AVSIM Special Feature Screenshot Tribute to FS2002 Part 13

To any PC based flight simulation, there's the aircraft, panel, airfile, and weather to consider, but for all these items, the one basic thing you need is for somewhere to fly to and that's where the scenery plays in. Back in the early days of Flight Simulator, most scenery was simply a set of colored blocks and pyramids until finally FS98 came out with a polygon based scenery. Capable of adding photorealistic textures and something just a bit better then basic blocks for buildings, Flight Simulator was finally adding some of the phrase, "As Real As It Gets"! Maybe the phrase "As Real As We Can Get It" would have been more appropriate, but frankly the basic scenery in FS98 was actually kind of impressive in its day. With FS2000, things improved a great deal, as we now had "mesh" type terrain and between FS98 and FS2000 we had the advantage of going from about 9,000 airports to over 20,000 airports.

Despite the improvements with FS2000, we still had empty skies and empty airports, save for an occasional static aircraft, but there was still the obvious lack of any vegetation, not to mention the sparsely placed buildings.

With the added features of just two items, AI aircraft and Autogen, Flight Simulator came alive with FS2002, finally!

As improved as FS2002 was to its predecessors, there was still a certain generic quality about it, as one airport tends to look like any other, but along came the 3rd party scenery designers and FS2002 was beginning to really get that, "As Real As It Gets" quality to it. From all sides, we could see improvements to our favorite airport or flight area because of higher detail mesh, landclass files, new autogen trees and buildings, improved water textures, and now we were getting a whole host of very detailed airports. Photorealistic textures, not just for the airport ground area, but for the airport buildings and static vehicles has now become the norm.

To give you just a sampling of whats available for FS2002 concerning "scenery" add-ons, I've broken my screenshots down into several categories for your viewing enjoyment.

Airfields:

The small airfield is vastly improved, with the trees blending into the autogen and with the use of photorealistic type textures, Gary Summons has offered up his versions of the many United Kingdom airfields here.

One scenery designer (Richard Goldstein) has truly perfected his art, with his many different small airfields offered under the name of GeoRender from LAGO.

Additional GeoRender airports include Bryce Canyon, Utah, Flying M Ranch (Oregon) and the amazing Emma Field in Washington State.

It seemed that small airfield scenery designers were coming out of the woodwork everywhere and included some outstanding designs for the Norwegian Countries as well as Continental Europe.

In an interesting turn of events, even the MSFS design team got into the act with their freeware Oshkosh EAA AirVenture scenery add-on, which is one of the very best freeware scenery add-ons available.

From the Desert Southwest USA to high up in the Himalayan Mountain, you look through the libraries long enough, you'll probably find a scenery for just the airport you're looking for!

Airports:

Combining the AI aircraft with many new ideas for a large airport add-on scenery, the realism becomes almost uncanny.

With some of the payware scenery add-ons, new things were happening, like the Honolulu Scenery add-on from LAGO (top) where the palm trees gently wave in the Hawaiian Trade Winds. Even the freeware add-ons were available for Italian airports, Moscow, New York, Southern California, but the default scenery for LAX (bottom right) was excellently presented.

Here we have the airport at Rebiechowo, Poland (T. Zukowski and M. "Jarema" Kobielak authors), which was one of the first freeware sceneries from that country; and like those that followed, it is very very realistic appearing and includes the scenery for the surrounding area and not just the airport grounds.

From the default SFO (top) to Long Beach to Las Vegas, between the default and the add-ons, just about every major airport as something available to improve its appearance.

Our FS airports not only now have AI aircraft moving about, but there are dynamic ground vehicles as well, even vehicles that come out and service your aircraft.

A new designer Bill Melichar, one of many scenery designers, has developed a new art form in his designs for the tropical parts of the world; and I for one am amazed with his work. Bill is only one of dozens of accomplished scenery designers and I only wish I could mention them all here!

Bush Scenery:

As with all the other scenery add-ons for FS2002, bush scenery has improved immensely as well. Even something as subtle as a Shelby Tent or an isolated mountain cabin (with the mandatory outhouse), the soft glow of a lantern or the dynamic smoke from a campfire, arriving in your bush plane has never been so inviting.

With many add-on bush sceneries, the buildings or houses are very realistic appearing now.

Because FS2002 supported an amphibian or float plane, the customary docks appeared from the bush scenery designers by the dozens.

The FS2002 bush airstrips not only blend into the surrounding environment, but they now follow the natural terrain slope as well, just as in real life.

World's Cities:

In an effort to not neglect the world's cities, the MSFS design team managed to do great justice to many many cities, but many 3rd party scenery designers still managed to improve on the default or to include a city that was forgotten.

LAGO's FSSE:

One feature that would have been nice with FS2002, would have been the ability to add to or enhance your favorite airport. LAGO filled this gap with the release of their program called Flight Simulator Scenery Enhancer or FSSE. Not meant as a scenery design editor, but as a simple tool where you can add various items from a library of objects to enhance the appearance of your favorite airport, town, or city.

As an example for how FSSE can enhance a scenery, here we see a before and after for the Washington Mall and the terminal at Reno/Tahoe International Airport.

By spending a few minutes, the Aeroflex Airport (New Jersey) becomes almost true to life by using FSSE to add the trees like the real airport has surrounding it.

Monuments, Castles, and Lighthouses:

Besides the cities, airports, and natural scenery, there are the other scenery items, such as famous monuments, castles, resort villages, and even lighthouses that can be added on from the 3rd party guys and gals, but even the MSFS design team included many such items.

The MSFS design team did not totally neglect the world's monuments, as they did include many such features, from the Taj Mahal (Northern India) to the Forbidden City in Bejing, China. It can become an afternoon's activity trying to find them all.

With some of the world's cities, Microsoft went all out, such as the buildings here, all within the city of Rome, Italy.

3rd party designers did a good job too, as in these examples: the tower in downtown Madrid, Spain or a French Castle or Cathedral.

I very much liked the default version of Mt Rushmore (top left) and all the add-on castles around the world.

Monuments come in different forms too, such as a complete Hawaiian Resort villiage, the United Airlines flight training center in Denver, ancient symbols on the hills of England, or even an off-shore oil drilling platform.

Even I have been surprised by the number of add-on lighthouses you can find to download; lighthouses for just about everywhere in the world.

Natural Scenery:

In addition to all the other scenery, cities, towns, airports, and such the MSFS design team did not forget the natural world either—and when combined with add-on mesh or ground-water textures the view outside the cockpit can be as interesting or as fun as flying itself.

The desert, whether it be in Monument Valley or the Sahara, FS2002 does it justice.

As with the desert, FS2002 treated the mountains equally as well. From Mt Rainier (top), Mt Everest (center upper right), Mt St Helens (center left), the Austrian Alps (center right), or the top of the world with the Himalayan crest viewed from above Katmandu, Nepal (bottom).

Other mountains include: Mt Hood, Oregon (top); Mt Fiji, Japan (top center left); Glacier National Park, Montana (top center right); Rocky Mountain National Park at Banff, Canada (bottom center left); Devils Tower, Wyoming (bottom center right); or Mt Shasta in Northern California (bottom).

Fresh water lakes abound in FS2002 and here are only a few. Crater Lake National Park, Oregon (top); Loch Ness, Scotland (center left); Lake Victoria, Central Africa (center right); Lake Powell, Arizona (bottom left); or an unknown lake in British Columbia, Canada (bottom right).

Not to forget the oceans: Honolulu, Hawaii (top); Caribbean island (top center left); Greek islands (top center right); resort on Bora Bora, French Polynesia (center wide); deep-water fjord British Columbia, Canada (bottom left); and the dark iceberg-filled waters off of Antarctica (bottom right).

When it came to natural scenery, FS2002 did a good job, whether it be a view of the German Alps from above Hitler's Eagle's Nest (top), a Caribbean Atoll (center left), the desert pyramids of Giza, Egypt (center right), or a South Pacific sunset (bottom)—it's all there.

Flight Sim Scenery Comparison:

I thought it would be interesting to compare FS98, FS2000, and FS2002, just to see how far the Microsoft Flight Simulation design team has come in the last 6 years.

Closing

What better way to close the segment on FS2002 scenery than to show a few screenshots of a FS2002 sunrise and a sunset.