SimpleBiomes

The SimpleBiomes sample illustrates the process of adding biome definitions and overriding vegetation placements in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Making this example required using the Scenery Editor to generate "shapefiles" - which define the placement of the vegetation and biome in the game world - and also creating some custom XML - which defines the species and biome types.

You can expand the link below to see the SimpleBiomes file and folder structure:

File OverviewFile Overview

|---+ SimpleBiomes
    |---+ PackageDefinitions
    |   |---- mycompany-vegetation.xml
    |---+ PackageSources
    |   |---+ scenery
    |   |   |---- LFLJ.dbf
    |   |   |---- LFLJ.shp
    |   |   |---- LFLJ.shx
    |   |   |---- LFLJ.xml
    |   |---+ vegetation
    |       |---- 25-mycompany-species.xml
    |       |---- 30-mycompany-biomes.xml
    |---- SimpleBiomes.xml

Loading And Building The Project

In order to load and build the project in Microsoft Flight Simulator, you must have previously enabled Developer Mode (see here for more information). Once enabled, simply follow these steps:

• Use the Open project... command from the File menu.

• Select the file SimpleBiomes.xml from the SimpleBiomes sample project.

• The Project Editor should open automatically and show you the project mycompany-vegetation (if the Project Editor doesn't open, then you can open it from the Developer Mode Tools menu)

• Clicking on the project in the Project Editor will open the Inspector Window, and here you need to click the Build Package button (if the Inspector Window does not open automatically, go to the View menu in the Project Editor and open it from there).

• This will build a package from the files specified in your project. This package will be named mycompany-vegetation and will be output in the Packages folder created in the same directory as SimpleBiomes.xml:

• To get to the location of the new biomes, you need to first click on the Edit button beside the myscenery (BGL) Asset Group, in the Inspector window:

• The inspector window will then change to show the details of the BGL file from the package, and there will be a button marked Load In Editor:

• Clicking this will load the airport in the Scenery Editor and take you to it

• If you left click on any of the polygons to select them, you can then change the biome options in the Properties window and see the different biomes change in the simulation, and also see listed the new, custom, biomes that the asset introduces (in this case, some bright red cactus!):