Simviation Forums

I've just finished reading the excellent Scenery Installation article by Doug A.  A very thought out explanation.  I've come across a couple of new words in the last few days regarding scenery.  Words such as landclass and mesh appear regularly in scenery downloads.  I'm fairly computer savy but these words have me stumped.  Is there another tutorial somewhere that provides definitions?

Thanks   :)

When I think geographical scenery in CFS2...I'm thinking mesh and textures. Mesh is essentially terrain...texture is basically color and surface configuration...the color of a sea and the "texture" of it's waves for example.
So...is that clear as mud,,,, or maybe rock?

This refers to FS2004, but the Landclass System applies to all M$ flight sims...

As you already know, FS2004 covers the entire Earth. You can fly anywhere and get a pretty good representation of the
types of vegetation and urban sprawl appropriate for the region you are in.
In order to do this efficiently, Microsoft came up with a clever way of representing the entire globe using what they call
landclass. The FS2004 landclass system is based on a grid of 1km x 1km squares, which cover the entire Earth.
These 1km x 1km squares are called LOD13 cells by developers. Each one of these 1km x 1km squares has a
particular value assigned to it, that tells FS2004 which available texture, from a list of possible textures, is appropriate to
be displayed for that 1km x 1km square area. For example, a value of 121, tells FS2004 to use a texture that
represents a busy urban area with hi-rise structures.
The landclass system does a very good job of representing the Earth in FS2004, without taking up an excessive amount
of resources (RAM and disk storage). At this point in time, it is not possible to cover the entire earth using photographic
textures. Even if the photographic textures were available for the entire earth, the disk storage would exceed that of
even the most powerful PC system today.
If you are interested, Microsoft gives a good, and technically detailed, explanation of FS2004 landclass at the link below
(scroll down to section 7 for the landclass explanation).
http://www.fsinsider.com/articles/Globa ... nology.htm

While scenery is the one thing in CFS2 that I do not build....

The scenery in CFS2 is exactly that a MESH with depth that is not unlike a thick screen or weave.

[quote]While scenery is the one thing in CFS2 that I do not build....

The scenery in CFS2 is exactly that a MESH with depth that is not unlike a thick screen or weave.

Thanks for you answers and patience everyone.  I never thought I would download so much scenery.