Winter Lake Ice

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi all.

Winter is upon us in Wisconsin! So, I thought a bit about seasonal lake ice in FSX. My solution is a bit rough, but could be refined quite well. It uses photoreal for ice.

[Source]
Type = BMP
Layer = Imagery
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "SouthernLakesIce.bmp"
ULXMAP = -88.828125
ULYMAP = 42.71484375
XDIM = 0.000526685393258427
YDIM = 0.000395903716216216
Variation = January,February,March
NullValue = 0,0,0

[Destination]
DestDir = "."
DestBaseFileName = "SouthernLakesIce"
DestFileType = BGL
LOD = 9,13
UseSourceDimensions = 1

This gives me "ice" as defined by the 24-bit SouthernLakesIce.bmp... it is just a solid color approximating ice covering the lakes, and all areas of the bitmap I do not want to display are black ( 0,0,0 ).

Here's my files:
http://webpages.charter.net/ludowr/LakeIce.zip

The planes even kick up snow on takeoff.

The greater the resolution of the "ice" bitmap, the more "refined" the masking can be.

Dick

 

[scott967]

Dick, now all you need are some ai iceboats to run around your lake.

scott s.
.

 

[Mace]

The greater the resolution of the "ice" bitmap, the more "refined" the masking can be.
Dick

That is really neat. I am wondering how you made the surface "hard" or "landable" but maybe that takes care of itself when it's a non-water surface. (??)

Anyway your .bmp facinates me. After I get my KSTL new runway scenery finished, I am going to take a long hard look at how to make a image file and have resample properly analyze it.

As of right now the whole process seems quite cryptic to me. People often post their inf's but rarely the source image file, which along with the inf is really key to understanding how to do this sort of image/resample.exe thing.

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Dick, now all you need are some ai iceboats to run around your lake.

scott s.
.

Hi Scott.

I thought about placing some ice fishing shacks! They might have to be as autogen, so they disappear with the ice in April.

Dick

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi Mace.

The ground surfacing is automatic with resample, unless you use a "channel" for the water. That can be an alpha channel in the image itself, or a separate image using a multisource resample.

The image in the zip was originally print-screened from TMFViewer. Then I altered it by selecting the water and "expanding" the selection areas in PaintShopPro. I then filled the water with an Ice-like color, and inverted the selection... and filled the background with black ( 0,0,0 ). Using "NullValue = 0,0,0" in the INF makes all black color ignored in the resulting BGL... and it is ignored, even leaving the default autogen in the non-rendered areas.

Dick

 

[rbell]

Hi Dick I've been trying to figure out the same thing. I just got FSX about 3 weeks ago and have a lot to learn. I've got a Champ in FSX now that is a repaint like one I used to own. It's on the lake where I live but I'm stuck water sking till I figure out how to freeze the lake.