##### home | ## - Introduction - | ##### next

With this tutorial, I’ll try to explain the method I use to design realistic sceneries based on Todd Klaus’s TerraScene for Fly!2k and Fly! II. Note that this technique is still under development; nothing is finished or definitive in any way. This document might be updated in the future if I and other scenery designers optimize some steps and add further enhancements. I use Photoshop 5.5 for the process. The method is based on many function and capabilities of the software, therefore you must have a good knowledge of Photoshop basics as well as TerraScene. I don’t know exactly what changed in later Photoshop versions, but they should work fine. If the whole process seems too complicated, try a scenery with few steps first. Read carefully the TerraScene manual and Photoshop help. If something is still not clear and you can’t find an answer, ask in the Fly! Developer’s Forum at Avsim.com or send me an e-mail and be patient; I’ll try to help if the question is not related to Photoshop and Terrascene features which are already well documented. Todd Klaus developed TerraScene for Fly! with the users in mind. His software, among many evident qualities, is very easy to use and fully customizable. I started to see it’s great possibilities when version 2.0 was released with the addition of relief shadows. The TerraScene scenery files are heavy but have many great advantages over repetitive texture patterns. Some “Post-Production” work is possible, and the only limit to the enhancements that can be done is Fly!’s inner resolution. Texture painting allows some nice enhancement. For example, you can design an accurate scenery if you just look at some good aerial pictures of the area and adapt the colours of the base textures (this is rather a Pre-Production work). Just try to get the colours right, replace some colours with others and you’ll get a much more characteristic landscape. On the other hand, the method below deals with shadows and some kind of bump mapping - we draw some shadows to create the illusion of 3-dimensional forests and cities. Whatever enhancements you try, I suggest you this basic question as a guideline : “What does most of the visual difference between an aerial pictures and a TerraScene rendering?” Always make direct pictures comparison, don’t be too confident with your memory and imagination except if you have a good knowledge of colour and light effects. The steps explained here are only suggestions – I hope they will encourage you to try, tweak and experiment! If you distribute on the web a scenery made with the help of this tutorial, please add my name somewhere down the Readme file. I spent much of my spare time for the development, and for this document as well! Don’t use any original concept shared here for payware add-ons! Please take a look at the acknowledgments page - my work is based on many other’s! There is a link on the same page to download this tutorial in Adobe PDF format, and a ZIP file with the large size images. Pascal Lachat E-mail : pascallachat@bluewin.ch Webdesign : Gérard “Azzurro” Calomili ### Important note : In order to follow the following steps, you need to have TerraScene 2.0 or 2.1 installed on your computer. Please be aware that this tutorial is specifically written for Photoshop users. This said, if you use another graphic software package you will certainly find here some good inspiration to adapt and develop your own process.
### Plan of the site
#### PART 1 – BEFORE STARTING A PROJECT |
0001.1 - Textures for selection 0001.2 - Displacement maps | Before (1) Before (2)
#### PART 2 – WORKING WITH TERRASCENE |
0002.1 - The texture layer project 0002.2 - The shadow layer project 0002.3 - The selection map project | TerraScene
#### PART 3 – WORKING WITH PHOTOSHOP |
0003.1 - Introduction 0003.2 - The forest borders 0003.3 - The forest shadow 0003.4 - The buildings shadow 0003.5 - Merge the layers | Photoshop (1) Photoshop (2) Photoshop (3)
#### PART 4 – SLICING THE SCENERY | Slicing
#### PART 5 – ADVANCED ENHANCEMENTS | Advanced
#### ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND DOWNLOADS | Downloads