Disclaimer
What you are about to read will in most parts sound like a
tribute written by someone biased on the subject, but I
guarantee that I have no affiliation with the developers, it
just really is that good.
Background
The NL2000 V4 scenery is a freeware photo real scenery
covering the whole of the Netherlands. The oldest version of
the scenery currently found on the web is version 2.0,
released back in 2003 for FS2000. A later version, v2.9 for
FS2002 and FS2004, has previously been reviews by Mutley’s
Hangars own Rob Scott. The current version, version 4, was
released on May 28th 2010, and is FSX exclusive.
For FS2004 users there is also a version 3 available for
download and the latest update, version 3.9, includes the
same photo scenery as version 4.
The scenery is based on aerial photography dating back to
2005, so some parts of the scenery will be missing
infrastructure development after that point in time. The
photographs have a resolution of 1m/pixel, for some airports
the resolution is 40 cm/pixel.
In addition to the photo scenery the downloads also include
24 airports, a traffic module, an object library for objects
used at provided airports, a 3d object library of placed 3D
objects in the area and a module for presenting City and
Town names in FSX. If you chose to not download the 3D
objects library there is also a module for excluding FSX
scenery objects from the covered area to avoid wrongly
placed landmarks. An installer needed to install all
packages are also provided, this package also includes the
manual for the scenery. At the moment of writing three of
the provided airports are available in two versions. These
are all old air force bases that are no longer in use, but
both active and current versions of these airports are
provided.
For this review I have chosen to download all of the photo
scenery regions, both the 3D objects library for airport
objects and other placed objects, and all available
airports. For the three airports with two versions I opted
for using the current versions over the active versions to
get an as real as possible flying environment. The modules
not used or up for review are the traffic module, the three
active versions of former airbases and the module for
presenting town and city names. Since I’m using the placed
3D object library I could also skip the FSX exclusion
module.
At the time of writing a few of the larger airports in The
Netherlands, that are available in NL2000 v3, are still in
development for version 4. Most notably Schiphol (EHAM) is
missing. In the release notes Gilze-Rijen (EHGR) and
Woensdrecht (EHWO) are also mentioned as still being in
development and will be released as soon as the developers
feel they meet their expectations.
Downloading and Installing
The complete download is big, and by big I really mean big.
The total download was somewhere in the region of 35 Gb. The
photo scenery is cut up into 12 regions ranging from 4,2 to
1,1 GB each. Even at this size I managed to get it all
downloaded in a few hours! Unzipping and installing
everything took another one and a half to two hours.
There are plenty of options on how to download the different
parts of the scenery.
All downloads are available via Torrents, and if you
don’t have the software for torrent downloading there is
also a light weight torrent client available for each of the
parts. A word of warning though, once run the provided file
will install the torrent client on your computer, and it
will run on start up from there on. The only way I could
find to remove it was to manually delete the key from the
registry and deleting the files, hidden away in your user
profile!
If, like me, you aren’t up to date on how to work with
torrents, or this method of downloading isn’t possible due
to restrictions from your ISP for example, there are other
options available to you as well. All object libraries and
airports can be downloaded from AVSIM or Flightsim.com via
links on the download page. The photo scenery in itself is
however not supplied via these sites due to file size
restrictions. But fear not, the developers have made these
parts available as FTP or Direct HTTP downloads with good
download speeds in addition to the Torrents.
All downloads are in a non standard format handled by the
provided installer. So your first step, after downloading
and un-zipping the files, is to get the provided installer
up and running. A fairly straight forward procedure without
any problems as long as you follow the on screen
instructions. The installer is a rather intelligent piece of
software that extracts the files from the different
downloads, sets up the scenery layers in FSX and copies the
files to a folder of your choice. The installer also makes
sure that the different layers are put in the correct order
in the scenery database, so you can install the airports and
other modules while waiting for the photo scenery files to
download without running in to problems.
Photoscenery and Placed Landmarks
Once everything is installed just start up FSX at any
airport in The Netherlands and you’re almost good to go. But
unless you have a really high-end computer you can expect a
drop in frame rates, so some tweaking of your FSX settings
will most likely be necessary.
Some pointers on settings are provided in the manual,
but as the developers points out it’s up to you to find
settings that cater to your personal taste.
Standing on the ground, and while flying at low altitudes,
the ground looks a little pixilated, but once you get up to
about 2.500 – 3.000 feet AGL things start to look really
stunning. At
these altitudes the only thing that looks a bit strange are
the flat houses and structures in the underlying photos,
especially so in areas that have some 3D objects placed.
Once you get up to about 5.000 AGL this issue is less of a
distraction since you are by then viewing the ground from an
angle that gives the images a sense of depth even if they
are flat. If you regularly fly airliners at higher altitudes
the scenery still looks great, but a lot of the details are
lost, and as Rob pointed out in his previous review you
sadly won’t have much time to enjoy it before you’re out of
the covered area.
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Speaking of flat, this is a word is closely connected with
the Netherlands. The land is flat (even with FS Global
installed), with fields, some forests and cities scattered
around the landscape. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? Well, with
the 3D objects placed on the ground this really never was an
issue. While buzzing around in the skies there’s almost
always things that pops out at you. Even from a long way
away. Houses, trees power lines, wind mills, wind turbines,
industrial buildings and boats are spread out in great
numbers over the whole country. Most of them placed to cover
real life counterparts found in the aerial photography. I
even found a few hot air balloons hanging around. Sure,
hanging still in the air but that just makes it easier to
come really close to them. And with the clarity and detail
of the roads and canals on the ground some VFR flying is
truly a joy. As an example of the level of detail it was no
problem to locate the position of an airfield in Google
earth when comparing that with the image from the top-down
view in FSX, even when zoomed quite a bit.
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And as if this isn’t enough the developers have also gone
over the aerial photos with a magnifying glass and added
water classes to every body of water present, and with all
the canals that run through the country there’s plenty of
water present. This means that every body of water will come
to life for you, and not just lie there static with the sun
reflecting from it at angles that doesn’t correspond to your
flying environment. I actually think I saw a swimming pool
with moving water while driving around the airports, but I’m
not sure. And it was bricked in so I couldn’t try to drive
my car into it to see if it would produce a splash or not.
The only parts that look below par to me are the few
remaining default FSX airports. These will still have your
default, or other add-on, ground textures in the parts not
covered by runways, taxiways or other objects, so they
really stand out like a polar bear in a flock of penguins.
But this is an issue that will be hard to adjust for unless
the airports get developed by NL2000.
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All this results in an experience that is simply
breathtaking with tons of things to discover, and just as
many stunning views. However, we must now move on to the one
slight downside to the scenery.
Seasonal Variation
As with most photo real sceneries there is no seasonal
variation of the ground textures, but considering the
download size of just one season it would be a herculean
task to actually produce a photo real scenery of this size
with seasonal variation. Even high end pay ware add-ons with
photo real scenery usually only come with one season. There
are a few exceptions, but they only cover smaller areas.
However, since there are plenty of trees present on the
ground you will have some sense of seasons since the trees
do change colors. In spring and autumn this looks good
enough to almost cover the fact that it’s still summer on
the ground, but in the wintertime snow covered trees with
green fields makes for a strange combination.
Integration With Surrounding Scenery
One thing that can be an issue with photo real scenery is
roads and other parts that end in nothing or miss aligned
with the surrounding scenery when they reach the edges of
the scenery. This is especially obvious if the surrounding
scenery is default FSX.
At the moment I have UTX Europe, Aerosoft Mega Airport
Amsterdam Schiphol and FSScene X textures for the ground
that borders on to this scenery package, so I have checked
for alignment issues between them and the NL2000 scenery.
The scenery follows the borders of the Netherlands as close
as possible with regards to FSX limitations, and the change
in ground textures makes it fairly obvious where the border
is on screen. As expected there are fields running across
the borders that will look like they are cut in half. For
the most part this isn’t a big issue, but flying during
wintertime will look very strange as the ground in the
surrounding areas are part covered in snow.
As for roads and canals the alignment with the placements
according to UTX is in most cases flawless, with just minor
misalignments visible in some areas. The same is true when
looking at the border around the Mega Airport Amsterdam
scenery. The airport scenery pops out a bit due to
differences in colors in the underlying photo, but
alignments of roads and other objects that run through the
border are close to perfect.
Airports
As stated earlier there are 24 airports to choose from on
the download page, ranging from small local grass strips to
large regional airports. Details from Wikipedia on the
available airports are supplied below. In the following text
I will also comment on how good the airports corresponds to
their real world counterparts. The comparisons are based on
the fact provided on Wikipedia and imagery via Google earth.
| ICAO | Name | IImage | Type and Info | Runways |
|
EHAL |
 |
Small GA & SAR
airport |
1 Grass + 1
helipad |
|
|
EHBD |
 |
GA airport |
1 Asphalt |
|
|
EHBK |
 |
Regional
Airport, primarily used as a Cargo Hub |
1 Asphalt |
|
|
EHDP |
 |
Non active
Military Airbase |
1
Asphalt/Concrete |
|
|
EHDR |
 |
Small GA
airport |
1
Asphalt/Concrete |
|
|
EHEH |
 |
Cargo and Military
operations. Serves Ryanair and Cityjet among other
airlines |
1 Tarmac |
|
|
EHGG |
 |
Civilian
airport with mainly Charter traffic |
2 Asphalt |
|
|
EHHO |
 |
Small GA
airfield |
1 Grass |
|
|
EHHV |
 |
GA airport |
3 Grass |
|
|
EHKD |
 |
Civilian and
naval airport |
1 Concrete |
|
|
EHLE |
 |
Largest GA
airport in The Netherlands. Home to the Aviodrome
aviation museum. |
1 Asphalt & 1
Grass |
|
|
EHLW |
 |
Military
Airbase. German airbase during WWII |
2 Asphalt |
|
|
EHMZ |
 |
Local airstrip |
1 Grass |
|
|
EHNP |
 |
Small airport,
closed in real life today |
1
Grass |
|
|
EHOW |
 |
Small GA
airport |
1 Grass (part
concrete) |
|
|
EHRD |
 |
3rd largest airport in The Netherlands |
1 Asphalt |
|
|
EHSB |
 |
Military
airport, closed in 2008. |
1 Asphalt |
|
|
EHSE |
 |
Small GA
airfield |
1 Asphalt |
|
|
EHST |
 |
Small,
ultralight aviation only, airfield |
1 Grass |
|
|
EHTE |
 |
Small GA
airfield |
1Conc/Asphalt &1 Grass |
|
|
EHTW |
 |
Civilian and military airport |
1 Asphalt |
|
|
EHTX |
 |
Small airport |
2 Grass |
|
|
EHVB |
 |
Old naval
airbase closed in 2006 |
2
Concrete/Asphalt |
|
|
EHVK |
 |
Active
Military Airbase |
2 Asphalt |
In addition to the large selection of airports there are
also a total of 85 helipads included in one of the modules,
not sure in which one but most likely the 3D objects module.
Most of these are on off-shore platforms in the ocean, but
at least 2 of them are located at hospitals. A word of
warning regarding these helipads as take-off points is in
order though. The ones on off-shore platforms are rather
bug-ridden, and will most of the time result in a splash
once you get into FSX. This is a known issue but from what I
have read on the forums the developers has chosen not to try
and find a fix for it. But if, unlike me, you can handle a
helicopter they should make for some challenging landing
spots over the ocean.
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But how does the airports look I hear you wondering? Well,
to start off with all airports with a few exceptions have
ground textures based on the same aerial photos as the
surrounding areas. This means that the airports will blend
in perfectly with the ground scenery. The two airports with
ground textures that don’t blend in with the rest of the
ground textures are still based on photographs, but there
are some differences in the colours compared to the
surrounding area. This is most likely due to the photographs
being in a higher resolution, as mentioned before, thus
providing more details on the ground.
In general what you see in FSX at the provided airports will
correspond almost perfectly with what you find using Google
Earth. Five of the military airfields are unfortunately
censored in Google Earth, so in these cases no comparison
could be made regarding the placed buildings. But given the
accuracy of the other 19 airports I’m confident that these
are up to scratch too. There are some minor differences
present, with extra buildings at some airports, and missing
buildings at other, but no major things. The only airport
with substantial differences is Teuge Airport (EHTE) where
the runway is extended to the east compared to Google Earth,
and the road running past the eastern parts has been
diverted along the runway since it would have passed straight
through the runway after the extension. The extension of the
runway was made in 2007, so the difference is due to
outdated images on Google Earth. With UTX installed this
unfortunately means that the road traffic for that area
follows the road as it was before the extension, and
subsequently runs straight over the runway!
At larger airports you will find taxiway and ground markings that correspond well with what you can expect and lighting are present where it should be. The runway lighting are set to be on regardless of the time of day, but if you wish to have them turned off you can set your transponder to squawk 7000, and the tower will turn them off for you.
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In some cases I did come across runways, taxiways and aprons that looked a bit strange, with some small parts having a different texture compared to the rest of the scenery. In all cases that I could check this was also present on Google Earth. Also, at some airports I have found service roads that are only presented on the underlying photoscenery.
While the placements of objects at the airfields are very
good, the general quality of the 3D objects and their
applied textures ranges from very nice to downright awful.
Selections of both examples are provided below. Most of the
buildings on civilian airports have what I believe are
photography based textures, whilst the structures at
Military airports looks more handmade. It’s amongst the
handmade textures I find most of the once that look really
bad. The main issue I have with these are that many of them
look completely flat when it’s obvious that the surface
should have some sort of texture to it. This is most likely
due to the fact that they have the same exact colour,
without any variation, over the whole surface. This gives
the object at hand a feeling of being more cartoonish than
something trying to mimic a real object. But in all honesty
this is a problem that is present even in some high end pay
ware airports too.
Transparency mask affecting objects
Good models
Bad models -
Cartoonish?
Good textures
In addition to the buildings there are plenty of other
static objects present at the airfields, ranging from
gliders and GA aircrafts to people of varying quality, some
even animated. Among some of the more odd things I have
found are a Mig 21 standing on a closed military airfield
and a peeping tom looking through the window of a hangar. So
there’s plenty of things to discover even without leaving
the ground.
Within these 24 airports I have only run in to one major bug
that is large enough to warrant mentioning in a review. At Groningen
Airport Eelde (EHGG) something along the runway edges on runway 5/23
will cause the plane to crash when you get to close to the edge of
the runway. Problems have also been reported with objects causing
a crash if you take of along the centreline, but if you go
slightly right or left of the centreline your fine, until you
try to turn on to a taxiway or the crossing runway 1/19. But since there are two runways the airport can still be used. You can land
on runway 01 and take off on runway 19, as long as you can do this
without utilizing the small parts that lie south of the crossing
with runway 5/23. The issue at hand is known to the developers
and seems to have something to do with the runway lights. The
problem is being looked at and will be amended in a future patch.
Other Scenery Add-ons used in this
review
UTX Europe
REX 2 – OverDrive
Mega Airport Amsterdam Schiphol
FSScene X
FSGlobal 2010
Traffic X AI traffic
A selection of aircraft
Verdict
A
stunning piece of scenery with few downsides provided you
have the hardware to run it. If I was a professional scenery
developer I would pay big bucks to get these guys on to my
development team, if for no other reason than their devotion
and attention to great details.
But perhaps the stunning level of detail is something
that would have to be cut back on if the scenery was being
developed for paying customers in order to meet your release
dates and development budgets.
The fact that the whole package is provided as Freeware
makes it very hard to complain about small issues but the
less than functional helipads is a minor drawback, along
with some of the really ugly object textures and objects
that I feel could have been cut before release to further
raise the level of the finished product, especially
considering the astonishing attention to details in other
parts.
The only major issue isn’t really connected to the scenery
but the almost viral behaviour of the provided
torrent-client is an issue for me. A warning regarding this
on the download page would have been enough to avoid
annoying me. However, since downloading is possible from
other sources I won’t be deducting many points over this
issue. The only reason I used it was that the installer link
to AVSIM was dead when I downloaded it, but that has been
sorted now.
All in all I award this truly great add-on a 9.5 out of 10 points
Mikael Stockfors
Review machine Spec: Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.8GGhz | 4 Gb DDR
III 1600 |XFX ATI Radeon HD57701GB |Windows 7
64bit Pro
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System Requirements
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