How do I change the levels of the lakes in FS2k2?

[Guest]

Hi,I have recently bought fs2k2. Because I was not impressed with the default mesh that comes with fs2k2 I decided to purchase the England and Wales mesh from LAGO.I am impressed with the mountain tops but not with the valleys because lakes now appear at the wrong levels and streams no longer run through the valley bottoms. Presumably the lakes etc are still being shown at their incorrect microsoft levels (which in some cases is grossly in error).Does anyone know how to fix this?I am also interested in being able to change the motorway layout as the standard microsoft layout is a joke. I don't know if anyone else has realised but on section of the M6 south of Penrith does not exist!Thanks for any helpTaBernard

[Guest]

Yes,There is a mesh where the development team adjusted the lakes and airports to their correct levels. If you want the lakes to look correct then you need the Visual Flight UK mesh. The Visual Flight UK mesh team is based in the middle of the UK and has direct first hand experience of the hills & dales, streams and rivers, lakes, tarns and meres.As my dad always used to say"If you don't use Visual Flight's mesh, You're nowt but daft".

[Guest GerrishGray]

Yes, I'll reinforce Ihor's recommendation. The Visual Flight mesh is the best I have ever seen and the only one that is truly flyable with proper realism - all the airfields are landable without the usual holes and plateaux, cliffs are pretty much like cliffs, etc. etc.RegardsGerrish

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Bernard.Ihor and Gerrish are two pretty good sources for recomendations... if they say Visual Flight is the best, then I'm sure it is.You can change the height if water, the course of rivers, turn desert to forest, etc...But the learning curve for this stuff is pretty steep, the tools we use are still pretty crude, and the time needed for doing this, on as grand a scale as the UK, would make a masochist weep.I think your better off with Visual Flight, or accept the Lago mesh as it is. The water levels and stream placement is from the default MS scenery. The data sources for these are the exact same as used in FS2000 ( you can add FS2000 scenery, and it will line up right on top of FS2002's scenery... roads, lakes, etc... ). So Microsoft never found a better source of information than it used 4 years ago when it first started working on FS2000... most of it probably vmap0 data.I do not own Visual Flight, but they would either have had to add flattens to adjust the lake heights, or they have altered the terrain to accomidate the default levels. Or possibly, MS had it right in the first place, and Visual Flight's superior mesh reinterates that possibility.To some extent, we all eventually accept the sim's limitations, and just go with what looks good, and is not too absurd. :)You can use this forum's search function to find references to 'LWM' and you will find a huge collection of posts on water in FS2002. 'VTP' will get you another collection of posts on lines in FS2002 ( streams are VTP Method2 lines ).If that doesn't scare you away, then download the FS2002 terrain SDK for a more technical look at how FS2002's world can be altered.Dick

[Guest]

Thanks for your replies guys I guess the visual flight mesh is probably the way to go providing that it is possible to add airports and perhaps cities with 3 dimensional buildings instead of a flat photograph.I was hoping that software was available comercially that would allow you to customise the various images of lakes, rivers, motorways and even add railways which are missing completely.I did think that there may be a global in the software which would allow you to lower the datum level for water by say 50 feet. If that was the case then although this would be a crude estimation it would give the user a visually more correct image from say 2000 feetOh well Bernard:-doh