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Creating A Lake

falcon409

falcon409

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687
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us-texas
To be more specific, I want to duplicate the lake areas on the photoreal scenery I have placed at Yellowknife. There are quite a few large and small lakes around the airport that are a distinct part of that area and will make this project quite nice if I can accomplish it.

Currently, I have the photoscenery, a flatten an ABexclude and autogen placed around the airport. I have read tutorials that make it sound very simple, but none of them address placing a lake over photoreal scenery, they all talk about placing a lake in the default landscape and I suspect it's quite different and probably why those techniques do not work.

Any suggestions?
 
From my last attempt (long ago) the release of fsx did not allow the placement of a shapefile based polygon over photoreal.

I think you may be left with doctoring the photo to include your new lake, and doctoring the blend layer to define the new lake as water.
 
Too bad, I kinda suspected the photoimage was the main reason this wouldn't work. Oh well, on with the show. Thanks Bob!
 
Hi,

You can add a watermask to your photoreal, it is like an alpha channel, but instead of transparency the parts will become water. Check the terrain SDK for details and samples.
 
Golf-HotelDelta said:
That is an option only if you have the original bit maps.
Click to expand...

True, but from the question I had the impression this was about some custom made photo scenery, not about some downloaded project.
 
arno said:
True, but from the question I had the impression this was about some custom made photo scenery, not about some downloaded project.
Click to expand...
That's exactly right Arno. This project has been start to finish, done in SBuilderX. I am doing Yellowknife in Canada and the lake system just north of the airport is a major part of the area and being able to actually add water and not a doctored image would really complete the project. Everything I've tried thus far has been a bust though.
 
If you have the bmps for the area, from this, create a new greyscale tiff file where the land is painted white and the water is painted black.

Then, modify the .inf file to have a [Source2] section referring to the tiff file.

eg.

Code: 
[Source]

Type = MultiSource
NumberOfSources = 2

[Source1]

Type = BMP
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "16_000026.bmp"
Layer = Imagery
Variation = All
NullValue = 255,255,255
ulxMap =  34.453125
ulyMap =  35.7465122599186
Nrows = 4096
Ncols = 4096
Xdim =  2.14576721191406E-05
Ydim =  1.74230526938067E-05
PixelIsPoint = 0
SamplingMethod = gaussian
Channel_BlendMask = 2.0

[Source2]

Type = TIFF
Layer = None
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = 16_000026.tif
ULXMAP = 34.453125
ULYMap = 35.7465122599186
xdim = 5.23868948221207E-09
ydim = 4.2536749740739E-09
Nrows = 4096
Ncols = 4096
SamplingMethod = Gaussian

[Destination]

DestDir = "G:\Maps2Bgl\Maps2Bgl_X\bglcache"
DestBaseFileName = "16_39040_25792"
DestFileType = BGL
CompressionQuality = 80
LOD = 5,15

The .inf file should be in one of the SBuilderX subfolders, probably "SBuilderX\Tools\Work"

Search for make_photo-real_ground_textures_in_fs_x.zip at Avsim and read "multi-source inf file"
 
Last edited:
Golf-HotelDelta said:
If you have the bmps for the area, from this, create a new greyscale tiff file where the land is painted white and the water is painted black.

Then, modify the .inf file to have a [Source2] section referring to the tiff file.

eg.

Code: 
[Source]

Type = MultiSource
NumberOfSources = 2

[Source1]

Type = BMP
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "16_000026.bmp"
Layer = Imagery
Variation = All
NullValue = 255,255,255
ulxMap =  34.453125
ulyMap =  35.7465122599186
Nrows = 4096
Ncols = 4096
Xdim =  2.14576721191406E-05
Ydim =  1.74230526938067E-05
PixelIsPoint = 0
SamplingMethod = gaussian
Channel_BlendMask = 2.0

[Source2]

Type = TIFF
Layer = None
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = 16_000026.tif
ULXMAP = 34.453125
ULYMap = 35.7465122599186
xdim = 5.23868948221207E-09
ydim = 4.2536749740739E-09
Nrows = 4096
Ncols = 4096
SamplingMethod = Gaussian

[Destination]

DestDir = "G:\Maps2Bgl\Maps2Bgl_X\bglcache"
DestBaseFileName = "16_39040_25792"
DestFileType = BGL
CompressionQuality = 80
LOD = 5,15

The .inf file should be in one of the SBuilderX subfolders, probably "SBuilderX\Tools\Work"

Search for make_photo-real_ground_textures_in_fs_x.zip at Avsim and read "multi-source inf file"
Click to expand...

SBuilderX already does that internally, by modifying the tiff file extensions with a "_B" for a landmask and "_W" for a watermask. I've watched the compiler and the inf file has both tiff files incorporated in the compile, no need to go in and modify anything. As mentioned several times now, I've tried all that and it does not work. The photoimage seems to override anything I try.
 
Do you see the default landclass on your lakes? If so, you need to create a mesh-clinging hydro-poly over the area. It need not be accurate, here is one I did earlier.

Tiffs:



Hydro-polys and exclusions:



and in FSX:



Note. I used SBuilderX only to create the polygons, I used Maps2Bgl to create the photoscenery but it should be the same in SBuilderX
.
 
Golf-HotelDelta said:
Do you see the default landclass on your lakes? If so, you need to create a mesh-clinging hydro-poly over the area. It need not be accurate, here is one I did earlier.
Click to expand...
Ok, just to verify what I'm doing, as your question about seeing the default landclass prompted me to think, "how would I see the default if it's covered by the photoimage?
So to answer your question. . .no the lakes I see are those that are part of the photoimage. There were no lakes on the default landscape before I started this, that's why I'm trying to put them in.
 
That suggests that your water mask hasn't been included in resample.

What does the photo-scenery bgl look like in TmfViewer?



If there is no default lake, you will need to add a mesh-clinging hydro-poly.
 
The scenery is done in two sections. The main airport is one image and the lakes are the second image. This is the lake section in TMfviewer:
ScreenHunter_02Sep181221.jpg
 
falcon409 said:
The scenery is done in two sections. The main airport is one image and the lakes are the second image. This is the lake section in TMfviewer:
Click to expand...
There doesn't seem to be a water mask present.

I'll try it with Maps2BGL.
 
OK, I see what has happened. The tiff in SBuilderX is a generic white blendmask which will cause all of the photo-textures to be displayed. You need to edit the bmp file and paint all of the land white and all of the water black. Convert it to greyscale then save it as a new tiff. Edit the inf file and replace

SourceFile = "blendmask.tif"

with

SourceFile = "Myblend.tif"

Rerun resample and the water will show through, or the default landclass if there is no default water.

I have created an SBuilderX background for Yellowknife using YahooSatellite and I will create the bgl tomorrow.

SBuilderX already does that internally, by modifying the tiff file extensions with a "_B" for a landmask and "_W" for a watermask.
Click to expand...
I don't have a "_B" or "_W". How can it automatically work out where the water is ? :confused:
 
Last edited:
Here is the compliler as it was running:
ScreenHunter_02Sep181746.jpg


The B/W extensions are added as I save the masks. The compiler picks up the file number and any additional files with the extensions, then compiles. The problem is, even though they show to be running correctly, the end result doesn't bear that out.

I have noticed that if I look close at the water areas, the animation is evident, but it's also not being contained by the water mask because it shows in the area that I laid the hydro poly on, not just the lake itself.
 
One more image. This one now with the watermask evidently in place, but still nothing showing in the sim:
ScreenHunter_03Sep181902.jpg
 
Looks like you have a water mask on the one lake.
turn up your water effect slider? You should see some ripples/specular effects and be able to land a float plane on it.
 
We have water:
ScreenHunter_04Sep182132.jpg

Only problem I see now is that water shows beyond the area that was masked (note the thin opaque white strip around this side of the lake). The mask seems to have trapped all the water area for most of the lake except the side adjacent to the airport, which just happens to be where the other image overlaps.
 
Got the bleedover fixed and completed the other smaller lakes and ponds, so now Yellowknife has a full compliment of water where it should be and many thanks for that goes mainly to George (Golf-Hoteldelta). Thanks for the push in the right direction. It feels good to know it can be done, lol. Thanks also to Arno and sruddy for stepping in to assist as well.

Now to get back to learning FSDS and completing the terminal I started, lol.
 
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