autogened trees with custom scenery

[Guest]

I came across a couple of trees-only autogen files in the cities folder. Associating one of these agn files with my custom forest areas produced somewhat pleasing results. Out of a 2300+ custom texture area, I used 900+ agn files. Though the trees do not recognize the roads, things don't look too bad while we wait for the SDK. Also, I avoided associating the agn file with any texture tile containing water.Rickhttp://cc.ysu.edu/~rick/agn1.jpghttp://cc.ysu.edu/~rick/agn2.jpghttp://cc.ysu.edu/~rick/agn3.jpg

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hello Rick.Can you tell us exactly what you did ( step-by-step )?

[Guest]

My custom scenery originated with Terrascene 2. Initially, I pulled generic textures from FS2002 and replaced the FlyII textures used by TS2. The reason I mention this is because I then used TS2 to regenerate the .tga file for the scenery area with autogen in mind. This time I specified no color or texture for all areas with the exception of water and forest areas. For water I selected blue and for forests I selected yellow. I then regenerated the .tga file with these options under TS2. Next I converted the .tga to the requisite .bmp and used Terrabuilder to define the extents and generate the .inf file. Resampling then resulted in texture names that matched the custom area of the same extent. Using Windows XP in "thumbnails" view mode I then mass selected all texture tiles that had yellow with no blue (i.e., all forest areas with no water). After selecting all such areas (CTRL+left mouse), I cut and pasted all texture squares into a new folder. Using a combination of DOS commands and MS Word as my editor, I then built a DOS batch file to copy the selected tree autogen file to all corresponding autogen files associated with each of the selected textures (e.g., 003101201330100an.agn, 003101201330101an.agn, etc...).Again, I processed about 2300+ textures in just over two hours, which really isn't too bad considering the manual procedure. Unfortunately, I renamed the original tree .agn file upon discovering it. If you'd like, I'll attempt to track down its original name.Let me know if the above helps and if there are any areas you'd like me to go into greater detail.Rick

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Rick.Sorry to bug you. In effect, you copied an autogen file and renamed it to match the custom textures... correct? Then each custom forest texture had a correspondingly named agn file in the same texture folder?If this is so, then autogen is available for custom and photoreal textures!:-jumpy

[Guest]

You are correct in that I copied an existing .agn file for each of my targeted custom forest textures. However, placement of objects (in this case trees) within a custom texture is not possible (i.e., precise placement is dictated by the predefined agn file). This will hopefully come with the SDK.If my memory serves me, the current process was discussed/presented over in the Terrabuilder forum just prior to the avsim format change.Rick

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Rick.My area of interest is customized local ground textures ( replacing default ground textures ) to be used with local landclass bgls.Your info would leaed me to believe that local autogens are also possible... simply following the naming convention within a localized texture file.

[Guest]

Yes, if I understand you correctly, the procedure would be the same.Rick

[Guest Claviateur]

That is interesting, in fact what I discovered last time while checking Imagetool parameters for batch files convertions is that one can specifies the texture to be a ground texture. I think this means we can draw any ground texture or scan any aerial shot and if we convert it and use it in the custom meshes or landclasses we will get autogen to put objects over it. Now how we can specify what objects we want remains another little thing to discoverCheersMichel

[Guest]

>My custom scenery originated with Terrascene 2. Initially, >I pulled generic textures from FS2002 and replaced the FlyII >textures used by TS2. The reason I mention this is because >I then used TS2 to regenerate the .tga file for the scenery This is exactly what I'm planning to do with TS2. Can you tell which textures you were using from FS2002 - what were the resolution settings etc?Jussi

[Guest]

Jussi,you may be interested in my Autogen post in the Terra build forumScreenshot of Custom Autogen over custom tiles attached