• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

MSFS [GUIDE] How to create custom aerial scenery

Messages
49
Country
us-colorado
That makes me so sad. I'm trying to see if there's a zendesk request to give us options to exclude photogrammetry at the moment. What a bummer.
 

rhumbaflappy

Administrator
Staff member
Resource contributor
Messages
5,932
Country
us-wisconsin
Are you using multiple small exclusion polygons? That might not work, as the TIN photogrammetry uses multiple instances, and their origin points may be somewhat removed from your exclusions. Generally, one huge exclusion polygon does the trick.
 
Messages
49
Country
us-colorado
Are you using multiple small exclusion polygons? That might not work, as the TIN photogrammetry uses multiple instances, and their origin points may be somewhat removed from your exclusions. Generally, one huge exclusion polygon does the trick.

I'll give that a try, but my assumption was that it was not TIN data that was causing the issue due to
So it seems that photogrammetry in this area around KBDU is limiting my CGL space to a very small area around the airport.

Was hoping someone had found a way around this, but it essentially looks like there's no solution?
 

rhumbaflappy

Administrator
Staff member
Resource contributor
Messages
5,932
Country
us-wisconsin
This worked for me;
XML:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<FSData version="9.0">
    <Polygon altitude="0.00000000000000">
        <Attribute name="UniqueGUID" guid="{359C73E8-06BE-4FB2-ABCB-EC942F7761D0}" type="GUID" value="{D4B4A06A-9C6E-439C-B1DF-A5D64ED9DCA3}"/>
        <Attribute name="FlattenFalloff" guid="{5548FDB5-2267-4328-8E6F-FD0A45ADEC8F}" type="FLOAT32" value="0.000000"/>
        <Attribute name="LandClassRemap" guid="{0A685EB0-0E01-44FE-B9EF-BFFFBC968ADE}" type="UINT8" value="2"/>
        <Attribute name="ExcludeTIN" guid="{18B58CBF-AE02-4A19-8AA9-3809E8E73400}" type="UINT8" value="1"/>
        <Attribute name="Layer" guid="{9E2B4C3E-7D84-453F-9DCC-B6498FF46703}" type="UINT32" value="1"/>
        <Attribute name="WaterType" guid="{3F8514F8-FAA8-4B94-AB7F-DC2078A4B888}" type="UINT32" value="0"/>
        <Attribute name="TreeBrightnessFactor" guid="{63040596-0B21-48FD-8B5F-A9E84A5B7BC9}" type="UINT32" value="124"/>
        <Vertex lat="40.02498263046691" lon="-105.32496835251642"/>
        <Vertex lat="39.94294359325389" lon="-105.25535482798192"/>
        <Vertex lat="39.98196705754882" lon="-105.15497372092349"/>
        <Vertex lat="40.08408201002807" lon="-105.16270017312637"/>
        <Vertex lat="40.09617432449672" lon="-105.28696078313470"/>
    </Polygon>
    <Airport groupIndex="1" groupID="1" groupGenerated="FALSE" state="Colorado" city="Boulder" name="Boulder Muni" ident="KBDU" lat="40.03936674445870" lon="-105.22608876228300" alt="1609.95299999999997" magvar="348.000000" trafficScalar="1.000000" airportTestRadius="10000.00000000000000" applyFlatten="FALSE" isOnTIN="FALSE">
        <Aprons/>
        <PaintedElements/>
        <ApronEdgeLights/>
    </Airport>
</FSData>

Untitled.png
 
Messages
49
Country
us-colorado
This worked for me;
XML:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<FSData version="9.0">
    <Polygon altitude="0.00000000000000">
        <Attribute name="UniqueGUID" guid="{359C73E8-06BE-4FB2-ABCB-EC942F7761D0}" type="GUID" value="{D4B4A06A-9C6E-439C-B1DF-A5D64ED9DCA3}"/>
        <Attribute name="FlattenFalloff" guid="{5548FDB5-2267-4328-8E6F-FD0A45ADEC8F}" type="FLOAT32" value="0.000000"/>
        <Attribute name="LandClassRemap" guid="{0A685EB0-0E01-44FE-B9EF-BFFFBC968ADE}" type="UINT8" value="2"/>
        <Attribute name="ExcludeTIN" guid="{18B58CBF-AE02-4A19-8AA9-3809E8E73400}" type="UINT8" value="1"/>
        <Attribute name="Layer" guid="{9E2B4C3E-7D84-453F-9DCC-B6498FF46703}" type="UINT32" value="1"/>
        <Attribute name="WaterType" guid="{3F8514F8-FAA8-4B94-AB7F-DC2078A4B888}" type="UINT32" value="0"/>
        <Attribute name="TreeBrightnessFactor" guid="{63040596-0B21-48FD-8B5F-A9E84A5B7BC9}" type="UINT32" value="124"/>
        <Vertex lat="40.02498263046691" lon="-105.32496835251642"/>
        <Vertex lat="39.94294359325389" lon="-105.25535482798192"/>
        <Vertex lat="39.98196705754882" lon="-105.15497372092349"/>
        <Vertex lat="40.08408201002807" lon="-105.16270017312637"/>
        <Vertex lat="40.09617432449672" lon="-105.28696078313470"/>
    </Polygon>
    <Airport groupIndex="1" groupID="1" groupGenerated="FALSE" state="Colorado" city="Boulder" name="Boulder Muni" ident="KBDU" lat="40.03936674445870" lon="-105.22608876228300" alt="1609.95299999999997" magvar="348.000000" trafficScalar="1.000000" airportTestRadius="10000.00000000000000" applyFlatten="FALSE" isOnTIN="FALSE">
        <Aprons/>
        <PaintedElements/>
        <ApronEdgeLights/>
    </Airport>
</FSData>

View attachment 85498

Holy cow Dick you figured it out - so there must be something going on with the TIN data that's preventing the CGL, even though Asobo said the TIN data shouldn't matter?

I'll be looking into this tonight - my appreciation, seriously... this has been a multi-week struggle for me.
 
Messages
49
Country
us-colorado
Welp that was it... one gigantic polygon simply with "Exclude TIN" and it works. No clue why Dev Support said TIN no longer affects CGL as that's obviously not the case. Seems that you can forcedraw the automated buildings as well and it'll still work... bonkers.

Thank you - I owe you a digital beer.
 
Messages
1,956
Country
unitedkingdom
Is there any way to have auto LOD/zoom like the resample had?

I have 60cm/pix ortho that I can't get to show up over the really old but higher res streamed photogrammetry which is lod/zoom 19.

the reample bgl always allowed higher priority.
 

FoxtrotScenery

Resource contributor
Messages
79
Country
netherlands
I think the only way to do this is to sample your data at a higher resolution maybe? So export the xyz tiles at zoom level 19 despite it not being that high a resolution
 

rhumbaflappy

Administrator
Staff member
Resource contributor
Messages
5,932
Country
us-wisconsin
What I do is to use QGIS to make a GeoTiff of the imagery. I can then create a batchfile to automate the processing of the GeoTiff to a project output.
C59_Aerial.zip

Just double-click on CompileGeotiff.bat and wait for it to finish. The GeoTiff image appears in a field east of C59. I made minimum 13 and maximum as 20.

Untitled.png


Bash:
rmdir .\TestTiles /s /q
rmdir .\Packages /s /q
rmdir .\PackagesMetadata /s /q
rmdir .\PackageSources /s /q
rmdir .\_PackageInt /s /q

tools\GTiff2Tiles\GTiff2Tiles.Console.exe --input art\Hello.tif --output TestTiles --minz 13 --maxz 20 --tms FALSE -c mercator

tools\tiles2bing.exe TestTiles /o PackageSources\CGL\aerial_images /y google

xcopy "tools\CGLBuilderConfig.xml" "PackageSources\CGL\"

tools\fspackagetool.exe C59AerialProject.xml

pause

The batchfile uses GTiff2Tiles to make the Google tiles, and tiles2bing to make those tiles compatible with MSFS. The tools are included in the link. Just edit the batchfile and your project's XML to get your aerial from a geotiff.
 
Messages
1,956
Country
unitedkingdom
Thanks, but if I use QGIS to export my 60cm/pix geotiff as level 20, it's 44000 tiles and the file will be over 4gb. It's a huge area, and doesn't need to be any more than 60cm/pix.
I can exclude TIN and it gets rid of half of the older ortho, but not all.

As shown the red ortho is the level 19, which disappears once sufficiently far away. I can't exclude all of it with the no TIN poly. Only some for some reason.
 

Attachments

  • KELP_MSFS_ISSUE_3.jpg
    KELP_MSFS_ISSUE_3.jpg
    394.5 KB · Views: 64
Last edited:
Messages
1,956
Country
unitedkingdom
Here is it with the No TIN poly removed. It is an absolute mess. If I could just use my BGL from P3D and AUTO LOT it, it'd be fine. I can't fix this without making 400mb of tiles compile to LOD 19 and becoming 4.5gb!?
The area highlighted is my Layer 19 ortho, which does overlay the red ortho.
 

Attachments

  • KELP_MSFS_ISSUE_4.jpg
    KELP_MSFS_ISSUE_4.jpg
    305.3 KB · Views: 62

rhumbaflappy

Administrator
Staff member
Resource contributor
Messages
5,932
Country
us-wisconsin
If you want to overlay an area with LOD19 or 20, each tile is still 256x256. If your area is huge, then the compiled package will be huge. There isn't any way around that. That's why Asobo came up with the idea to stream tiles, rather than have the whole world as a compiled package.
 
Messages
1,956
Country
unitedkingdom
Indeed, but the streamed ortho at LOD 19 is very old and red looking, not having the ability to override it with native LOD 18 (as is the most recent) without forcing upscaling doesn't make sense.
 
Messages
1,956
Country
unitedkingdom
Is it necessary to add LOD 13 min in addition to LOD 19. even on a small area, MSFS just hangs.
With only the LOD 19, it's over in a minute or so. All the resultant tiles are added to one folder in CGL.

The SDK literally has one line on CGL creation.

Also will it make a difference if I remove all empty/black tiles? Or are these simply not compiled into the package?
 
Last edited:

rhumbaflappy

Administrator
Staff member
Resource contributor
Messages
5,932
Country
us-wisconsin
I routinely remove the black tiles, as they are completely transparent. You can make the Min and Max as 19. I had a problem with far distance viewing in a project, and setting the min to 13 resolved that. But you might not need 13-18.

I use Paint.net to edit the geotiff, if it needs work. On export as tif, it retains the geotiff characteristics. I think Gimp also can also save geotiff.
 
Top