• 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.

FSXA photoreal creation

jyarddog

jyarddog

Messages
2,388
Country
us-washington
I've done this before but can't remember the steps OR.......... it won't work now because I jsut switched over to Acceleration.

I'm trying to do a photoreal bgl. Before Accel I beleive I had this in my work folder of SbuilderX ---

L10xxxxxxxxxxx.bmp
L10xxxxxxxxxxx.txt

If I then do "add map" I'd have a photo01.inf.
If I compile I still have all this plus a photo01.bgl

Put the bgl into my scenery.... nothing looks like it has changed.

either before or after, can't remember which, in the work folder I'd have the L10xxxxxxxxxxxxx.inf NOT photo.iinf.

Now - after accel install, I don't get the txt or maybe the txt but not any L10xxxxxx.inf.

Just a bit ago I think I got the filoename.inf and it had two sources... the bmp and the tif I made (doing the blend mask thing) but it would not compile.


Some have tried to help me in the past, but I have yet to get a step by step instruction.


I did this succesfully about 3 times, but now with Accel installed I can't do squat! And, yes, maybe accel has nothing to do with this.

When I installed accel it told me to dump my sp2. I did. Redid the istall. It then worked fine and runs fine. But now the "tools" option on my menu bar in the game is gone and I am having trouble trying to do photoreal.

I checked control panel- add remove progs. A new sp2 sdk in there along with accel also.

Back to XbuilderX.

1. start FSX
2. go to my scenery
3. start SbuilderX
4. new project name
5. view- show aircraft
6. show background- I get the sattelite image
7. FYI- at this point I have even right clicked the image and chose background and comiled just the background. This is basic but always worked. I put THIS bgl into the scenery and even THIS doesn't show any change anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8. Add map - choose- from background.
9. select all maps
10. compile
11. Put the new file called photo01.bgl (haven't change filename yet) into scenery..... absolutely no change.

Tried as before to take the bmp into my pain program and blend mask it and save as filename_B.tiff.

Work folder now has the filename.bmp filename.tiff No filename inf and/or no filename.txt

There must be something missing I am not doing which causes txt and/or inf file not to show. If I do maps I get a photo01.inf but not filename.inf.

Since accel I have spent two days trying to do photoreal and failed. I can't even get as far as I used to with bad results!!!!!!! Bob
 
Look at the photoreal BGL in TMFViewer. That will tell you if the BGL is ok.

Dick
 
Dick- Thank you for the reply. btw- e-mailo notification didn't work! Might be my machine.

I have such a hard time trying to navigate around in TMviewer, but I'll try.

I just now this AM went back to my Accelereation disk and went to SDK and started up the sdk.msi. Big scary warnings.... did it anyway.

After a reboot I went to SbuilderX and redid background and compile as bgl.

Before no change. Now- bingo it worked! So either it is solved or I am on the right track. I'll do some further work to see if map compiles tool Will advise here. Again thanx for your help.
Bob
 
Now nothing works again. background will not compile, map will not compile.

Actually I should say this......... Either way, whether I compile background -simple method- or map.... I see the DOS window pop up and go through it's work with all the numbers. At the end I have a photo01.bgl

I place this bgl in my active scenery and start FSX. When I get there I see abolutely no change at all. None.

Is this what I am to expect with FSXA? Bob
 
Jim- Do I REALLY have to fess up? I was hoping I could get away without having to.

Am I going to git it for this one- boy and howdy!

Ok- ......... I forgot to activate my scenery. Yep- I deserve laugh, gafaw and neener, neener, neener! Bwahahaha! Bob
 
Bwahahaha! :)

Seriously I can't count how many times I've pulled my hair out over something like that. My personal and current favorite is exporting an updated model and then starting the sim only to see that after all that work nothing looks any different. It's because either a) I forgot to recompile the new model into the library .bgl, or b) I forgot to copy my updated textures to the texture folder.

Glad you got it sorted (Bwahahaha!)

Jim
 
Yep- Sometimes I'll compile something to a bgl from SbX Shut down FSX - start it up again and as you said- forgot to install the new bgl in the scenery - only to realize this AFTER the game is running.... you take a look and your brain goes...."What the..."? :)

If you ever do make over this way- let me know. Our band usually practices on Sundays. Bring friends. When we break for lunch we can go to the Cabin Grill across from the airport. Years ago I did Ione Airport for FS9. Boy did I ham it up! Opa helped me on that one. Turned out fine - albeit 100 times more complicated that it truly is. It's on AVsim.

Sometimes teh photo has a bit hazy look to it. That's where I can't do zilch about.... trying to change that so it more closely matches the default colors. Need to take classes on PSP and how to manipulate colors. That should take a few years or so. :) Bob
 
I'm sort of planning to come over once all this damn snow, mud, etc is gone, according to my calculations that should be sometime in June or July :) . Gotta love livin' in this neck of the woods - two seasons; July and winter! I'll definitely let you know and we'll hook up for sure.

jyarddog said:
Sometimes teh photo has a bit hazy look to it.
Click to expand...

I don't know squat about PSP but I know what you mean about the hazy look. Grab a couple of your landclass tiles out of the Scenery\World\Texture folder, convert them to 24 bit with imagetool or something so you can get them into PSP. Lay them on top of your imagery and then play with contrast, saturation, brightness, hue, color cast, and/or whatever else you can find to try to make the imagery roughly match the landclass tiles.

There's a plug-in for PhotoShop called Metrix, I think there's a version for PSP as well. Metrix does a fairly good job of making one image look like another with no more effort than a couple button clicks. Check out Dick's post (the 4th one) in this thread for more info on Metrix:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18417

Jim
 
Band practice most likely this Sunday.

Metrix- I don't think I can get any plug-ins for Corel PSP. Photshop maybe.

Would like to learn how to make seasonal changes... noow that I'm the greatest expert in photomaps the world has ever seen! :D Bob
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top