Eliminate Buildings-n-Trees on Low Tide Mud Flats

[aussibob1 4]

One of the things that has irked me in FSX and now P3D4 is placement of trees and buildings on the mud-flats that IRL are only visible at low tide in Westernport Bay near French Island, Victoria, Australia.

It's time for me to try my hand at scenery modification.  Would appreciate some step-by-step guidance (so my 73 year-old brain can cope) on how I can get rid of the mud-flat "islands" or exclude the placement of  trees and buildings on them. 

Bob

 

[GHD 21]

Can you be more precise? French Island is a rather large land mass.

If you can give lat/long I will investigate.

George

 

[aussibob1 4]

Hi George

Thanks for the reply. They are located in the Western Channel centered on 38-20S 145-15E.  and are most noticeable on flight ex Tyabb (YTYA) direct to Phillip Island (YPID).  They show up well on Google Satellite Image (Map) of French Island - look like islands and that seems to be the reason they "became islands" in the sim.

Bob

[GHD 21]

I can see only one autogen house in the sea:

Do you mean that on the large island?

Perhaps my 80 year old eyes are playing tricks on me 😆

George

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by GHD

[Jethro 65]

Hello Bob,

In FSX using FTX Australia and OZx AUS I have the same islands which probably should be more like  sandbar islands with navigation channel, displayed as shallow water with the sandbar mudflat if you will as a PR watermask. I don't see houses/buildings and trees in the water, but I do see Landclass islands. I don't know if anyone has developed the area for FS with a higher level of detail to show these as they are in GoogleEarth. What seems to be there at present are landclass textures over slightly elevated landmass, this is why it is displayed in the sim with rural farmland and small pockets of urban development. I believe it is the slight elevation that dictates the Landclass, what is needed is the shape of these sand/mudflats which are fairly accurate with PhotoReal watermask. Much like Orbx freeware Bowerman in the Pacific Northwest scenery. Orbx will soon have a V2 version of Australia which may offer you what you are looking for in this area, it is said to be of a much higher level of fidelity, we will see when it is released or when they are able to show beta shots before release.  

Here's a snapshot of what it looks like in my FSX setup, elevated Landclass as you see, not PR watermask as it probably should be for reality's sake.

I'm not a scenery designer but I would think you would need to redo the area in PR or Vector.

 

[aussibob1 4]

A bit more info ---  I am flying with ortho-scenery created by the modified version of Ortho4XP v1.3.  This excellent program creates ortho-scenery from Bing and other satellite imagery providers for use in FSX/P3D. Took a quick flight down to the "mud flats" and it is clear that P3D just creates these islands and covers them with (what the program thinks) are appropriate ground textures.  The straight/angular shoreline suggests that the islands are created by P3D - the shorelines in the ortho-scenery with their masks blend nicely with the water. Guess I just want these "islands" to disappear.

Bob

[aussibob1 4]

Hi Jethro

I should have refreshed the thread before I posted my last.   What you are showing is exactly what I am seeing and agree that I might have got it wrong about autogen houses and trees - I have never before made a low pass over the area.  Also, I have OZx AUS installed in P3D with the required library for P3D so maybe that is contributing to the issue. Don't really want to remove OZx because it adds so much but I might take it down for a while to see what effect that has. I was sort of hoping that a couple of exclusion rectangles or something would just eliminate these "islands" or maybe I should just look the other way when flying down there.

George 

Have a look at the images in Jetho's post - it shows what I want to get rid of.  With your 80yo and my 73yo eyes we are doing well staying up in the virtual sky. Cheers.

Bob

[GHD 21]

Well, you cannot just plonk down photo textures over an area where there are hydro polygons and expect it to work.

You need to exclude those polygons and shore lines then recreate them to match the photo textures.

George

 

 

[aussibob1 4]

I guess we are back at the start of this thread:

Its time for me to try my hand at scenery modification.  Would appreciate some step-by-step guidance (so my 73 year-old brain can cope) on how I can get rid of the mud-flat "islands"

What programs do I need - where do I start - what do I have to do to achieve what I want to do?

Bob

[GHD 21]

You need SBuilderX, try Google.

 

[aussibob1 4]

The weekend has been full of SbuilderX, ADEx, Youtube videos and tutorials BUT I have failed to eliminate those islands. Following a video tutorial, I created a base image covering the "islands", created a water mask as .tiff,and  created blend mask as .tiff; then compiled the bgl which all seemed to go OK.  Put the bgl into Addon Scenery\Westernport\scenery in P3D4. Went for a fly. As I approached the area i could see that "something" had been added to the area.  As I got closer and closer the "something" progressively disappeared and revealed the "islands" I had been trying to get rid of (see image). Guess I am not cut out for scenery creation/modification.

Bob

 

It sort of looks like only the base image was compiled and the masks did not work

 

Edited August 5, 2018 by aussibob1
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