Were you ever disappointed with Flight Simulator because the roads and water bodies in your area didn't look quite right? Ever had the urge to create a fix and improve the terrain in your area? Well, this is your hour, because we bring you a very easy to follow tutorial on how to create your own roads, lakes, rivers and coastlines.

Before we start

All you need to know to follow this tutorial is some basic file management in Windows and how to use Internet Explorer. After following this lesson, you should be able to build your own home area in Flight Simulator.

In our tutorial we'll visit the great metropolis of Paris. As it happens, the Bois de Boulogne park to the west of Paris is not present in Flight Simulator X - although it was in previous versions. We'll recreate the park, place a lake into it, and lay down some roads.

To achieve all of that we need a tool that allows us to edit the terrain. SBuilder (Scenery Builder) by Luis de Sá is a powerful, yet easy to use program for creating terrain scenery. To obtain SBuilder for Flight Simulator X, please visit the SBuilder forum at:

http://www.ptsim.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=18

The program can be found in the pinned topic at the top of the forum. Follow the installation instructions to set up SBuilder on your PC.

Let's explore how we can create terrain elements in SBuilder...

Step 1: Getting a background image

SBuilder is a simple drawing tool, the standard procedure is to first display a background (a map or an image), and then draw vector elements onto it.

To get an image for our location, we'll need to get the Manifold tool bar for Internet Explorer, found here:

http://www.manifold.net/toolbar/

and also a set of dll files that allow it to work properly. Get them here:

http://www.manifold.net/toolbar/mfd-pack-1.0.1.zip

Once you have them installed, this is what you will find in Internet Explorer:

Select the image provider 'Google Maps Satellite Image 2v' and simply type the desired location to get the images (Paris, France):

To move around in the image, just drag the mouse. To zoom in and out, use the mouse wheel. You should pan around until you get the full extent of the Bois de Boulogne park.

Step 2: Creating a new project in SBuilder

Next we'll create a new project in SBuilder and give it a name.

This name will be given to the compiled bgl (scenery) file. Let's call our project 'Paris_Bois_de_Boulogne'. Point the bgl file to be copied into the 'Addon Scenery' folder in the Flight Simulator folder. It will automatically show when you start Flight Simulator.

Let's save our project in the file menu under "Save Project as...".

Step 3: Display the background image

Next, SBuilder needs to know where to find the images for background display. Go to the Edit - Preferences menu. Then navigate to the desired location - the Manifold tool bar places all cached images into the 'My Documents\ManifoldToolbarCache' folder.

Once we have selected the location of the cached images, we can display the background image by selecting 'View - Show Background'.

At the lowest zoom levels, SBuilder will display the Flight Simulator X default scenery.

To zoom in and out in SBuilder, use the mouse wheel, and to pan, press and drag the mouse wheel.

Once you are in zoom level 1 or 2 (which can be seen below in the Status Bar), you can right-click anywhere on the image and select "Center" from the pop-up menu. The image will center on that spot and you can now zoom in until you find the cached images.

Step 4: Excluding the default terrain

In our project, we could simply draw a park polygon and be done. Instead, we're going to recreate the whole park including the lakes, and we'll learn one or two things on the way. First, we'll exclude everything in the immediate area of the park, including the roads and the lakes, and then redraw from scratch.

The way exclude polygons work is counterintuitive. They do not need to completely encircle the terrain element to remove it, instead the polygon only has to intersect an element at any location. Therefore, exclude polygons can, and probably should, be as small as possible in order to avoid removing extraneous elements.

To draw an exclude polygon, select the Polygon tool in the SBuilder tool bar and click onto the main screen to draw:

Once you have finished drawing, right-click to stop drawing that polygon.

In our project, we'll make a large polygon, because there really is not all that much in the default scenery and we'll re-create everything anyway. Once the polygon is drawn, it must be declared as an exclusion polygon. To get the properties window of a terrain element, right-click on the edge of the polygon to bring up a pop-up menu, where you can select properties:

This will bring up the Properties window:

In the list, you can choose the type of exclude. It is possible to only exclude one type of terrain element, but we'll exclude "All_Terrain_Items".

Then, confirm by clicking "OK".

Unfortunately, the polygon is opaque and it will be difficult to draw any features based on the underlying image. We can make the polygon transparent - right-click on the edge of the polygon and select "Set Transparency..." from the pop-up menu:

Step 5: Drawing the park

A polygon can display any ground texture that is desired. In this case, we are drawing a forest park, but the polygon could just as easily be an urban area, or fields, or grasslands, or arctic ice!

With the polygon tool selected, draw a polygon covering the desired area:

Once you have finished drawing, right-click to stop drawing that polygon.

To assign the desired ground texture, right-click on the edge of the polygon in order to bring up the pop-up menu and select the Properties window:

Give the polygon a name and select the type of ground to display, in this case, a Forest Park.

Once you have confirmed its properties, make the polygon transparent by right-clicking on its edge and selecting "Set Transparency..." from the pop-up menu.

Step 6: Drawing a lake

To draw a lake or any other body of water, select the Polygon tool and cover the area desired:

Once you have finished drawing, right-click to stop drawing that polygon.

Then, right-click on the edge of the polygon to bring up the Properties window where you can choose the type of Hydro Polygon (water) desired:

You will find different options for Hydro Polygons - lake, ocean, river, bay. Select lake. As before, make the polygon transparent so that you can see the background image beneath it.

Hydro Polygons must have an altitude value that defines their height. Generally, you can determine the height of terrain by slewing in Flight Simulator.

Right-click on the edge of the polygon and select "Set altitude...":

In the "Constant altitude" section, indicate the height of 48 meters for the Hydro Polygon, click "OK", then click "Close".

If you do not give your Hydro Polygon an altitude, then SBuilder will assign a default height of 0 meters, and your polygon will most likely display as a depression in the terrain.

Step 7: Making an island

It is important to realize that the entire Flight Simulator world is made up of land. There is only water where a Hydro Polygon has been drawn. A Hydro Polygon will always cover land, and will prevent it from displaying.

So, how to make an island in the midst of water? A polygon can have one or multiple holes that let the underlying land show through. It is easy to make a hole - all you need to do is draw a polygon within the water and declare it as a hole.

We can simply draw the islands using the Polygon tool. Then, right-click on the edge of this island polygon and select "Set as hole" from the pop-up menu:

At this point, SBuilder will ask you to indicate the parent polygon which should be assigned to the hole.

Click on the edge of the Hydro Polygon and the hole will be created.

Please note that "Set as hole" will only function if you have selected the Polygon tool from the tool bar.

Step 8: Drawing a road

To draw a road, select the Line tool on the tool bar and click to draw:

Once you have finished drawing, right-click to stop drawing.

Then, right-click on the line to bring up the Properties window:

There are many types of lines from which to choose: beaches, streams, railroads, many different types of roads, bridges, and even power pylons.

In this case, we choose an appropriate road type.

The line can be difficult to view in SBuilder, since it is rather thin. You can set the display width of the line to anything you want by right-clicking on the line and selecting "Set width...":

Set the "Constant width" value, click "OK" and then click "Close".

Please note that this width only affects the display of the line in SBuilder. Flight Simulator line widths, whether beaches, roads, streams, or others, are pre-set and fixed by the terrain.cfg file and cannot be modified by SBuilder or any other terrain creation tool.

You can continue to add as many different terrain elements to your scenery as you wish. When finished, it might look something like this:

To remove the background image, use the View - Show Background menu.

Step 9: Compiling scenery

Since we want the whole scenery in Flight Simulator, we'll select all the elements for compilation. You can either draw a selection marquee around everything or use the Select menu.

Once the terrain elements have been selected, the compilation window can be brought up by clicking onto the "Compile" tool (the green arrow) in the tool bar:

Make sure to check 'Terrain Vector' in this window. Also check 'Copy files to BGL folder'. Then, click "Compile".

The scenery bgl will be created in the scenery addon folder and also in the SBuilder\Tools\Work folder.

Step 10: The final result

This is how the scenery looks in the game:

Conclusions:

This tutorial has shown you how you can create scenery for FSX. Congratulations for getting this far. Why not tackle a project in the area you live next? You could add the road you live on and maybe some local features, like a closeby park.

If you do have any questions, you can consult the very excellent SBuilder forum that is located at:

http://www.ptsim.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=18