Lack of accuracy or simple errors?
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:34 am
Hello everybody,
still I'm somehow stumbling through my first little scenery, getting forward with a lot of reading manuals and the surely well-known trial-and-error principle. Maybe I can get some specific advice from someone here to speed up my learning?
My goal is to enhance a little village in Goa (India) with photo tiles and more for FS9. As you can see in the screenshot, I've come quite far for a newbie... but I'd really appreciate some expertise since I have the feeling I've been going a pretty long and tough way!?? Still I have an encouraging intermediate result:
[img]uploaded/mick/2007101243415_Intermediate.jpg[/img]
These steps finally lead to the above goal:
1) Photo source was Google Earth. I saved a pic to see the standard jpg size, measured the width of that screen in m and calculated the right (?) size for 1.2 m/pix. It resulted in a hight of 796m to have the perfect resolution. From that hight I saved a series of pics (6 rows / 4 columns), which I fit together with Photoshop and saved it as bmp, which I put into SBuilder as map and calibrated it using the Google Earth lin/lat data.
2) I appended the releant HL967260.bgl for the default coastline and the HP967260.bgl for the waters. Unfortunately, everything was a little more Southwest, so that I had to shift every single line to cover the map.
3) Selected the coastline and used the "Make Poly" command, changed the poly(s) to cover the holes that the shifted coastline had left.
4) Created a lake on top of the map (LWM Water Mask, Alt 0) and some objects with SBuilder, more or less for orientation, but also for satisfaction reasons in a state eager to see any proper result...
5) Finally the steps for making the bgls with SBuilder.
I wonder if there are any expert hints how to make it a bit easier. E.g. I'm not sure if everybody doing a coastal scenery is shifting lines and polys from the default at all...
But I also have got some particular questions:
a) Although I used the built-in "Make Poly" command, I have a slight shift of the coastline resulting in dark pixels (I could call it algae) on the beach and along the rocky coast (could be called unwanted rocks in the water). Why might that have happened here? Is SBuilder lacking accuracy in this or where is my error?
[img]uploaded/mick/2007101241915_Beach%20Effects.jpg[/img]
b) I created a lake (LWM Watermask, Alt 9m) with a shoreline (cmd "make line" to be accurate), which shows the above effect, too.
c) I created two small rivers as VTP2 lines (assembled, 1099) on layer 9. In FS they're almost invisible, despite covering the rivers properly when in SB design.
[img]uploaded/mick/2007101242057_Edges%20and%20rivers.jpg[/img]
d) Also, the photo tiles are straight cut at their edges. Is there any way to blend the edges into the default scenery?
Finally a question for Luis: After seeing it and playing around a bit, I intend to anotate autogen to the tiles with "AGenT" (free within the UKVFR pack http://vfraddons.co.uk/ukautogen_view.php). Do you have experience with that or would you suggest another program for that?
Thank you in advance for every advice,
regards
Mick
still I'm somehow stumbling through my first little scenery, getting forward with a lot of reading manuals and the surely well-known trial-and-error principle. Maybe I can get some specific advice from someone here to speed up my learning?
My goal is to enhance a little village in Goa (India) with photo tiles and more for FS9. As you can see in the screenshot, I've come quite far for a newbie... but I'd really appreciate some expertise since I have the feeling I've been going a pretty long and tough way!?? Still I have an encouraging intermediate result:
[img]uploaded/mick/2007101243415_Intermediate.jpg[/img]
These steps finally lead to the above goal:
1) Photo source was Google Earth. I saved a pic to see the standard jpg size, measured the width of that screen in m and calculated the right (?) size for 1.2 m/pix. It resulted in a hight of 796m to have the perfect resolution. From that hight I saved a series of pics (6 rows / 4 columns), which I fit together with Photoshop and saved it as bmp, which I put into SBuilder as map and calibrated it using the Google Earth lin/lat data.
2) I appended the releant HL967260.bgl for the default coastline and the HP967260.bgl for the waters. Unfortunately, everything was a little more Southwest, so that I had to shift every single line to cover the map.
3) Selected the coastline and used the "Make Poly" command, changed the poly(s) to cover the holes that the shifted coastline had left.
4) Created a lake on top of the map (LWM Water Mask, Alt 0) and some objects with SBuilder, more or less for orientation, but also for satisfaction reasons in a state eager to see any proper result...
5) Finally the steps for making the bgls with SBuilder.
I wonder if there are any expert hints how to make it a bit easier. E.g. I'm not sure if everybody doing a coastal scenery is shifting lines and polys from the default at all...
But I also have got some particular questions:
a) Although I used the built-in "Make Poly" command, I have a slight shift of the coastline resulting in dark pixels (I could call it algae) on the beach and along the rocky coast (could be called unwanted rocks in the water). Why might that have happened here? Is SBuilder lacking accuracy in this or where is my error?
[img]uploaded/mick/2007101241915_Beach%20Effects.jpg[/img]
b) I created a lake (LWM Watermask, Alt 9m) with a shoreline (cmd "make line" to be accurate), which shows the above effect, too.
c) I created two small rivers as VTP2 lines (assembled, 1099) on layer 9. In FS they're almost invisible, despite covering the rivers properly when in SB design.
[img]uploaded/mick/2007101242057_Edges%20and%20rivers.jpg[/img]
d) Also, the photo tiles are straight cut at their edges. Is there any way to blend the edges into the default scenery?
Finally a question for Luis: After seeing it and playing around a bit, I intend to anotate autogen to the tiles with "AGenT" (free within the UKVFR pack http://vfraddons.co.uk/ukautogen_view.php). Do you have experience with that or would you suggest another program for that?
Thank you in advance for every advice,
regards
Mick