FSX/FS2004 SpaceShipOne flying model of Rutan's White Knight, the carrier plane that took the fantastic SpaceShipOne to altitude. I did not include the SpaceShipOne. The White Knight is just doing circuits during daylight hours, as if it was testing the technology. It is a very so-so model, best seen at a distance. But it is user flyable. With these many objects, I thought the frame rate would be badly affected. It is not too bad. The models are as low-polygon as possible, and you really don't want to look at the parked aircraft too closely.Fern Marques

FSX/FS2004 SpaceShipOne

 
Category:

FS2004

Mojave Airport

De-commissioned airliners

This package contains scenery for the Mojave Airport, ICAO code KMVH.

Because of the dryness of the desert, I think, many commercial and some military aircraft are brought here after their best years. The dry air slows down corrosion and the aeroplanes last longer, just sitting there.

I based my scenery on what I could see in Google Earth. I located 190 aircraft. I identified the parked aircraft to the best of my ability, but I took many guesses and poetic licences. It is almost impossible to identify the original colours of the aircraft with very few exceptions.

I also modified the airport itself lightly, by adding or changing some aprons and taxiways, to make them look a bit more like what I could see in the satellite pictures.

Also included is a flying model of Rutan's White Knight, the carrier plane that took the fantastic SpaceShipOne to altitude. I did not include the SpaceShipOne. The White Knight is just doing circuits during daylight hours, as if it was testing the technology. It is a very so-so model, best seen at a distance. But it is user flyable.

With these many objects, I thought the frame rate would be badly affected. It is not too bad. The models are as low-polygon as possible, and you really don't want to look at the parked aircraft too closely.

This scenery is not to be sold, in whole or in part, by itself or as part of other packages, and is for free distribution only. Otherwise, you can use it as free scenery any way you like, modify it, use its objects, etc.

I hope you enjoy it.

Please send any questions, comments or requests for macros or gmax models to fernmarques@yahoo.com

Thank you.

20061121

Fern Marques
North Bay, Ontario
Canada

FS2004

How to install scenery

A few words first.

To install scenery (as well as aircraft) in Flight Simulator you need to know how to mess with files and folders. If you don't know how to do that, perhaps you should learn that first.

(Flight Simulator 2004 - A Century of Flight, is also referred to as FS9 and its installed folder is "Flight Simulator 9". So, any of these names plus "FS2004" refer to the same thing.)

All scenery in Flight Simulator is done through files with a very particular format. That format uses the name extension "bgl". I think that bgl stands for "something-graphics-language", but I am not sure.

BGL, the scenery files
The name of these scenery files, therefore, will be xxxxx.bgl, the xxxxx being anything the author wants. In my case I try to make the xxxxx always significant. So, instead of calling my scenery objects something like b&g23w.bgl, I call them something like BurlingtonBridge.bgl or ParliamentFlag.bgl, etc. This way I know what they are and it makes them a lot easier to find when they are mixed with tens of other files, in case I want to modify them or delete them. Same will be for the user. Many authors of scenery do not want the user to modify their scenery. I am exactly the opposite: you can modify my scenery all you want to suit your needs. If it comes to that, send me an e-mail and I will even give you my gmax files, so you can modify the individual objects, too. I don't include them in the scenery packages because they are way too big. This way, if the user doesn't like one of my objects, she or he can delete or modify it.

Bitmaps, the textures
The other part of scenery is the texture. Most objects have a texture applied to them, such as the siding on a building, or the shingles on a roof (or the markings on an airplane, for that matter). A bgl file includes code that will "call" the necessary texture or textures. These textures are bitmaps. Most (albeit not all) of the texture files have a name extension "bmp". I am almost sure that bmp is an abbreviation of "bit map". Files with the bmp name extension come in quite a few different flavours. I am not going to get into that, but those flavours inlclude transparencies, opacity, reflexions, highlights, compression, etc.

FS98 and others used to use textures called xxxxx.0af, xxxxx.1af, xxxxx.2af, etc. Those were bitmaps, can be treated as such and changed and edited if you know how and have the tools. I have used those for textures, expecially of FS98 aircraft that I modified for static aircraft to populate my airports.

Sometimes scenery requires speciall effects. Most of them will be default effects already in FS. However, occasionally the author of the scenery will include effects she or he created herself. In that case the effects will be included in the package, most likely in a folder (after unzipping of the downloaded file) called Effects. (Who would have thank of that?) The files will have a name somewhat like fx_xxxxx.fx. Just place those in the Effects folder of your FS9.

Also, some scenery include aircraft, probably for added traffic. These aircaft will appear in their folder after unzipping the scenery you downloaded. Any aircraft included in my packages will look like a regular aircraft, organized inside a folder with the aircraft's name and, inside that, an aircraft.cfg and a xxxxx.air file, plus the standard folers Model, Texture and, if the plane is not just for AI, Panel and Sound. Install it as any other aircraft, placing the aircraft folder in the Aircraft folder of FS2004. Don't like the way the plane looks? Delete it, and that traffic that uses it won't show anymore.

All bgl files must go into folders, and those folders have to be called "Scenery". All textures must go into folders, and those folders have to be calle "Texture".

The Texture folder must be side by side with the Scenery folder that contains the bgl files that require the respective textures.

Of course, if there are more than one (and there are) Scenery folder in FS, they cannot all be together, because Windows does not accept folders with identical names side by side. Therefore, the differente Scenery folders and their associate Texture folders have to be inside their own separate "Area" folders.

Hence, Flight Simulator has all it scenery subdevided into "areas". This way FS can have an area called, say, "Paris". The scenery for the area Paris will be inside a folder called Paris. In that Paris folder there will be a folder called Scenery with the EiffelTower.bgl, the ArcDuTriomphe.bgl, etc, and a folder called Texture containing the EiffelTower.bmp, the ArcDuTriomphe.bmp, etc. (These are fictitious scenery and texture names just for this explanation).

Most default scenery is inside the Flight Simulator 9 folder, in folders called Scenery and then in folders called Eure and Eurw (Europe East, Europe West), and those contain the Scenery and Texture folders with the respective files.

However, scenery doesn't have to be inside the Flight Simulator 9 folder. It can be anywhere on your disk(s), as long as Flight Simulator is directed to go get it.

Flight Simulator does this by having its scenery, add on and default, devided into "areas", as I said before. Areas can be added, deleted, enabled, and disabled through the Settings and then Scenery Library funcions of Flight Simulator. Changes to those settings will require FS to be re-started for them to take place.

So, where does one place scenery? Well, anywhere on disk, really. I don't really know what other people do, but I will tell you what I do and why. The way that Windows and other smart operating systems handle files, it really doesn't matter where the stuff is, among other things because the folders and files inside are not really organized neatly the way that we think they are. Stuff is written on disk where it fits, and "vectors" point to it.

I put all my scenery (and I have a lot of it) in a folder called Live Scenery, which is in a folder called Flight Simulator, which is in My Documents. This way:
1. My add-on scenery is NOT inside my Flight Simulator 9 folder.
2. I back up My Documents and all my added scenery is backed up with it. In My Documents I keep also copies of all my scenery objects, textures, photos that I use to create bitmaps, aircraft that I created and downloaded, and many other items.

So, how does one install add on scenery?

There are three ways of installing scenery in FS2004.

The first one is very simple and I NEVER USE IT:

This is when the scenery comes in the form of an exe file. This is an exectuable programme, and once you double click on it you lost control of what it does to your system. You may or may not have any idea where the stuff went - most likely not - and will have a heck of a time deleting if you don't like it. I NEVER RUN executable files unless I know exactly who made them. Nothing personal against the nice people who make free scenery for us to use, just a matter of preference. Therefore I never upload any executable files, self extracting or self installing scenery, aircraft, etc. This way I have control of where the files go and what kind of files they are. If you find it too difficult to install it manually and don't mind an executable messing up your system once in a while, go for the self installing ones.

The second methode is also easy and much less dangerous to your health, albeit not my preferred method either:

Using the Addon Scenery folder

1. Find the Addon Scenery folder in your Flight Simulator 9.
Your disk (most likely drive C:) has a folder called Program Files. In it there is a folder called Microsoft Games. Within it there is a folder called Flight Simulator 9. Within that there is a folder called Addon Scenery. This chain of names is called a "path" and it is represented as
C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesFlight Simulator 9Addon Scenery

2. Inside the Addon Scenery folder there are two folders: Scenery and Texture.
Notice that "Texture" doesn't have an "s" at the end.

3. When you download any properly organized scenery, it comes in a zip file. Unzipping will reveal a Scenery folder with bgl files and a Texture folder with bmp files.

4. Just copy all the bgl files you just unzipped into the Scenery folder inside the Addon Scenery folder of your Flight Simulator 9 folder, and the bmp (all texture files, really) into the Texture folder that is right beside it.

5. That is it. The Addon Scenery IS AN "AREA" already defined in Flight Simulator 9. When you run FS9, it will pick up the changes, re-arrange its scenery innerworks to deal with the additions, and display the new scenery, hopefully.

THIRD METHODO, MY RECOMMENDATION

The third method is a bit more complicated but is it much safer in my opinion, and also MUCH EASIER TO REMOVE in case you don't like the scenery you just installed, and I often don't.

This third method requires you to have a notion of the organization of the folders in your computer, and be able to "navigate" among them.

1. Unzip the scenery file you just downloaded. This will, most likely, give you a few files with "readme" instructions, pictures, etc., plus a folder called Scenery with all your bgl files and another folder called Texture with the bmp files.

1. Decide where you want the scenery installed on your disk. I place mine in My Documents, as I said before. In it I have a folder called Flight Simulator, and it that I have a folder called Live Scenery. But yours can be anywhere, as long as you are able to navigate to it.

2. Create a folder in that location with the name you want for the new "area". The name can be anything you want, really, but it is easier to identify it six months from now if you name it MonteCarlo instead of SF for Southern France or even MonCar. Windows can handle long names (Microsoft! Forever!), and I would call mine "Monte Carlo". In fact, just as a matter of explanation, I would have a folder called France and in it I'd have area folders called "Monte Carlo", "Lion" and all the other France scenery that I downloaded from Simvaiation, Avsim, etc. So, let's suppose you created a folder called Rio de Janeiro.

3. In this newly created folder (in our example "Rio de Janeiro") you need to create a folder called Scenery and another called Texture (again, no "s" at the end).

4. Copy all the bgl files in the Scenery folder you just unzipped into the Scenery folder you created in step 3.

5. Copy all the bmp (and .0af, 1af, etc., if any) files in the Texture folder you just unzipped into the Texture folder you created in step 3.

6. Start FS2004. Go to Settings. Then go to Scenery Library. Click on Add Area...

7. Now you will need to navigate to the area folder you created in step 2. As soon as you do, FS2004 will notice that it contains a Scenery and a Texture folders, just what it wants to see there. FS will take a guess at the Scenery Area Title and name it the same name of the folder you navigated to. If the folder is called Rio de Janeiro and that is the name of the area, no need to change, eh? But you can change to suit your preferences.

8. Make sure there is a check mark in the little "Enabled" box. There will be one there by default, but check it anyway.

9. Click all the OKs you have to. There will be a note somewhere saying you need to re-start FS to make the changes effective, and it is true.

10. Close FS2004, start again and that is it. You're flying!

Finally, if the package has any "effects", just copy the file(s) (fx_xxxxx.fx) into the Effects folder which already exists in Flight Simulator 9. If you don't, the scenery still works, just the effect doesn't show. For example, my North Bay package has a red flashing light on top of a radar tower at the airport. If you don't put it into the Effect folder in Flight Simulator 9, it won't flash, that's all.