scenery builder

General discussion about Scenery Design. Questions about SBuilder for Flight Simulator FS2004.
Lurch
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Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:31 pm

Post by Lurch » Sun Mar 20, 2005 11:51 am

Thanks guys,
i'll check it out.

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

Post by Lurch » Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:14 am

Well, the short version is i got nowhere with that.

After i pressed "New" there wasn't any place to press "add map"
I Must be missing something.

At least i did get the eastern edge to show with no border.

Even calculated the next succesive LOD cell borders for the western boundary, but it still has a large grey border.

What settings should be used in the flight sim "Settings" menus?
Maybe something isn't set correctly.
Guess i'll wait until someone makes a tutorial

RF
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Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2005 1:54 am

Post by RF » Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:59 pm

Hi Lurch;
You can create a map underlay in Sbuilder using your photo as the map. Hit the MAP button and then click in the general area where the map will go within Sbuilder. Choose your bitmap and open. Hit OK for the '..must calibrate..' window. Now enter your NW and SE coordinates of your photo. Hit OK. If you don't see the photo zoom out and move around as it may be outside the field of view.

Now hit the PHOTO button and you can choose various options for season (summer for single all use) and VTP layer. Click on the LOD13 squares overlaying your photo that you wish to use. Note that Sbuilder will not allow you to choose a partially filled square.

When you compile the chosen squares you can select the option to directly put the .bmps into the \scenery\world\texture folder. You can then put the .bgl(s) in an addon scenery folder and activate it.

<b>Luis</b> if you read this I have been unable to place my bmps in a texture folder of the same addon that I place the bgl in. This is what I do when I compile photos manually just to keep things tidy. Also, is there a way to select more than one photo square at a time? By the way Luis, I think you've done a great job creating a slick all-around design program.

Thanks
Ross

boleyd
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Location: USA

Post by boleyd » Mon Mar 21, 2005 6:47 pm

The Select All and select box grab the photo tile masks that set on top of the map. Works well.

BGLs go into my Landclass scenery folder. Textures go into my world/scenery/texture folder. There is a specification on where things go in the general preferences dialog window.

I did see that an airport does not always just line up with the underlying photo(map). I have not tried to align with AFCAD yet.

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Luis Sa
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Post by Luis Sa » Mon Mar 21, 2005 8:19 pm

Hello Ross,

Thank you for explaining quite well the process of making photo scenery with SB!

Regarding the folders, and if I remember well, the reason why the textures go to the main FS texture folder is related to autogen. If you do not want to place autogen on your photo scenery, you can place the textures in the "sister" folder of the SCENERY folder, as you say you do. If add AGN files to this "sister" folder, they will not show (again it is long time since I do not test this).

Regards, Luis

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Luis Sa
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Post by Luis Sa » Mon Mar 21, 2005 8:22 pm

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Lurch</i>
<br />After i pressed "New" there wasn't any place to press "add map"
I Must be missing something.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Sorry, I meant "Map" not "add map"! See Ross explanation and try to follow it.

Regards, Luis

RF
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Post by RF » Mon Mar 21, 2005 10:44 pm

Thanks for the heads up on autogen. I actually just turn the photos on and off occasionally for reference purposes. Overall for low-level flying I prefer the FS graphic textures for depth and color.

Dick when you referred to 'Select All' and the selection box was that once the photo tiles were designated? I can't seem to create photo tiles more than one at a time.

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Luis Sa
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Post by Luis Sa » Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:32 am

Ross,

- when you are creating phototiles you need ONE click per each created tile,

- you can select more than one with the selecting window (pressing and holding the CTRL key)

- in landclass mode there a "raster mode" meaning that a tile is created as you pass by the mouse.

- I thought that "one click per tile" was sufficient in photo scenery work

Regards, Luis

RF
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Post by RF » Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:49 am

The last photo I did covers a little more than a LOD8 cell or about 1200 LOD13 tiles. I guess for these sizes I should use the resampler.

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Luis Sa
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Post by Luis Sa » Tue Mar 22, 2005 4:30 am

Hi Ross,

My assumption that photo scenery would reduce to a dozen or so of tiles is clearly wrong.

I ask for a suggestion. If you place a photo map and you click (create) some tiles. Assume that you move the map (I do not imagine why you should do that!). It can be the case that some tiles lost their bitmap. That is why I added the button "Check". It just deletes tiles that do not have a bitamp under.

May be I should change the operation of this "Check" (is it necessary?) or I will add another button "Fill". This "Fill" could create all tiles that are "covered by bitmaps". The reason why I did not consider this from the begining was that I could have in the same project several maps. Some of these maps could be intended for phot scenery but some other could be intended for something else (mesh, land class, background, ...). But I think that you do not mix projects in this way. At least I do not. I have several and separate projects for each type of scenery that I create. I will try to add this "Fill". Is it the proper name?

Also, I could add a check box to select between "VTP photo scenery" (the one that SB uses just now) and "Resample photo scenery" (just as the resampler). Is it worth? May yes, because of the seams (gaps).

Here is a summary about these types of photo scenery

a) VTP photo scenery

- alpha channel means transparency (allowing for nice blending between photo and default textures) [:)]

- you can add roads, rivers and VTP items on top of it (using the layer number parameter) [:)]

- unless you reduce the "Texture Quality Size" to Medium you get gaps between tiles when viewing at certain angles [:(!]

b) Resmapler photo scenery

- alpha channel means water [;)]

- you can NOT add roads, rivers and VTP items on top of it [:0]

- you do not get gaps [:)]

Regards, Luis

RF
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Post by RF » Tue Mar 22, 2005 4:56 am

I think the "Fill" option would work nicely. As you say you'd want to have a separate project without other maps which is what I typically do.

I can see advantages in being able to choose either VTP or Resampler photos if gaps can exist in the VTP photos. I hadn't actually noticed the gaps before and I think I have my settings on 'high' but I'll go back and check.
Ross

Lurch
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Post by Lurch » Tue Mar 22, 2005 5:19 am

Hi Guys,

So far i've combined 9 aerial photos, seamlessly displayed on the LOD 13 grid. Is the grid what you are referring to as the "Map"?

However, when i hit the photo button a menu comes up with check boxes and a VTP layer 5 showing. Then when i left-click on one of the grid cells, i get an error saying that there is no "Photo Map under this tile".

I have no clue what a VTP is.

My aerial photos are in black and white.

RF
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Post by RF » Tue Mar 22, 2005 5:34 am

Hi Lurch;
The grid cell you click on must be completely filled by a portion of your photo. This eliminates visible borders.

The VTP layer value will determine where the photo lies in relation to VTP features such as roads, shorelines, etc. You would increase the layer value if you wanted the photo to cover overlying features.

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Luis Sa
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Post by Luis Sa » Tue Mar 22, 2005 5:51 am

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">

So far i've combined 9 aerial photos, seamlessly displayed on the LOD 13 grid. Is the grid what you are referring to as the "Map"?

However, when i hit the photo button a menu comes up with check boxes and a VTP layer 5 showing. Then when i left-click on one of the grid cells, i get an error saying that there is no "Photo Map under this tile".

I have no clue what a VTP is.

My aerial photos are in black and white.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Hello,

The FS earth is divided in LOD quadrants. The grid are the lines that delimit these quadrants. LOD13 quadrants near the Equator are rectangles with edges larger than 1Km (1,2Km by 1,6Km).

What we refer as a "map" is a bitmap with a photography of a certain region. You need to know the North & South latitudes of your map as well as the West and East Longitudes of your "map". If you do not know these values the "placing of the map on the FS world" (=creation of photo scenery) will be a guessing work.

So I assume you have a file called MY_PHOTO.BMP in some folder. Please see the discussion on some threads of today and yesterday about creating a ".TXT data file" . You need to enter 5 lines of text in your MY_PHOTO.TXT which must be in the same folder as MY_PHOTO.BMP. Your .TXT file could look like this one (5 lines!):

[GEOGRAPHIC]
North=24.762089238
South=24.639636589
West=-81.273538369
East=-81.075805377

Now start Sbuilder. Press New. Press OK. Press Map (in the toolbar). You get the "Open File" dialogue. In this dialogue you will specify the the path to your MY_PHOTO.BMP file. Press OK to exit the dialog and ...

... search for your map (photo bitmap) in the SBuilder display. It is there but it could be hard to find. Zoom in and out (with the mouse wheel) and pan (move the mouse holding down the mouse wheel) until you see your map.

Note - you can press the right button anywhere on the Sbuilder screen to access the properties of your project. You should read:

Maps = 1

You can press <F3> to see the grid that divides the earth in LOD13 quadrants. Or you can go directly to photo scenery creation by pressing Photo in the toolbar.

You can use VTP= 1 or 2 or 3 if the photo tiles are to cover water only

You can use VTP= 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 if the photo tiles are to cover land only

You can use VTP= 8 or 9 or ... if the photo tiles are to cover land and water.

Looking to the LOD13 grid and you map you will see the span of your map. You can only create a photo tile if "there is a map" for that tile. So you should click on tiles that are completly "covered" by your map. If you click elsewhere you get the message that you refer to.

For a start set Summer Only check box!

Tell us when you get it working!

Luis


PS - EDITED - here is a shoot where you can see the map (the photo bitmap) the grid (red lines) and some photo tiles on top of the map!


Image

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

Post by Lurch » Wed Mar 23, 2005 2:34 am

Hi guys,

I did the routine with the myphoto and myphoto.txt. And already have the lat/lon of each of 9 photos.

I started the myphoto routine from the beginning and the first photo was situated so that it didn't fill any LOD cells. So i made a 2nd photo and txt file and added that. Then i had at least 2 LOD cells filled.

BUT, when i click on the Photo button and then click on one of the filled cells, I still get the error.

It might be an install problem. I started with SBuilder 2.01 then downloaded the SBxxx.zip and installed that. After that, when i start SB, i always get 2 errors.
Region40 definition file not found
Region 80 Definition file not found.

I'm gonna re-install using 2.1

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