as is the case in the forthcoming version 3 for FS2002. But above all, individual enthusiasm is probably the most important ingredient to build a team from.

The only financial costs we have are those related to the many trips we make by car, the photographs we take or even the real flights we make (aircraft rental and fuel). We also pay for the domain name and web site and, of course, the monthly telephone bills for Internet. Most team members don't have Cable or ASDL so we have to manage with ISDN connections or, in some cases, with old-fashioned 56K modems.

Who Does What?

Next Release?

At this particular moment in time we cannot say when the new version 3 of our Netherlands scenery will be released, but we do envisage a design deadline by the end of this year. For more information on ongoing projects and the progress made by the design team, please visit our web site and subscribe to our mailing list.

I hoped you have enjoyed reading this article and also understand more about the technical difficulties that need to be overcome and that good communication, logistics as well as a well-defined design strategy also play an essential part in working as a team on a scenery as complex as The Netherlands 2000 scenery for flight simulator.

We hope that this article will also encourage other designers and FS enthusiasts to form a team like ours for other freeware add-on sceneries in other countries. Some countries like Italy and Great Britain have formed design teams, but how about Belgium, Germany or even Luxemburg? We could then fly over our own national boundaries and meet up with other enthusiasts in neighbouring countries.

Johan Caljé
Member of the NL2000 team

The Netherlands 2000
Web site: www.nl-2000.com