http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/sbuilderx-textured-polygon-showing-as-black.435733/
I created a 1024x1024 BMP with the aereal photo and in SBuilderX 3.x I created a textured polygon and indicated it is a
Textured Poly rather than a (CVX) Vector Poly. I associated my BMP to it, compiled with the Textured Polygons checkbox enabled.
In my FSX scenery folder I see the corresponging _TEXTP.BGL file but when I fly the
textured polygon is showing as a black square (the shape of my poly). What am I missing?
Will there be a way to rotate the image in the workspace so that the shape of my texture matches the shape of the poly?
My shape image is a square (unrotated) but in the workspace the square poly is rotated so that its bottom side is at an angle with respect to the horizontal.
Hi Emilio:
You may wish to think of a "
Textured Polygon" created in SBuilderX as a 'mesh-clinging Ground Polygon' (aka "G-Poly"), or perhaps even as a 'user-configurable' tile of custom photo-real terrain textures.
IIUC, such an object is essentially the equivalent of a legacy (pre-FSX)
Vector Textured Polygon (aka "
VTP") object.
Such objects, when "draped" onto the terrain mesh, are 'attached' / 'anchored' to the (NW) corners of underlying QMID grid terrain vertices.
Terrain textures (like legacy XML exclude rectangles) are always attached to the "ground" via the N,S,E,W-oriented QMID quad-based terrain grid vertices as rectangles; the end-user "polygon" area functions as a 'mask' or 'hole' through which a mapped custom texture is allowed to be seen.
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EDITED]
By manually adjusting coordinate positions of the vertices for a custom "
Textured Polygon" in SBuilderX, one may change both shape and orientation of the 'mask' or 'hole' through which a mapped custom
texture is allowed to be seen.
IIRC, one may also be able to implement a Alpha channel 'blend mask' for such "Textured Polygons".
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ISTR that, like 'G-Polys', "Textured Polygons" also can
not be annotated with autogen as they are not mapped with default or custom "
land class"-type textures (which are otherwise required to be defined in the FS
Terrain.Cfg file).
To learn more about this method via SBuilderX's Help file:
....a.) Navigate
SBuilderX Menu > Help > SBuilderX Help > Search Tab
.....b.) On SBuilderX Help > Search Tab > 'Type in keyword to find': "
Textured"; click '
List Topics' button
.....c.) Under 'Select Topics to display' > click "
Polygons"
.....d.) In right-side window pane, review "
Polygons" -
Section 2: Textured Polygons
"
2. Textured Polygons with a texture of your choice
To use the Polygon Tool, select it in the Tool bar, then click on the SBuilderX workspace to draw it. When you have finished, right-click to end drawing.
To assign a Property to the Polygon, right-click on the edge of the Polygon and select Properties from the menu:
{IMAGE not attached}
In the General tab, you can give the Polygon a name, set its altitude if needed, change the drawing order of a Textured Polygon, and select the type of Polygon."
NOTE: VTP polygon
layer for the "Textured Polygon" is represented by a number entered into the "
Priority" text field on the [Textured Polygons] tab configuration GUI dialog box.
AFAIK, assigning this VTP
layer for the
drawing order of a "Textured Polygon" is the equivalent of what we may do when "placing" a G-Poly or legacy VTP polygon.
"
Textured Polygons
If you prefer to use a custom texture for your Polygon, select the Textured Polygon type:
{IMAGE not attached}
Select the texture, tiling, visibility and other options. Once you have selected the texture, it will display in the preview window with a representation of the Polygon on top. You can move the Points of the Polygon so as to only display a part of the texture."
NOTE: One of the "
other options" referred to above is of course, the VTP polygon
layer for the "Textured Polygon" ...assigned by a number entered into the SBuilderX "
Priority" text field on the [Textured Polygons] tab configuration GUI dialog box.
BTW: You may wish to utilize MIP-MAPs in your BMP photo-real aerial image mapped onto the custom "
Textured Polygon"; these can be added via FS SDK ImageTool.
[
EDIT]
The textures mapped onto "Textured Polygons" should be placed in a local paired \Texture sub-folder below a 'top folder' that also contains the \Scenery sub-folder with the BGL output by the (SCASM or other ASM) compiler (...which is added as an "active" layer in the FS scenery library).
Perhaps when one has set the custom "Textured Polygon" VTP layer at a
higher '
Priority'
number than other default or other 3rd party "VTP"-type BGLs which cover that local Geographic area, the "Textured Polygon" may be able to display '
on top' of other terrain textures in FS at run time
? 
PS: I haven't personally had time to test this yet, but one might wonder whether SBuilderX "Textured Polygons" may be a QMID grid
quad-based tile system also capable of
very high resolution mapped texture display tiles that are "mesh-clinging" for 'un-even' terrain mesh areas ...unlike "G-Polys" (which are flat- or 'nearly flat'- after G-Poly edges are pivoted to correct for the "curved Earth" 3D world model).
Perhaps SBuilderX "Textured Polygons" may prove, in some scenarios, to be a viable alternative to "G-Polys"
? (...as was recently alluded to in the latter part of this thread):
http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/getting-coordinates-from-existing-bgl.435585/#post-726746
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Hope this helps !
GaryGB
