water shorelines and lakes on photoscenery

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matabhaine
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2009 12:35 pm

water shorelines and lakes on photoscenery

Post by matabhaine » Fri May 27, 2011 5:20 pm

Apologies for asking this, I used SbuilderX a while ago. Play horizons announced the release of Scotland scenery so I stopped creating my Scotland scenery, I had done the major cities and some rural stuff. I didn't know it would take them years to make the scenery, so I find myself starting over, I am from Scotland and love flying over places I have been and live; especially with photo scenery.
Anyway, I want to add shorelines taken from google satalite photos, I would like to replace the tile water shoreline images with fsx default water, lochs/lakes aswell. Now I used to know how to do this, I used the various tutorials online and received help from this site, but now I cant seem to find the tutorials I used before. I have done some extensive searching. I have found things but they don't really help.
I used to use photoshop to create a black and white masks but I have forgotten how to create them, or the rules are a bit sketchy, how to make the gradient which bitdepth, and how to make water appear where lochs/lakes are. I hope I'am not being a pest but if someone can profer some simple guidelines I would really appreciate it.
I actually deleted the scenery I had done before, when I heard Aces had been closed, knee jerk reaction, should have kept it, I spent six months with photoshop creating all the shorelines and correcting seasonal adjustments with certain tiles, I also placed trees where they should be. You live and learn and I learned my leason.

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

Re: water shorelines and lakes on photoscenery

Post by luisfeliztirado » Sat May 28, 2011 1:27 pm

It's not really clear what you mean by shorelines. The images from Google are just pictures - there is no essential difference between the water areas and the land areas as far as FS is concerned.

Unless, that is, you add a Water Mask. Perhaps that is what you mean. If so, then please see the following tutorial that will answer your questions:

Make photo-real ground textures in Flight Simulator X
available in the Avsim library
http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?Ca ... LID=140539

Best regards.
Luis

matabhaine
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2009 12:35 pm

Re: water shorelines and lakes on photoscenery

Post by matabhaine » Sat May 28, 2011 6:41 pm

sorry maybe i did go on abit, I wanted to do a blend mask, I think? I want to cover the google map tiles where the googlemap tiles display the water with a blend mask to show fsx default water where the googlemap static tile showed the water. now, I believe i make a tiff file, greyscale, 8 bit, I am using gimp for this. the tiff must be black to hide thew google tile water part of the tile and pure white to display the fsx scenery below, now its the grey gradient bit I dont understand, to make the line drawn between the water and land of the google tile seem more faded out than a sharp line that cuts along between land and water of the google tile, i hope i am making sense

thanx

matabhaine
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2009 12:35 pm

Re: water shorelines and lakes on photoscenery

Post by matabhaine » Sat May 28, 2011 6:41 pm

ps thanx for the dl link, i was having trouble dl'ing it b4, dl'd ok this time

cheers

matabhaine
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2009 12:35 pm

Re: water shorelines and lakes on photoscenery

Post by matabhaine » Sat May 28, 2011 6:45 pm

i will give the tut a try and report back any probs i have, thanx for the help

all the best

old grey dog
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed May 04, 2011 11:06 pm

Re: water shorelines and lakes on photoscenery

Post by old grey dog » Wed Jun 15, 2011 4:31 pm

I have been constructing photoscenery for Scotland.

I am particularly interested in being able to land and take off from water using float planes. However, when I have compiled photoscenery which has bodies of water that I understand are purely images, they behave as solid ground. In other words they lose the underlying water properties.

I have attempted to recreate the hydro polygons by creating polygons the shape of the body of water, defining them as "Hydro_Generic_Lake_Perennial" and assigning an appropriate altitude. The resulting BGL compiled file is copied to the FSX Addon Scenery folder, but when FSX is loaded up they do not appear.

What am I doing wrong?

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

Re: water shorelines and lakes on photoscenery

Post by luisfeliztirado » Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:13 pm

You must add a Water Mask. Please consult the SBuilderX Help file (on the Help Menu) for more information.

You should also please read the following tutorial:
Make photo-real ground textures in Flight Simulator X
available in the Avsim library
http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?Ca ... LID=140539

Best regards.
Luis

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