New York Buildings Project.... But Help Needed First!!!

[Guest]

Hi,I've just started a project to add some (more) authentic buildings to Manhattan, but I've come up against a very basic problem that I can't solve.Gmax is fine, texturing the buildings is fine, importing them to FS2002 is also fine, but I cannot figure out how to use the EXCLUDE line properly in the scenery.cfg file.I want to remove all of the generic buildings from Central Park South, but the coordinates I'm using seem to only remove a few of the buildings. My line looks like:Exclude=N40 46.00,W73 58.85,N40 45.82,W73 58.40,objectsBut I want to know if I can include more than two points in the exclude line. I'm assuming that the above instructs flightsim to exclude an area of which those two are the diagonal opposite ends of a rectangle - but the area excluded in flightsim doesn't correspond to the above coords. Any help would be greatly appreciated!In the meantime, here's a pic of the three buildings I've added so far (not yet textured). The Essex House Hotel, Carnegie Hall Tower and the Cityspire building. Rich

[Guest]

I just re-read that and I can see that it didn't make much sense. But it doesn't matter because I've found out how to do the exclude properly.The Essex House hotel now lies properly on Central Park South without any buildings in front of it. I have another question now though, regarding glass textures.I am not looking for a transparent texture, but more a reflective texture (as are found on aircraft, oceans). I have a building which is primarily glass. I have a photo I can use for the texture, but it is reflecting a lot of cloud. Would it be possible to get flightsim to apply its own reflections to the texture? or is this not possible with buildings? I must admit I haven't seen it anywhere before but on aircraft/oceans.Rich

[Guest]

Sorry, I can't help with the reflective texture, but I have a question for you. How did you end up getting the exclude to work. The only way I can do it comfortably is through Airport 2.60. That creates an exclude bgl file that takes care of everything. And it lets you do up to 10 (I think) exclude areas.

[Guest]

The exclude (as described above) worked but it didn't exclude objects where I expected it to. I found out that two exclude lat/lon coordinates do refer to opposite corners of a rectangle.Exclude=N40 46.00,W73 58.85,N40 45.82,W73 58.40,objectsThe first coords refer to the 'top' left-hand corner of the rectangle, and the second set of coords refer to the bottom right-hand corner.For some reason I assumed that the sides of the rectangle corresponded to the layout of the Manhattan streets. What it actually does is exclude a rectangular area with the top/bottom of the exclude area running perpendicular to East/West...It's quite annoying actually - and as far as I can recall you can't use more than one exclude area using this method. If I were you, I'd stick to using Airport 2.6 excludes. I might actually use them from now on, because it would be a lot easier, and I wouldn't lose so many extra buildings.

[arno 1]

I am not sure what you mean with the reflections, but when you add an alpha channel to you texture and add the texture name to the material editor as reflective, Fs2002 adds the reflection for you. But you can not determine what FS uses to display the reflection.Arno

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Member Netherlands 2000 Scenery Team[a href=http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen]http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen/banner.jpg[/a]

[Guest]

Hi Arno,I think that's what I want. What I'm looking for is for glass buildings to look shiny in the sunlight, depending on what angle you're looking at them from.Rich

[Guest]

Arno, I've just realized that using the alpha channel still works to provide transparency. If I wanted both transparency and reflectivity, I'd need a different way to do transparency. Have you ever acheived both selective transparency and selective reflectivity from within the same texture?Bob Bernstein

[arno 1]

No Bob, the only way I found to do that is giving the whole material a level of transparancy from the material editor and then using the alpha channel for the reflection.Arno

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Member Netherlands 2000 Scenery Team[a href=http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen]http://home.wanadoo.nl/arno.gerretsen/banner.jpg[/a]