Sbuilder 3.10 Photoscenery question

[constant]

Well,

First of all, permit me to congratulate you for your efforts. This program is fantastic:) I'm new to this kind of design so I have many things to learn.

I managed in just seconds to connect the sbuilder with the google earth and to compile the backround photo of an area covering an airport directly into FSX as photoscenery. The problem for me is that I want to keep the photo detail strictly up to the fences of the airport - not outside. The program creates by default a rectangular area which is the backround image as viewed in sbuilder. So, what I wand to remove, is the photo detail of the area between the aiport fences to the rectangular borders.

Is there any way to let say edit the textures so as to fix this? and by the way where are the textures for the bgl that Sbuilder creates?:eek: The only thing I found was the jpg pictures from the google earth.:eek:

Thank you in advance for any response:)

Chris

[scott967]

1. You should find a file with a BMP extension in the Tools\Work folder which is the image made from the GE tiles.

2. To do what you want (crop the image around the AP boundary), I suggest using a graphics edit tool such as photoshop. I use a freeware tool GIMP. Using this tool you can load your BMP and convert it to grayscale (8 bit) and follow the example in the SDK to create a blendmask. You can then rename this and save it as a TIFF. You would have to edit the .inf file by hand to add the "multisource"

Here is an example. I took a photo map in SBX and compiled it. In tools\work it creates the file Photo01.inf (Photo01 is the default name in your project). Here is one I created:

[Source]
Type = BMP
Layer = Imagery
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "L15X37534X37540Y25022Y25029.BMP"
Variation = All
NullValue = 255,255,255
SamplingMethod = Gaussian
ulyMap = 39.1044888094406
ulxMap = 26.180419921875
xDim = 2.14576721191327E-05
yDim = 1.66551163832823E-05

[Destination]
DestDir = "."
DestBaseFileName = "Photo01"
DestFileType = BGL
LOD = Auto
UseSourceDimensions = 1
CompressionQuality = 100

Now just edit this as follows:

add first this section:

[Source]
Type = MultiSource
NumberOfSources = 2

then change the original:
[Source]
to
[Source1]

copy the whole Source1 section and paste it back in:
[Source1]
Type = BMP
Layer = Imagery
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "L15X37534X37540Y25022Y25029.BMP"
Variation = All
NullValue = 255,255,255
SamplingMethod = Gaussian
ulyMap = 39.1044888094406
ulxMap = 26.180419921875
xDim = 2.14576721191327E-05
yDim = 1.66551163832823E-05

change
[Source1]
to
[Source2]

change
Type = BMP
to
Type = TIFF

change
Layer = Imagery
to
Layer = None

change
SourceFile =
to the name of your blendmask (make sure it's in the same folder)

delete
NullValue =
and
Variation =
lines

Finally, go back to the original Source1 section and add this line:
Channel_BlendMask = 2.0

so your new inf is like this:

[Source]
Type = MultiSource
NumberOfSources = 2

[Source1]
Type = BMP
Layer = Imagery
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "L15X37534X37540Y25022Y25029.BMP"
Variation = All
NullValue = 255,255,255
SamplingMethod = Gaussian
ulyMap = 39.1044888094406
ulxMap = 26.180419921875
xDim = 2.14576721191327E-05
yDim = 1.66551163832823E-05
Channel_BlendMask = 2.0

[Source2]
Type = TIFF
Layer = None
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "blendmask.TIF"
SamplingMethod = Gaussian
ulyMap = 39.1044888094406
ulxMap = 26.180419921875
xDim = 2.14576721191327E-05
yDim = 1.66551163832823E-05

[Destination]
DestDir = "."
DestBaseFileName = "Photo01"
DestFileType = BGL
LOD = Auto
UseSourceDimensions = 1
CompressionQuality = 100

save this new inf and drop it on resample. That should create a new photo bgl file with the blend mask applied to it.

scott s.
.

[José]

Hi, scott

Thanks for this great tutorial.

Regards,

José

[constant]

...I was away from my pc for a few days:(

Scott thank you very much for your valuable and detailed help:) . I'm using paintshop pro XI so I'll try there the convertion and then I'll give it a try to what can I do.

Thanks again:)

Chris

[scott967]

It looks like Luis made it even easier, without having to manually create an inf file for the blend. Found this on the ptsim forum:
http://www.ptsim.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1060

To add blend masks or water masks to your custom ground, you can create them using the original image as a basis, and then save them with the same name, but using a suffix to indicate this. The files should be saved as TIF images, for example:

original image - L17X132735X132743Y90177Y90183.BMP

blend mask - L17X132735X132743Y90177Y90183_B.TIF
water mask - L17X132735X132743Y90177Y90183_W.TIF


so just create the 8 bit grayscale tiff like I suggested, save it with the original file name with "_B.tif" at the end like in the example, put it in the tools/work folder, and try a compile in SBX. I tried it and it works great!

scott s.
.