scenery builder

General discussion about Scenery Design. Questions about SBuilder for Flight Simulator FS2004.
RF
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2005 1:54 am

Post by RF » Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:17 am

Luis will know better about your version change but it appears you lost necessary files in the upgrade such as rgn40.txt and rgn80.txt. I think the upgrade sbxxx needs to be installed in your existing SBuilder folder.

As to the photo error it appears you are using relatively small area photos (one LOD13 cell is about 0.6 sq. miles). Sbuilder will only make a photo tile where one photo on its own covers a cell. So if you have partial coverage by two photos which fill one cell together this won't work. You'll need one photo to completely fill a shared cell. If you've used Photoshop of other image software with layering you might consider combining all your photos beforehand assuming that the scale is the same (pixels per unit distance).

Lurch
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:31 pm

Post by Lurch » Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:57 am

That is correct about the smaller maps. I took another look, selected "All Maps" and found 2 out of 9 which are situated so they they fill 1 LOD cell on their own. Sure enough clicked on those 2 cells and they got the green Mesh.

Combining photos like that in a paint program is very tedious and i assumed the Sbuilder would do it automatically. Guess i need a bigger Canvas. Or use a multi-source .inf file and the resampler,especially if i wanted to use 10 or 20 photos.

User avatar
Luis Sa
Posts: 1736
Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 11:17 am
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Post by Luis Sa » Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:11 am

Hello,

To get SB correctly installed you need to install version 2.02 that you find, for example at avsim. Then you can get an updated (yet experimental) version by replacing the EXE file with the one you get in file http://www.ptsim.com/downloads/sbyyy.zip. You also need to replace the file OBJECTS.TXT with a new one.

Regarding photo scenery you can have the raw data in several maps. However SB can not make a photo tile getting part of the data from one map and another part from another map.

Regards, Luis

User avatar
Luis Sa
Posts: 1736
Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 11:17 am
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Post by Luis Sa » Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:11 am

Hello,

To get SB correctly installed you need to install version 2.02 that you find, for example at avsim. Then you can get an updated (yet experimental) version by replacing the EXE file with the one you get in file http://www.ptsim.com/downloads/sbyyy.zip. You also need to replace the file OBJECTS.TXT with a new one.

Regarding photo scenery you can have the raw data in several maps. However SB can not make a photo tile getting part of the data from one map and another part from another map.

Regards, Luis

Lurch
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:31 pm

Post by Lurch » Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:31 am

ok,
i combined all of the photos into 1 big one.
I'll also due a proper install.

Since the only photos i have access to are B&W and they show the river as black, can that be traced in Sbuilder so it shows up as blue water?

or Should I do something in my paint program?

Any color level or bit level requirements for Sbuilder, like 256 true color 24-bit?

Is Sbuilder designed to use only tiles that fill a cell and place them in their correct position?

User avatar
Luis Sa
Posts: 1736
Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 11:17 am
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Post by Luis Sa » Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:50 am

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">citação:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Mensagem original de Lurch</i>
<br />ok,
i combined all of the photos into 1 big one.
I'll also due a proper install.

Since the only photos i have access to are B&W and they show the river as black, can that be traced in Sbuilder so it shows up as blue water?

or Should I do something in my paint program?

Any color level or bit level requirements for Sbuilder, like 256 true color 24-bit?

Is Sbuilder designed to use only tiles that fill a cell and place them in their correct position?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Color - You need to paint your bitmap if you want it to show, for example, blue on the rivers. However, you can add Rivers with Sbuilder that will show on top of your B&W bitmap.

Please check the manual for the color format. I think the better is 8-bit (normal 256 color bitmap).

I do not follow your last question. I use the word tile to refer to a LOD13 square or to a AREA. CELL is a LOD8 square or a set of 32 x 32 AREAS. The positioning of the photo scenery is ruled by the calibration of the bitamap when you ADD it (LOAD it) to SBuilder.

Regards, Luis

Lurch
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:31 pm

Post by Lurch » Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:15 am

Thanks Luis,

Got proper installation done. starts with no errors.


In the other question i was refering to a LOD13 square.

What i meant was, ie
if the aerial photo MAP only fills part of a LOD 13 square on all 4 sides, does Sbuilder use the edges of the outer most squares, that are completely filled, and use the position of those edges as the bounds of all 4 sides? (mannn, i confused myself on that one)

The aerial photos i have are land with a large river down the center. I'd prefer put the river on top with sbuilder, but the color will have to match the default river color in msfs. MSFS seems to be a very light blue and i didn't see anything in the SBuilder textures that light.

Is there an Sbuilder texture which would be the same, or should i just use a water mask and let MSFS use it's own?

To use Sbuilder for installing rivers, while maintaing VTP functionality,
Do you;

- bring up the map
-use the line or polygon function to mark the river
-set the polygon area as a water mask
-then hit the photo button to select tiles

User avatar
Luis Sa
Posts: 1736
Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 11:17 am
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Post by Luis Sa » Thu Mar 24, 2005 10:28 am

Hi,

You can do rivers as:

1) VTP wideline. You make a line and you set the width of the line. Maximum width is 255 meters. You need a water texture. You make the water texture out of the standard textures found at:

C:\Programas\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\Scenery\World\texture

as 001b2wa1.bmp 002b2wa.bmp and so on. They are 171KB in size. You need to know which one to choose and then you need to convert to DXT1 using imagetool by MS. In order to know the color of the water in your region you need to open the file worldwc.bgl in TMFViewer. This programme will show the water class number used for inland water. If you see a water class of, for example, 22 then 022b2wa.bmp is the file that you need to convert to DXT1 (convert and rename it to something like 022river.bmp) and use as the texture for your rivers.

2) If your river is large you can just make it as a polygon (sort of lake). In that case you declare it as LWM water and no worry about texture matching. FS will use the water for that region.

Regards, Luis

ps: regarding the other question, you can choose the tiles that you want. They do not need to be adjacent. The requiremnt is that the tile is completely filled by the bitmap.

Lurch
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:31 pm

Post by Lurch » Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:44 pm

Hi Luis,

I chose #2 about the large River and attempted to make it as a large polygon. It has a dozen small islands in it along with several connecting streams. So after bringing up the Aerial photo and the LOD13 grid, i wnet straight to the polygon button and started tracing out the waterways using a zillion large and small polygons.
took quite a while. Soafter it was all traced out, I selected "All Polygons", but the only menu i could bring up for properties didn't show any way to make all of the polygons as One large water mask.

I didn't work with anything else except the polygon button.

Is there a way to make all of the polygons into one water mask?

User avatar
Luis Sa
Posts: 1736
Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 11:17 am
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Post by Luis Sa » Thu Mar 24, 2005 11:28 pm

Hi,

You should go step by step. You can make dummy exercises in SBuilder to get used to it and knowing the possibilities. It is not good to work with real data and risking to loose many hours of hard work. I am sorry for this comment ...

After you make a poly you can access its properties by right clicking on a side (edge) of the polygon. You set it to be LWM and set the altitude and type of LWM (water, flatten, land).

Regarding islands see:

http://www.ptsim.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=229

Also search the forum with the keyword "JOINING" to learn about it.

I see that you started with photo and you are turning to LWM/VTP [:)]

Regards, Luis

Lurch
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:31 pm

Post by Lurch » Fri Mar 25, 2005 5:51 am

Ok,
good news was there weren't a zillion little polygons and the bad news was that there were 124. I successfully changed everyone to a 124 water masks. Hopefully, i can still use the water masks as such?


When there is a body of water with many connecting streams and islands, it might be good to have a feature to combine all of the polygons into 1 at one click. and save it somehow as a mask or tile or map or something. In the case of a river, naturally a person may want to add on to it and finish the river at different times, but add to it so there is just one big project instead of a bunch of little ones. something to consider.

In conjunction, the ultimate feature would be the ability to add and combine photo maps to the grid and have be able to form one photo tile from parts of 2 or more maps, under the same LOD13 square.
Don't know if that's a programming possibility, but an idea.

Anyway, the manual mentions scenery objects for the standard FS 9.
But where do i find them. I want to try to add some bridges, railroad tracks, some houses, etc.
I searched this forum, but no mention.

User avatar
Luis Sa
Posts: 1736
Joined: Sun May 18, 2003 11:17 am
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Post by Luis Sa » Fri Mar 25, 2005 5:59 am

Hi,

About objects:

- I will upload tonight a version with full support for objects. See the thread on WindSock.

In order to place objects from the FS2004 standard library you just need to place them with the mouse. Please download the pictures for the objects (search the forum with the words BMP OBJECT as I do not remember the URL). Once you place the BMPS or JPEGS of the objects on the folder BMP you will see them on the OBJECT's properties winndow.

Luis

Lurch
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:31 pm

Post by Lurch » Sun Mar 27, 2005 12:11 pm

Hi Luis,

After inserting 126 polygons and a dozen bridges, I discovered that the entire project was at W78 deg(half-way to Cleveland) instead of W76, like it was supposed to be, because of a typo, when calibrating.

Is there a way to calibrate all maps polys objects etc. at one time?

Or do i have to move every polygon and bridge one at a time?

This was indeed a dummy exercise,, it showed me what a BIIIIGGG Dummy I am.[:(]

Lurch
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:31 pm

Post by Lurch » Mon Mar 28, 2005 12:39 am

nevermind, found it.

Lurch
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:31 pm

Post by Lurch » Tue Mar 29, 2005 11:18 am

I was going to add a small airstrip to my aerial photo in Sbuilder, but after clicking on OBJECT button and RNWY, there weren't any choices for runways.

Are Runways just not available yet?

Was going to do a test generation and I notice the FSUIPC has to be installed. Is that essential to generate the bgls, etc.?

Post Reply