Hello everyone, I'm new here :smile:I used Sbuilder (FS9 version) to make a photoreal scenery, but I got thisI don't know why the black borders are visible, because I activated the Alpha option in SBuilder and make the alpha channel in Photoshop for all the 61 256x256 bmp files generated by SbuilderHere the photo propertiesPlease help, what I'm doing wrong??? :(BTW: the bmp files are in format DXT1 with mipmaps, here the textureshttp://uploading.com/files/d1b258me/texturesbuilder.rar/I couldn't attach the file because according to the forum server I haven't permission to upload that file :huh:Greetings, Juan :(

A very rare thing happened to me today, or maybe it's normal???Well, I was trying to do the photoreal scenery again in SBuilder, I used the satelital image (original size: 23,7MB 1716x3633, 32bit with the Alpha channel included) I used the same photo properties (checked the Alpha map option) and when I checked all textures with the Imagetool I realised there's not alpha channel in the 256x256 textures :( I don't understand because I thought if the satelital image have the alpha channel, the 256x256 textures should have the alpha channel too, right????Please helpJuan

Anyone?

Hello Juan,Not having used FS 9 in many years, the following may require confirmation from others.From the FS 9 SDK:Correcting Images that Contain Black Borders Some of the images may contain a black border. This happens when the image source doesn’t fully cover a terrain cell. Each terrain cell falls on a multiple of 360/32768 degrees latitude, which is 0.010986328125 decimal degrees and 480/32768 degrees longitude, which is 0.0146484375 decimal degrees. To prevent this from happening, use the [Destination] directives NorthLat, SouthLat, EastLon, and WestLon to define the exact area to fall on a cell boundary within the source image.That is one possibility. Another is that you will have to integrate the alpha channel into the textures separately. From the same SDK:Converting .tga Files to .mip FilesThe resampler creates standard .tga files that you can correct and modify in most imaging software packages. Once you have adjusted the images to your satisfaction, they will need to be converted to the custom format used by Flight Simulator. Use Imagetool with the –terrainphoto flag for the conversion. This will tell Imagetool to create mipmaps, compress the texture using DXT1, and set terrain-related flags in the image header.Run imagetool.exe with the following command line format:imagetool -terrainphoto [inputfiles]Imagetool will process the bitmaps and produce .mip files (one for each bitmap file you named as an input file on the command line). Before they can be used, you must copy the .mip files into the correct texture directory (as defined below) and rename them so that they have a .bmp extension. And you may also have to integrate the alpha channel. I do not remember if SBuilder does any of this for you, or if it sends all the correct information to Resample.Best regards.Luis

Thanks Luis, I'll take the 2nd option ^_^But there is a way to calculate the CellXdimensionDeg and the CellYdimensionDeg values???

Hola Juan,There are numerous tools that can provide this information. I often use LODcalc version 1.02 by Richard Marklew, that used to be in the Avsim library, but may have disappeared after the problems last year. However, it can be provided on demand.But, mostly I use the incredibly varied and powerful utilities by Dick Ludowise (rhumbaflappy), also in the Avsim library. They are also extremely useful. Just search for them - essential for all scenery designers.I am not sure what the problem is with your project - it could be that the image does not exactly fill the LOD boundaries and anything extra is displayed as black, but it seems more likely that your transparency is not present. There are also other tools for integrating the transparency into the source image, including, I suppose, ImageTool that comes with the FS SDK.Best regards.Luis

Luis, you speak spanish?? then can we talk in spanish please?? my english is not so good :rolleyes:Que tal es el TCalc de Richard Ludowise?? supe que ese da esos datosWhat about the TCalc from Richard Ludowise?? I know that it gives those values

Hola Juan,Como puedes ver a la izquierda, vivo en Santo Domingo. Todo lo de Dick Ludowise es excelente, puedes confiar en sus utilitarios. Sin embargo, me parece que tu problema tiene que ver con las transparencias de las texturas, y no con los limites de la cobertura.Hace tanto tiempo que no me ocupo de FS 9 y de verdad no me recuerdo muy bien del proceso para crear estas texturas. Tampoco me parece haber usado SBuilder para ese proceso, así que no soy el mejor indicado para darte indicaciones. Segun las instrucciones, hay que incluir un "alpha map" pero no sé si requiere de un nombre específico para este. ¿Has intentado llamarlo "alpha map"? Tambien parece que debe ser una imagen 8-bits, es decir de 256 colores solamente.Tiene que haber una solución facil, no desesperes.Luis

Tenias razon Luis, era el alpha map :(Problem solved :smile:Gracias y saludos desde Venezuela