• 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.

Making blend masks

GHD

GHD

Messages
12,244
Country
england
I use Paint Shop Pro to create blend tiffs from the main photo bmp.

Initially I paint a black area where I wish to see the default scenery then convert to greyscale, select the black area using the magic wand, invert the selection and modify with feather before filling the area with white.



This works after a fashion, but can anyone suggest a better method?
 
Hi George.

Lately, I bypass the blendmask by using the NullValue=0,0,0 ( black ). I then paint off the unwanted areas, choosing fencelines or roads as the border. It works pretty well. This way no alpha channel is needed. The magic wand helps select the borders.

I also paint water areas black, an let the underlying vector water display.

SBuilderX defaults to 255,255,255 ( white ) and that could work as well.

Dick
 
Ah, so you paint black on the bmp and the null value is, in effect, the mask?

I do use a blend mask for the water areas to allow some of the photo colour to appear in the water.
 
Hi george.

You can use both methods at once. SBuilderX INF files use the NullValue, and can specify a blendmask as well.

Dick
 
I haven't done any real testing, but it seems that when I use the "nullvalue" to mask off areas I don't want in my photo (I use 255,0,255) the resulting bgl is smaller than if I use the blendmask instead. I have to remember to turn "anti-aliasing" off for my paint tool in GIMP when I mask off my unwanted area.

I've experimented with different gradient tools in GIMP but can't really get what I want. I can visualize what I want so I suppose I could do a python script or something but it just doesn't seem worth it.

scott s.
.
 
Yes, I've tried Gimp and only once achieved an acceptable gradient. Unfortunately I can't remember how I did it. I'll try using the null value next time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top