I have searched the forums to no avail, so I am asking now. I have a high res sat image of a beautiul tropical island with great looking tropical water/reefs around it. It looks amazing in the sim, but I want to add the FSX water effects to the photoreal coral part. the island is in 2 parts, each image at just under 500 mb so I can still edit them.I have tried several different variations of grayscale, 8 bit water mask tiffs with the land being pure white and the water everywhere from light gray, to pure black and the results are still far from what I want. I did notice that when the water settings are on LOW I get the photoreal part showing, yet when I set them to HIGH the photoreal part is gone.I just want the great looking photoreal reef part showing, but with water characteristics, any ideas?

Hello Mr. Carr... :( The SDKs say that to get the fancy glitter effect ( as I call it) the file must be a 32 bit TGA format, with the alpha channel containing the water mask. I tried that and it didn't work. But what do I know about alpha channels and TGA files?I'm curious as to whether this really can be done, as I have some river water I want to keep the coloring with, but when I do that the float plane tends to come to an abrupt stop when landing!

Add a Channel_LandWaterMask as an 8bit tiff with the land pure white and the sea black.

Add a Channel_LandWaterMask as an 8bit tiff with the land pure white and the sea black.

That is exactly one of the things I did and the result was far from what I was trying to achive, but thanks for the reply though.From the image you can see the two sceneries and the result from the black/white channel_landWaterMask, which is too bright and washes out the detail from the original image on the right. Ideally I want the way it looks on the right, but as water with water effects. The image was talken with water effects at 1 high. If I set them to 2 anything, the coral effect is totally gone, any ideas on that one?LC, I'll give your method a try again, but like you I saw no results also.I really want to sail around the island over the coral imagery, there has to be a way.

My results were like your's, just a nasty blue haze over land and water. Got my spray effect when landing, but so far it's not been a viable option for me. If you do get the TGA setup properly PLEASE share the solution.

I am no expert on the matter, but it has always been clear that water effects change the color, and probably brightness and contrast, of the source image. It may also matter if the effects or shader files have been switched out for third-party replacements.Best regards.Luis

Some things to experiment with:1. Put hydro poly under your scenery in correct locations.2. Try using black/white watermask in addition to blendmask.scott s..

Scott, what do you mean by hydro poly under it? There is already ocean in it's place, am I missing something?Thanks again guys, but still no luck I get the distinct impression the SDK isn't accurate, at least not after acceleration or SP2. I followed the exact .inf example in there on this and the same results, very bright, unlike the image used as an example in the SDK which shows exactly what I am trying to do, very frustrating. The real sad thing is, I trtied it in DX10 more and was very impressed with the default water effects, especially the whitecaps, just wish I could get the reef to show instead of a blinding blue.for what it's worth here is my .inf in case anyone knows something I can change to get my desired results.[source]Type = MultiSourceNumberOfSources = 4[source1]Type = BMPLayer = ImagerySourceDir = "."SourceFile = "L17X259268X259312Y135181Y135214.BMP"ulyMap = -5.63375264024123 ulxMap = 176.050415039062 xDim = 5.36441802978516E-06 yDim = 5.33829238356257E-06Variation = DayChannel_BlendMask = 3.0Channel_LandWaterMask = 4.0[source2]Type = BMPLayer = ImagerySourceDir = "."SourceFile = "L17X259268X259312Y135181Y135214_LM.bmp"ulyMap = -5.63375264024123 ulxMap = 176.050415039062 xDim = 5.36441802978516E-06 yDim = 5.33829238356257E-06Variation = NightChannel_BlendMask = 3.0Channel_LandWaterMask = 4.0[source3]Type = TIFFLayer = NoneSourceDir = "."SourceFile = "L17X259268X259312Y135181Y135214_BLEND.tif"ulyMap = -5.63375264024123 ulxMap = 176.050415039062 xDim = 5.36441802978516E-06 yDim = 5.33829238356257E-06SamplingMethod=Gaussian[source4]Type = TIFFLayer = NoneSourceDir = "."SourceFile = "L17X259268X259312Y135181Y135214_WATER.TIF"ulyMap = -5.63375264024123 ulxMap = 176.050415039062 xDim = 5.36441802978516E-06 yDim = 5.33829238356257E-06SamplingMethod=Gaussian[Destination]DestDir = "."DestBaseFileName = "MCD_Paradiseisland"LOD = Auto UseSourceDimensions = 1 CompressionQuality = 100