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CFS3 Scenery
CFS3 is based around the European Theatre from 1943 to 1945 (with the ability to go on to 1947). The game will now incorporate the FS2002 AutoGen objects which are generated according to the textures of the ground that you are flying over. Only the European theatre will be rendered in CFS3 as the terrain for the rest of the world cannot be imported from FS2002 due to the new graphics engine. I understand however that a SDK will be available some time in the Spring of 2003 to allow designers to create the rest of the world. A bit of good news is that there will be seasonal ground textures which were not present in CFS or CFS2. This appears though to be just summer and winter! (I wonder if we can improve on this when the SDK comes out?)
The big news is that texture resolution has been improved from CFS2's 1Km (other than the more detailed Guam and Hawaii islands) to CFS3's 120 meters throughout. That's all of the UK and Europe, extending to France and Germany's southern borders. The design team obtained especially good satellite imagery of the Ruhr valley - low level attacks there like the Dambusters raid? (please will someone do this!!!!!). The designers have apparently made a very realistic depiction of trees, hedgerows, and even detailed depiction of fields of grass appear as you fly fast and low over the landscape. From what I can gather on the forums there seems to be a 50 50 split as to how good the new terrain is, some think it is great whilst others say that the blurriness featured in CFS1/2 and the FS series is still there and I have to agree with them that it is still blurry in the distance but when you get down low it seems much better than CFS2 so....!!??
However one major drawback (as far as airport designers such as myself are concerned) is that the only way to create new airports in CFS3 is to do it through the gMax 3D design tool. But the one benefit that this has is that objects can now have a damage profile and that they can be destroyed in Freeflight, rather like the buildings on the default airfields for CFS2.
Looking at some of the many screenshots that are appearing all over the place, the design team have also improved the detail level on the ships (they have even included a Kreigsmarine Hipper class cruiser!). Also the way ships sink has been improved, they now slip slowly beneath the waves instead of doing it bit by bit as in CFS2. However carriers are not supported by default in CFS3 so it appears that CFS2 will still be popular in this area until someone figures out how to make a working aircraft carrier for CFS3.
Other areas that are being brought in from FS2002 are the effects such as smoking tyres on landing and spray when landing on water a welcome feature.
The airfields in CFS3 are done as *.xml files and are called in the simulator from the global scenery layer file. There are very few people who know how to modify it and those that do are holding the technology back for their own sensible reasons which means that it is not possible for your average airfield designer to add airfields at the moment.... drat!!