Need HELP !

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frankwi2
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2008 1:58 am

Need HELP !

Post by frankwi2 » Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:29 am

Thank you for your excellent tools. I never thought I could make photo scenery but I have made some good progress.

I am trying to make photo scenery for the island of Guam. The land tiles look great but now I am trying to clean up the ocean around the island. Ideally, I would like to make a transparent area around the island so that the default water shows.
PROBLEM.jpg
PROBLEM.jpg (37.89 KiB) Viewed 23531 times
I have tried making a polygon using SBX and another program called FSX KML. I have made exclude polygons, hydro polygons, waterclass polygons, you name it but I cannot get ANYTHING tto cover up the "bad" ocean areas. I even tried all the above at different altitude settings in the polygons.

I have also tried placing the land files in one scenery layer and adding the water files one scenery level higher. I tried all the different FSX terrain resolution levels, no luck.

If transparent masking is not available, I would settle for having one type of ocean all around to cover up the white areas.

Can someone tell me the exact steps to fix this ? I have read every forum message and tutorial I can find.

Do I make a waterclass? Do I need to exclude anything ? If I make a transparent polygon, do I want the color to white or black ?

I really look forward to your suggestions...

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luisfeliztirado
Posts: 436
Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 9:15 am
Location: Santo Domingo

Re: Need HELP !

Post by luisfeliztirado » Thu Nov 20, 2008 12:22 pm

Hello Frank,

Perhaps there is some confusion because FS X custom textures can display the water from the source image over the default FS water.

First, the white areas are probably due to your not having any Google or Virtual Earth images for those areas in SBuilderX. Lacking the images, SBuilderX will fill in the blanks with white. In order to eliminate the white areas, simply download more images from the image server.

Second, to display the underlying default textures, whether water or land, you should use a Blend Mask. This is simply a gray scale TIFF image, of the same dimensions as the source image, where pure white will be completely opaque (and should be over the areas, such as land, that you want to display), pure black will be completely transparent (and, if you paint the water as such, will display the underlying default water in game), and any gray scale values in between will be partially transparent.

WARNING: If you use a Blend Mask, you should either remove all pure white pixels from the source image, or remove the Null Value flag from the inf file, since Blend Masks and Null Values result in strange artifacts.

Perhaps, if you wish for a simpler way to make the image water completely transparent, without the use of a Blend Mask, you can simply take the source image and paint the water in pure white (RGB=255,255,255), and since the SbuilderX inf file sets the NullValue flag to pure white, that will result in total transparency in those areas. Then, compile the source image normally from within SBuilderX.

You may find, however, that this transparency will also reveal some parts of the default coasts, since they may not align perfectly with your new custom textures, in which case you will have to do some vector scenery modifications as well.

For further information on all these topics, please see:

Make photo-real ground textures in Flight Simulator X

http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?Ca ... LID=112595


Best regards.

Luis

frankwi2
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2008 1:58 am

Re: Need HELP !

Post by frankwi2 » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:01 am

Luis, thank you very much for the quick reply. I will use your suggestions and get back to you.

frankwi2
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2008 1:58 am

Re: Need HELP !

Post by frankwi2 » Fri Nov 28, 2008 4:26 am

"You may find, however, that this transparency will also reveal some parts of the default coasts, since they may not align perfectly with your new custom textures, in which case you will have to do some vector scenery modifications as well."

You were exactly right. I got the water looking good but now I have parts of the old coast visible. I tried reading more of the tutorials but have not had success removing them. I tried making an exclude_all_terrain polygon by itself, no luck. Tried exclude with a second polygon as Hydro_ocean, no luck. Tried flatten and exclude polygons, same thing. Could you help me again, Luis ?
Attachments
Coast Line Problem.JPG
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luisfeliztirado
Posts: 436
Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 9:15 am
Location: Santo Domingo

Re: Need HELP !

Post by luisfeliztirado » Fri Nov 28, 2008 9:48 pm

Hello Frank,

Congratulations on your progress. It looks very nice. I hope you don't mind a small comment - you can get rid of that blue tinge by a very simple procedure. Just first load your source image in any image editing program, choose Color Balance, and add a lot more yellow. Keep an image of the default ground for comparison. Then, go to Contrast and Brightness and add some Brightness - this will eliminate a lot of the dinginess, and your custom ground will look much better.

To answer your question, first please understand that the entire FS world is land, and there is only water if a Hydro Polygon has been drawn. Once you exclude the Hydro Polygon(s), it will all be land.

So, after excluding them, you must imperatively re-draw them in their entirety, only with the coastal outline correctly drawn, because if you don't, then land will be displayed anywhere you have left it uncovered.

You can use SBuilderX and the source image for your custom textures to do this. Here is a screenshot of the default cvx file as viewed in TMFViewer, where the appropriate Hydro Polygons are numbered - those are the ones that you must exclude and then re-draw correctly.
guam.JPG
guam.JPG (33.76 KiB) Viewed 23389 times


If you don't know how to do this, then please see the following tutorial:

Terrain Design for Flight Simulator X

http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?Ca ... LID=100997


Best regards.

Luis

frankwi2
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2008 1:58 am

Re: Need HELP !

Post by frankwi2 » Sat Nov 29, 2008 5:12 am

Thanks again for your quick reply, Luis. I think I know where I was going wrong before. I was taking the image, drawing a polygon where there should be default water, and painting it white. So far, okay. But then I drew the hydro_polygon on the same picture and compiled all at once.

Now I do the hydro polygon and compile it separate and it works. Now the only problem I have is the white lines that outline the hydro polygon. Also have the lines at map intersections.

I think I deleted a default blend mask file, if there was one.
Attachments
Coast Line Problem2.JPG
Coast Line Problem2.JPG (35.04 KiB) Viewed 23376 times

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luisfeliztirado
Posts: 436
Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 9:15 am
Location: Santo Domingo

Re: Need HELP !

Post by luisfeliztirado » Sat Nov 29, 2008 11:27 am

Hello Frank,

The "white lines" are the default Hydro Lines, i.e. shorelines or beaches. They also must excluded.

As for the lines at map intersections, perhaps you could show a screenshot of that as I am not sure to what you refer.

The SBuilderX Blend Mask is named "blendmask.tif" and can be found in: SBuilder X\Tools\Bmps.

Best regards.

Luis

frankwi2
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2008 1:58 am

Re: Need HELP !

Post by frankwi2 » Mon Dec 01, 2008 4:51 am

Luis, I wanted to show you the progress I have made.

The lines at map intersections was caused by the Paint Shop Pro software not filling in the top lines of the white water mask polygons. I manually corrected the problem.

I cleaned up the photo bmp's, color corrected and sharpened, made the coast exclude and hydro bgl's and now all is well.

Thanks for your generous and swift replies. I was about to give up on this project.

The next phase is to exclude Andersen AFB (where I was stationed from 80-82) and rebuild it to match the photo image. Then who knows, maybe some auto gen palm trees and moving road traffic.
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SUCCESS.jpg
SUCCESS.jpg (36.39 KiB) Viewed 23326 times

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luisfeliztirado
Posts: 436
Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 9:15 am
Location: Santo Domingo

Re: Need HELP !

Post by luisfeliztirado » Mon Dec 01, 2008 11:16 am

Excellent, Frank. Very good job. Just keep at it, and all will become more and more simple as you gain experience.

Best regards.

Luis

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