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FSX Malibu Creek State Park project

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Taylor

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Hello all,

I'm starting this thread to merge the discussion on this topic to a single location from here and here. My plan is to remake the M*A*S*H 4077th camp in its movie/TV outdoor set configuration in the former Paramount Ranch location, now known as Malibu Creek State Park.

As everyone knows, this project has been done before, only with a Korea location. Those guys did a great job, they just plopped the TV Series set configuration in a spot they guessed it belonged at, in 1950s Korea. This is all good for 'realism' sake, but it's not the MASH we all know and love.

I could simply relocate that project to where I want it to be, easy-peazy. Yet I can't do that. So I propose something better - making the scenery as a movie/TV set with all the props...a Paneflex camera, Kleig lights, etc.

I welcome all assistance and advice on this project.

Taylor

PS: GaryGB has made a .bgl for this region using a LiDAR image too large to upload here. I'll edit this post later with the file.
 

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Taylor

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I'll take a look at the data set this weekend, and will see if "portions" of that potential 4GB fully-decompressed size can be better localized to cover only the more scenic areas up to the borders of the urban areas at ex: road edges, so that the non-urban areas can be shown without an otherwise immense terrain mesh BGL file size.

It doesn't need to incorporate any urban areas, at most it should only include Malibu Lake. You can see from this screeny the actual 'camp' is relatively small compared to the large .bgl you made.
MASH Camp area.png



In theory one might still see a good result in FSX at run time using 40% compression for terrain mesh, but I'd have to check and see if the preferred existing 2 Meter mesh details are lost or distorted if a 40% compression is used in the BGL.


On a practical basis though, even with the fair-sized surrounding area already covered in the initial mesh file, it was only around 6.5 MB in size, so we should be able to easily cover much more of this interesting scenic area without incurring a huge terrain mesh file size hit. ;)

I'm thinking a bunch of other objects and texture will be added later, so keeping the base .bgl to a minimum is critical. I might want to add Malibu lake and the whole creek circling around the mountain though, just because I think it's integral to the natural layout of the land...we'll see.

Correct; this can be done using a graphics application ex: Photoshop / Gimp / Paintshop Pro / PhotoPaint etc. to edit copies of the original aerial imagery to create the seasonal variations ...and if desired, the optional night texture (aka "LightMap").

Haven't got around to the night map yet. I kind of like it all lit up after hours. This location is hard to find...need to work on all the airport comms and navs.

: When editing the copies of the original aerial imagery, one will need to NOT re-size the pixel dimensions of the BMP files, so that they can used with the same original Geo-referencing TXT file (which SBuilderX writes into the downloaded tile folder along with the original aerial imagery BMP file).

Well, we're not using original imagery now, so that doesn't apply.

Cheers,

Taylor
 
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http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/skewed-background-image-fixed.434423/page-2#post-714923

I'll take a look at the data set this weekend, and will see if "portions" of that potential 4GB fully-decompressed size can be better localized to cover only the more scenic areas up to the borders of the urban areas at ex: road edges, so that the non-urban areas can be shown without an otherwise immense terrain mesh BGL file size.

In theory one might still see a good result in FSX at run time using 40% compression for terrain mesh, but I'd have to check and see if the preferred existing 2 Meter mesh details are lost or distorted if a 40% compression is used in the BGL.

I'm guessing since you "don't want the file sizes to be ginormous", we might be setting a goal of having a terrain mesh BGL size of less than 500 MB (..or perhaps even smaller ?) :scratchch

On a practical basis though, even with the fair-sized surrounding area already covered in the initial mesh file, it was only around 6.5 MB in size, so we should be able to easily cover much more of this interesting scenic area without incurring a huge terrain mesh file size hit. ;)

It doesn't need to incorporate any urban areas, at most it should only include Malibu Lake. You can see from this screeny the actual 'camp' is relatively small compared to the large .bgl you made.


I'm thinking a bunch of other objects and texture will be added later, so keeping the base .bgl to a minimum is critical. I might want to add Malibu lake and the whole creek circling around the mountain though, just because I think it's integral to the natural layout of the land...we'll see.

Here's the actual extents of the current terrain mesh file which I provided thus far, which does already include Malibu Lake. ;)

lva85b6hzfxyav76g.jpg


Are you wanting to better define some feature of Malibu lake, or are you instead wanting to extend coverage outwards to include one or more of the other nearby lakes to the NW ...which also have a small island in them ? :scratchch


http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/skewed-background-image-fixed.434423/page-2#post-714923

CAVEAT: When editing the copies of the original aerial imagery, one will need to NOT re-size the pixel dimensions of the BMP files, so that they can used with the same original Geo-referencing TXT file (which SBuilderX writes into the downloaded tile folder along with the original aerial imagery BMP file).

Well, we're not using original imagery now, so that doesn't apply.

Actually, what I'm conveying is a helpful caution to not change the overall dimensions in pixels (rows and columns aka horizontal width and vertical height in pixels) of whatever aerial imagery is being used, once it has been downloaded and Geo-rectified (aka 'Geo-referenced') ...regardless what program or utility that aerial imagery source file is being used in, whether GIS / SBuilderX / graphics editing program etc.. :idea:

In the case of SBuilderX downloaded aerial imagery tiles, the BMP file is accompanied by a TXT file containing Geo-referencing information which has the same file name as the BMP.

If otherwise using ex: downloaded GeoTIFF aerial imagery from a USGS or other agency, any graphical editing is performed on "work" copies of the original files, one must FIRST back up the Geo-referencing information which is inside the GeoTIFF file itself, as well as in any accompanying TFW and PRJ files ...using a special GIS utility.

After any graphical editing is performed on "work" copies of the GeoTIFF aerial imagery opened as "TIFF" files (for ex: color-matching of adjacent tiles, creation of seasonal variations, creating a water mask in the 1st 2-bit Alpha channel, creating a blend mask in the 2nd 8-bit Alpha channel etc.), the Geo-referencing information must AFTERWARDS be restored inside that edited 'TIFF' file itself to convert it back into a GeoTIFF file ...using a special GIS utility. :pushpin:


Hope this helps clarify the workflow a bit more. :)

GaryGB
 
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scruffyduck

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This thread was going off topic and becoming personal. I have removed those posts that do not contribute to the topic and closed it.
 
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