Iain Murray's Flight Simulator Utilities

© Iain Murray 2003 - last update 26^th August 2003

Also check out my FS Scenery Page for my scenery add-ons, and my FS Aircraft Page for my aircraft and adventure files.

• Coast-Line-Maker - award-winning utility to edit coastlines and roads in FS2002 or FS2004
• BlueSky - award-winning utility to change sky colour to realistic blue (for FS98 / CFS)
• PolyFix - utility to allow easy editing of polygons points and colours in aircraft visual model MDL files
• REPTUTOR - Tutorial on repainting FS aircraft
• SHRINKALL - utility to shrink multiple aircraft or scenery texture files

Coast-Line-Maker Now compatible with FS2002 and FS2004!

    Winner of FLIGHTSIM Developer's Award, January 2003
    Over 1600 downloads from all sites in its first four weeks!

    Coast-Line-Maker is a utility designed to allow manipulation of the coastlines in Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2002 / 2004 -
    existing coastal segments can be deleted or edited, and new ones added. Coast-Line-Maker also allows
    manipulation of other line segments, such as rivers and roads.

The main features of Coast-Line-Maker are as follows:

• graphic-oriented design screen, allowing easy placement of line segments
• requires no user knowledge of programming, assembler files or hex editing
• coverage over more than one LOD13 cell - Coast-Line-Maker can handle any number of LOD13 cells or even an entire LOD8 cell in one project
• automatic alignment between coastline segments and land/water polygons
• automatic generation of assembler source files, with automatic compilation and copying of new scenery BGLs to FS2002 / FS2004 scenery folder
• facility to rework river/stream and road segments too
• facility to save Coast-Line-Maker projects and reload them for editing

For a worked example of how to use Coast-Line-Maker, have a look at the online tutorial.

• Download Coast-Line-Maker V2.0 for Flight Simulator 2002 - includes full illustrated documentation (2.9MB file)
   
• Download Coast-Line-Maker V2.2.1 patch (108 KB file) - add this patch after installing the full V2.0 package. If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Coast-Line-Maker, simply copy the new files over the the old ones - projects saved using earlier versions will work OK with later versions
   
• The V2.2.1 patch offers the following features (in addition to the V2.2 features listed below):
  • fixes minor bug in the handling of FS2002 output
     
• The V2.2 patch offers the following features (in addition to the V2.0.2 features listed below):
  • adds option to output VTP for FS2002 or FS2004 (for FS2004 output, uses new layer numbers and new default coastline texture)
  • adds ability to exclude VTP railroads and VTP bridges from default FS2004 scenery
     
• The V2.0.2 patch offers the following features (in addition to the V2.0 features listed below):
  • now automatically performs a VTP data check prior to adding LWM polygons, and will not add a polygon if there are any fatal VTP errors
  • if a VTP data check reveals a fatal error, program now automatically selects the first VTP point with an error (to make it easier for the user to correct the error)
  • adds an "Enable point dragging" option to disable point dragging when not required, and saves this option with projects
  • adds more entries to the right-click menus on the VTP and LWM lists, including ability to change height of LWM polygons already drawn
  • improves the documentation relating to the use of CellGrid
  • fixes a minor bug in the LWM polygon placement
  • fixes a minor bug in one of the VTP data procedures

• V2.0 offers the following new features:
  • adds the ability to create LWM polygons where there are (single or multiple) coast segments wholly or partly within one LOD13 cell
  • allows LWM polygons to be re-ordered (by right-clicking on LWM list)
  • allows an LWM polygon to be reshaped to fill the entire LOD13 cell
  • revises the "Check VTP data" feature to take account of the above (fewer error conditions)
  • improves the functionality of the automatic compiling and BGL copying process
  • adds a "Same as CLM" button to the Output Preferences dialog to allow the project CLM file path to be as the file path for the output ASM files
  • adds tooltips to most buttons and other dialog objects
  • increased project data sizes
  • includes LinkCLM package
  • V2.0 also includes the features that were included in the patches to V1.1 - see Revision History in the Instructions for full details of these features.

For basic troubleshooting help for Coast-Line-Maker, see my Troubleshooting Tips.

The first commercial scenery to utilise Coast-Line-Maker is ScotFlight's "Scotland Scenery", which includes the scenery areas shown below - for more information on this scenery, visit the ScotFlight main page.

Some examples of Coast-Line-Maker in action:

• I added the partly-disused airfield at Errol, but (although the airfield is correctly positioned), the river coastline is inaccurate, so part of the airfield is in the water:

• After reworking with Coast-Line-Maker, the coast is now in the correct place, and the airfield is dry:

• Further up the Tay at Perth, the FS default river "dries up" a bit too soon (middle distance), leaving a "lake" south of Perth; this water should have an island in the middle of it, and the main road should not go up over the cliff as shown:

• After reworking with Coast-Line-Maker, the river now links up, the island is there, and the roads correctly skirt round the hill:

• In the default MS scenery, most of Inverness is missing, the main part of the town having been swallowed up in the River Ness - note the road junction mid-river, as well as the "Kessock Bridge" across the water in the foreground:

• After reworking with Coast-Line-Maker, the "island" is added (actually the water on the far side is the Caledonian Canal) to put the heart back in the city. Coast-Line-Maker has also allowed the road over the water to be deleted, making way for a proper bridge macro to be added:

• Connel Bridge near Oban crosses the mouth of Loch Etive - another "road over the water", though the loch is nearly closed off in the default scenery:

• After reworking with Coast-Line-Maker, the loch mouth is opened out, and the road removed to make way for a bridge macro:

For some other examples of Coast-Line-Maker, please see my User Examples page.

Coast-Line-Maker Troubleshooting:

There are various standard errors (caused by missing files on your system) which you may get when you first run Coast-Line-Maker. All errors that have been reported so far can be cured by installing the following files:

• If you get an error message about COMDLG32.OCX, you need to download COMDLG32.CAB from Microsoft (65KB file) - unzip the file and move COMDLG32.OCX into your Windows\system32 or Windows\system folder (backup any existing version you may have first).

• If you get an error message about COMCT232.OCX, you need to download COMCT232.CAB from Microsoft (80KB file) - unzip the file and move COMCT232.OCX into your Windows\system32 or Windows\system folder (backup any existing version you may have first).

• If you get an error about missing Visual Basic runtime libraries, you need to download VBRUN60SP4.EXE from Microsoft (1,020KB file) and run the file to install the libraries.

• If you get an error "Run-time error '13': Type mismatch", you need an updated Windows Script 5.5 from Microsoft (665KB) - make sure you get the version for your OS.

BlueSky FS98 Version 2.13 now available / Combat Flight Simulator Version 1.0 also available
 

Utilities to change Microsoft's default purple sky into blue sky (these work with Windows 95, 98, NT4 and 2000). 

New in Version 2.13 - change the sky to any shade of blue (or other colour!) that you want.

• FS98 Version 2.13 for Flight Simulator 98 only (25KB file)
• CFS Version 1.0 for Combat Flight Simulator (Version 1) only (24KB file)

Send me comments and bug reports - all comments on BlueSky are gratefully received! All correspondents will be replied to.

FS2000/FS2002 Compatibility of BlueSky: These newer versions have a much "bluer" sky by default than FS98, so modification is not as necessary as it was previously. Also they store their colours in a different way to FS98 and CFS, the technique used by BlueSky won't work. So please do not try to run BlueSky 2.13 on your FS2000 or FS2002 installation - it just won't work!
 

PolyFix - polygon editor for FS aircraft visual model MDL files

( See below for PolyFix troubleshooting information and check out the PolyFix Tutorial )

This utility program allows easy editing of polygon information within aircraft MDL files - it was intended to be used to "repair" visual models of FSFS aircraft which do not display correctly in FS2000. It allows polygon co-ordinates and colours to be changed via the GUI, without use of a hex editor. Texture filenames can also be changed easily.

In FS98, polgons are drawn whole in (usually) the correct order to display an aircraft correctly. In FS2000, a technique called Z-buffering is used, which draws the nearest polygon point at each pixel on the screen. Whilst this technique is generally useful in eliminating "bleed-through", it also means that if two polygons intersect, parts of both will be visible. This causes problems where the intersection is unintended, and is particularly noticeable around the cockpit windows of aircraft - where the window polygons intersect the fuselage polygons, parts of windows tend to disappear!

Users of PolyFix should use Chuck Dome's MDLVUE program (included in the ZIP) to visualise the MDL file, as this will assist in locating the required polygons.

NOTE: Only aircraft created with FSFS (or compatible) can be edited with this utility.

• Download PolyFix V 1.2 (110KB file)

PolyFix Troubleshooting:

There are various standard errors (caused by missing files on your system) which you may get when you first run PolyFix:

• If you get an error message about COMDLG32.OCX, you need to download COMDLG32.CAB from Microsoft (65KB file) - unzip the file and move COMDLG32.OCX into your Windows\system32 or Windows\system folder (backup any existing version you may have first).

• If you get an error message about COMCT232.OCX, you need to download COMCT232.CAB from Microsoft (80KB file) - unzip the file and move COMCT232.OCX into your Windows\system32 or Windows\system folder (backup any existing version you may have first).

• If you get an error about missing Visual Basic runtime libraries, you need to download VBRUN60SP4.EXE from Microsoft (1,020KB file) and run the file to install the libraries.

REPTUTOR

• REPTUTOR V2.0 - tutorial on how to repaint FS98 aircraft (Word 6 document)
• REPTUTOR V1.0 - tutorial on how to repaint FS95 aircraft (Word 6 document, includes PD software tools)

SHRINKALL

• SHRINKALL - FS98 utility to shrink FS texture files to save disk space (works OK with Windows NT, also works with Windows 95 in MS-DOS mode)

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