Exclusion of vegetation autogen

[Guest PF2006]

Hi there,I'm using EZ-Landclass to put some towns near airports in Nunavik, running FSX SP2 DX10 on Vista 32. I choose the #117 "Small City Suburban Grid Wet" on no more that a couple of square and it gives a good similarity with the nordic landscape and aspect of northern township. Except for one thing: the vegetaton. The autogen machine makes bushes, trees and forests appear where there should be only rocks, ice and snow (very, truly hard winter there!).To be clearer, I wanta landclass with houses and small buildings but no vegetation.So, is there a way to exclude vegetation from the autogen system ( the annotation file for the landlcass. I guess) ?If so, how do you do that ?Is there a tool to do that apart those from the SDK ?By the way, is there a way to create a "small town nordic landclass" that can be used with EZ-Landclass ?Thanks for any help.PF

[scott967 62]

Haven't tried this at all, but my guess would be you could create custom annotation files that you would place in the paired texture folder. You might also need to copy the default textures as well. AFAIK, only the SDK autogen annotator is available for this in FSX.scott s..

[Guest PF2006]

Thanks, Scott967, for your answer.I'm going to try this if I ever find the default texture. Can you give me a hint where and how I can identify the needed file(s).Thanks again.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

There are different things that you can try.First of all, you should realize that land class is a means of painting with broad brush strokes. It covers relatively large areas and is probably best when used as a backdrop for more detailed methods.Therefore, the use of Small City Suburban Grid Wet is perhaps not ideal. You might try using instead a land class type that better represents the countryside, perhaps something like 40 - Cool Grasses and Shrubs, 42 - Cold Grassland, or 64 - Heath Scrub.Then, draw the urban areas as PKX (park polygons), only assign an urban value to them. This will give you a precise control over the location of the buildings and you can use something for these polygons that is more appropriate for the type of buildings that you want, such as Medium City Urban Grid Wet, since the Suburban types are mostly fields and woods. You can use SBuilderX for this type of detail work, and for the land class also.You can also change the ground texture that is displayed for a land class value by simply creating a new region file. For example, some of those mentioned above look differently in the I - Arctic Region:Perhaps those ground textures will look more appealing. It is easy to create a region bgl. Use the Raw file from EZ-Landclass if you wish and change all values where you want another region's textures to the value for that region. For example, the Arctic is region I which has a value of 8. So, just change your land class values to 8 and save your file with another name, such as "Nunavik_change_to_Arctic_Region_file".Then, take the inf file and change the Type to Region, make sure that the Destination has a different name from the land class file, run it all through BGLComp, and you will have a new region file covering just that area and displaying the ground textures for the Arctic instead of the North American region.There are other perhaps more complex methods but this may give the results you want.Best regards.Luis

[Guest PF2006]

Hi Luis,Thanks for your answer.If I took some time to come back to you, it is because I read many times your post and tried to undestand it, Alas, if I'm able to catch the general idea, I must confess that I'm lost when it comes to ways and means to do it. SbuilderX does'nt work very well for me. I'm not able to get a background image (tile) with enough details for what I want to do. And if I want to get a map, It disappears just after calibrating it. I'll have to go back reading how to use it! Opening a *.raw file in a graphic tool gives me only a little dot with no property to change. Is there a another way to do it? How and where do you change a region value?Ans I'm going back to your tutorials...PF

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

I understand, it can all seem overwhelming at first. All I meant was to suggest a simple, direct solution to your problem.You are trying to represent a landscape that, I imagine, is essentially Arctic tundra by using Small City Suburban Grid Wet. But, that land class will display a lot of fields and forests, and therefore autogen vegetation. So perhaps you could avoid the problem completely by just not using that land class value.Instead, you could use a more appropriate type such as: - cool grasses and shrubs - grassland - heath scrub - or even tundra!None of those will display a lot of unwanted trees.Now for the small villages, you could then draw in a polygon using SBuilderX that will represent their exact location. Assign an appropriate land class value (one of the small urban wet probably) and you are done.However, if you are unable to make SBuilderX work, then perhaps you could provide more details as to that problem. Many people use the program so there should be a solution.The advantage of SBuilderX is that you can make the land class and draw the town polygons at the same time.On the other hand, the land class in FS does not really represent small Cree or Inuit villages very well. So, instead of drawing a polygon, maybe you could also use the Object Placement Tool (or SBuilderX if you can get it to work) to simply place some of the default objects such as the shacks or log cabins or others (there is an amazing variety of small buildings in there.) As you see, there are various way to approach the problem.In any case, trying to create supplementary autogen annotations, as you initially indicated, may be a complex, tedious, and difficult solution compared to others, and not something that I would recommend to a beginner.As for the region file, please disregard the recommendation; that is really reserved for very advanced scenery designers. Although it is not particularly difficult to do.Best regards.Luis

[Guest PF2006]

Hi Luis,Actually, TmfViewer indicates that Barren Tundra (53) and Bare Desert (8) landclasses are used in the Nunavik region north of Qu

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

I can understand the lazy part, as I suffer from it myself. But, you asked for it. How to remove autogen vegetation from ground textures?1. Very easy method - add the following to the fsx.cfg file in the [TERRAIN] section: TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=0This will block display of all autogen trees and bushes everywhere in the world, not just in Nunavik. Maybe not what you want, but it is easy and quick.2. Long, tedious, complex (but not difficult) method – change the autogen annotations for the land class value used in your local Nunavik scenery only, thereby removing vegetation only in that location: - first read Using the Autogen Annotator, available in the Avsim libraryhttp://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?&DLID=107335This document describes the use of the Autogen Annotator; - then, determine the ground texture used by that land class value. Land class values are not the same as ground texture names, so you will need an equivalency table.From the table, you will see that Nunavik is in region B – North America, and that land class value 117 - Small City Suburban Grid Wet displays ground texture 045b; - copy all the Summer variants of that texture (045b2su0.bmp through 045b2sue.bmp) to your Nunavik folder, along with all the annotation files (045B2an1.agn through 045b2ane.agn). Make sure to place them in the texture folder, that is, in Nunavik\texture if that is the name you are using, or whatever it is called; - Launch the Autogen Annotator and load the first ground texture (the bitmap) in your Nunavik folder: - select all the vegetation annotations (the green rectangles) and delete them, then save the annotation; - do this for all the ground textures until the sue variant (have fun!) - delete the ground texture bitmaps from your Nunavik folder, they are not needed. FS will read the bitmaps from the FS\Scenery\World folder and their autogen annotations from your Nunavik folder only for your scenery, while keeping the default annotations for the rest of the world.3. Better, more realistic method – do not use polygons to indicate villages and don’t modify annotations to remove vegetation. Instead, place default objects where you want villages. For example, FS X has a collection of shacks that will look better and do not have any trees:How to make a region fileThere are probably different reasons for making a region file for scenery: - so as to display different ground textures from the default. For example, all of France has its own region – L – but the Northern part of the country might resemble region A – Germanic, while the Southern part might look more like N – Western Mediterranean. Just make a region file changing to that; - so as to display different autogen. For example, land class 145 – Deciduous Tree Crop will display date palms in parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, coconut trees in the Pacific, and olive trees everywhere else. But, I wanted coconuts in the Caribbean. How to get them? - Make a land class file using that land class value, - then use the same land class file (in EZ-Lanclass if you wish), and remove everything that is not Deciduous Tree Crop, - change 145 to the desired region, in my case, region H – Pacific which is value 7 (A=0, B=1, C=2, and so on) - and save the file with another name (“changed region file” or something). - Then, open the inf file (in the SBuilder X\Tools\Work folder) - and change the type (Layer) from LandClass to Region, - change the name of the compiled file in the Destination section, - compile using BGLComp, - and the result is a new region file that only changes the region over that land class value and displays coconuts in Caribbean scenery.Easy.Why do you not get any object text files to load in SBuilderX?SBuilderX is rather fussy about the format of its files, and will not tolerate extra spaces or characters. As it happens, I made those text files for SBuilderX and they have worked for me and everybody else, so please indicate if you have made any changes to the file(s) at all. Please try re-installing just the lists from the SBuilderX zip file.The lack of images does not prevent the lists from appearing in SBuilderX, so it does not matter if the Extra Large F.B.O. listing does not have a corresponding image.I have made the images for a large part of the objects, i.e. the F.B.O.But they are too voluminous for me to post somewhere as I am on a slow modem connection.Best regards.Luis

[Guest PF2006]

Oh boy, thanks a lot Luis :( I've got a lot to do now and I'm going to put myself at work.About SbuilderX:I found the bug being that old problem of using a comma instead of a dot as a decimal separator. My system used the Canadian French language code and has a comma as a decimal separator. Just changing it to a dot solved the problem. I wonder if I'm not going to replace all the dot in your *.txt with a comma.I have a another point: if I draw a line and assign it as a road, it will show up in the game following the different altitude of the mesh without having to set this altitude for each vertice. But if I assign the freeway class to the line, it won't show in a case and in the other it will draw a trench with the altitude of 0. In the first case though, traffic will appear on the ground and follow the mesh landscape. Always being lazy, I wonder if there a way to give the freeway the capacaity to follow the mesh altitude without setting it for each point?CheersPF

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

A road line and a freeway traffic line are two different elements altogether.Road - simply a texture that resembles the surface of a road and will always conform to the mesh.Freeway traffic - will only display moving vehicles, never the road itself, and the vehicles will always conform to and follow the mesh.If you see a trench, then there is some mistake. Please see Terrain Design for Flight Simulator X for more information, available in the Avsim library:http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID...amp;DLID=100997Best regards.Luis

[Guest PF2006]

Hi Luis,I followed the #2 process in your feb 6th post and it seems that FSX does not read the *agn files in the nunavik\texture folder. It's the default *.agn files that are read instead. Indeed, if I copy the modified *.agn files over the default ones in the scenery\world\texture, I get what I want: autogen without trees. If I read you well though, it will be the same for all over the world where the particular landclass is used; this I don't want. Did I miss something?There is not much place for mistakes: after having copied the *.agn and the *bmp files to the nunavik\texture folder, I opened the Annotator and deleted all vegetation rectangles in all summer variations. It took me actually only a short time because there is a "select all" function that lets you select all rectangles of an autogen category. Checking the other seasons variations, I found that they had no more vegetation too. I saved the *agn files and deleted the *bmp files as suggested. I let the default ones untouched in the default folder.In SBuilderX, I opened a new project, got a background view, made a map over it, draw a polygon, assigned it the landclass ( I finally choose the "small city suburban grid dry" in relation with the 046B textures *), draw a couple of line for road and traffic (I finally got rid of the trench effect but don't ask me how I did it), put a couple of objects, enabled the "copy the bgl" function to the nunavik\scenery folder and compile every thing. Where could I do wrong?Maybe I should say that I have Ultimate Terrain and Ground Environment X installed. But as I said above, changing the *.agn files in the default folder did the job. So, I would be surprised if those programs were the problem source.Any idea?Cheers!PF* These are the ones that I used to modify the *.agn files.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Sorry, as usual I was not completely awake when responding. It happens more and more often unfortunately!First method - simple land class file: make a normal land class file, place it in the local scenery folder, then place just the modified autogen annotations in the local texture folder.For example, I made a new land class file:Then, I made new annotations with hipped roofs and conifers instead of regular autogen, placed just the annotations in the local texture folder:Second method - land class polygons: it seems that polygons always call both the textures and annotations in the World\texture folder, so there does not seem to be a way to create local annotations with them.Third Better, more realistic method

[Holger 0]

Second method - land class polygons: it seems that polygons always call both the textures and annotations in the World\texture folder, so there does not seem to be a way to create local annotations with them.

Hi Luis,local textures and agn files will be used if the same area is also fully covered by a local land class file in the same scenery folder. Obviously, that's sort of redundant then (compared to Method 1) unless you want both to change the local land class and need the spatial accuracy of polygons for specific classes or locations.And there's an additional quirk with water class: if you want a water class file to use custom textures the same area needs to be covered by a local land class file.Cheers, Holger

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Thanks very much for the additional information, Holger. I had noticed that during testing, but as you say it is completely redundant, so not at all an option.Best regards.Luis

[Guest PF2006]

Hi,I was wondering what you meant by "making a new landclass file". So, I used EZ-Landlcass and assign the #118 "small city suburban grid dry" class to the cell where the airplane was, let say , in Quaqtaq, compiled it and started FSX: Yeah! :( No trees in the polygons I had drawn before for this place in SBuilderX.Well... there were some in a steep slope. So, I read back the FS_X_Land_Classification_data_sheets and found that landclass #47 "dry woody scrub" was used in a steep slope. Using the same sheet, I found that texture 051b was related to that landclass. I, then, proceed to delete every vegetation with the annonator as already described. Then, with EZ-Lanclass, in the Quaqtaq landclass project, I just added lanclass #47 in a cell beside landclass # 118, started FSX: at last! there was no tree at all.And the scenery was limited to the drawn polygons. Ah, Luis, you insist on method #3. I did it some 2 years ago in a bush scenery with many camps all over Abitibi region in Qu