Sandy shores???

[Guest cwright]

>Lastly, may I repeat an earlier appeal paraphrased, would >anyone be willing to help me better understand what steps >are required to generate a "api" file using FSREGEN for use >in FS Scenery Creator and >Airport tools? George, fsregen lets you turn your Gmax objects into a library file. But there's a key piece of information that lets you convert the library objects to macros for use in Airport. Here's the API:; ------ Rome, stpeters------------------------------ Area( 5 %1 %2 %3 ) mif( %12 ) IfVarRange( : 0x0346 %12 5 ) mifend CrashIndirect( :Object :Shadow :Rotate 0 0 ) PerspectiveCall( :Persp ) ShadowCall( :Shadow ) Jump( : ) :Persp Perspective :Shadow mif( %11 ) RefPoint( 2 :EndP %4 %1 %2 v1= %10 E= %11 V2= 190 ) melse RefPoint( 7 :EndP %4 %1 %2 v1= %10 V2= 190 ) mifend :Rotate RotatedCall( :Object 0 0 %5 ) :EndP Return :Object CallLibObj( 0 3EBEDF6C 11D2F072 1000849C 2AE60C5A ) Return EndA This is a default object (St Peter's, Rome). You can use this directly in Airport. Note the four hex groups near the bottom (they're known as GUID numbers). For other objects you simply change the GUID numbers as appropriate. fsregen can show the GUID's for any standard FS2002 library object. When you create your own library objects with fsregen you define the new GUID's (of course they must be unique). Having done that, simply create new macros as above with the appropriate GUID's. Best regards, Chris

[Guest Claviateur]

No problem Geogre :)Bob's idea is intersting in the dimension of recreating a new photoreal ground layout if I am not mistaken. this can be useful if you have to reshape the whole spot land there. I agree with Arno about the distribution size limitation and that makes me hope that MS will give us the needed tool to do what we want to do without turning the globe 20 times to change a small thing :)Let's pray all together scenery designers with sceneries on hold like mine ;)Cheers!Michel

[Guest]

Well folks,Guess this thread is about exhausted, appears some of you have been readdressing this very issue over a period of time. So no use beating a dead horse.However, and thank you CWRight, for the code example, as I mentioned in another thread .......what I would like to figure out iswhat "steps in what order" are required to produce the final api that Airport can use.As I mentioned to Arno in the thread just mentioned.. I am not sure how to create/output the file generated by fsregen in the library tool screen (I assume) to have the proper code stored in the file that will be named file_name.api. It would appear that the output code found in that file (created from a asm file ....that was generated by makemdl) contains code that does not look like what is found in the many api files I have looked at once it is generated and put into a file_name.api file in the output screen of Library Tools.So I am not sure where I would put the scasm code you offered me here as an example into the fsregen api file.Could you explain the steps taken within a email file addressed to me?If the answer is no, or I get no response, I assure you there will be no ill feelings generated.cheers :-) George B.

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi all.I agree with Bob Bernstein. If the area requires extensive reworking, and the area is limited to only a few LOD13 areas, why not do a photoreal, and keep the whole thing simple?On the other hand, we do have some options, now:We have FS2002 flattens, that can be used to dramatically alter the elevation of an LOD13 area, as I demo-ed above. Flattens can also be used traditionally to level the ground under an airfield.We can place flat water.We can place mesh-hugging ( CFS2-style ) water. By using skinny TMF polys of this type, we can have streams and sloping rivers, with all the water characteristics we expect.We can have mesh-hugging ground-terrain polys ( decals ). Skinny polys of this type can be used for shorelines, roads, rails... not with the same look as FS2002, but useful. ( MS's Oshgosh used a fuzzy brown road for a rail-line... we won't do any worse than that! )These decals may use any bitmap, by a modification in the TMF macro given to us by Christian Stock, or may use the traditional ground-terrain textures ( and those will change with the seasons ). Decals could cover the landclass designation for any sized or shaped area, giving us freedom from the square confines of an LOD13 landclass tile.If you need a flattened TMF Decal, just place a decal over a TMF flatten. Or, if desired, place it over elevations you altered radically with a TMF elevation bgl.In this view, Arno is right, as a whole nation could be altered with TMF files, at an incredible savings in memory usage... megabytes, not gigabytes, as few ( or no ) extra texture files are needed.Michel is also right, in that we need a simple tool to allow us to draw our TMF lines, coasts, lakes, and elevations. I do not believe MS will deliver such a tool to us. George is making an attempt with FSRegen, but a more specialized tool may be required.Traditional beaches, roads, and streams are still a mystery. I still think the key to 'cracking' that code lies in CFS2's files, as those TMF lines show better 'structure', and do work in FS2002. I'm suspecting FS2002's line TMF's are compressed. I think that's exactly what drove Christian over the edge.... but with the abilities we have with decals now, perhaps we don't need the TMF lines as much as we first thought.The easiest solution, right now, is to use photoreal. We understand it, it's straight-forward. You coud use ground-textures as a 'base' upon which to draw your scenery, or screen shots, or photos from space. In 6 months, TMF sceneries might be second nature, with easy to use tools... just like we now have with landclass tools. My suggestion for any prospective tool designer is this: Don't wait for an SDK. Don't wait for me or Christian, or anyone else to discover line structures. That could take a long time. We have enough 'secret' knowledge now to develop a great TMF polygon tool. George is right with FSRegen, in this regard. Perhaps we just need a more 'dedicated' TMF tool, with a slightly easier interface.Then the photoreal approach would no longer be the easiest solution.

[Guest]

Uhhhhh....I was under the impression that I'd layed this process out pretty completely in response to your request in another thread....Guess the joke's on me!Bob Bernstein

[arno 1]

I am working on a tutorial with pictures that will describe the progress. I hope that I can post it on my website this evening (or otherwise tomorrow).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]

Bob,I assure you no jokes or games where presented on my part. As you will see in a the newest entry I made in the "creating an API Filefrom Gmax........" I found out I misunderstood what you where communicating to me as far as generating a macro file that can be used by Airport...........whatever.This is all new to me, so some of the jargon you folks use may not at first be understandable to the non-expert.So if you miss my lastest response to you in that other thread let me say here I apologize for my ignorance in not understanding enought about scasm code generations etc., to read some of the information being presented in this forum. As you will read in that thread I found where I saw reference to using rsregen to create a macro file directly that could be used by Airport. I simply did not understand at the time what you and others where communication in how to create and alter by using a text editor a macro file that could be used by Airport..........but not obviously created by rsregen directly.And Arno, I look forward to seeing what you put together at your web site as indicated above. Thanks again to you both for helping others in becoming more familiar with some of the techniqes one can use to generate scenery.best regards,George B.

[Guest]

No harm done...good luck with ur macros.B

[Guest]

Thanks again for your patience, It really is a virtue.Now let us see if my pee brain can come up with some useful macros to read into Airport. Guess I should bite the bullet and just get involved in building asm files up using VI editor then compiling them into bgl files. best regards,George B.

[Guest christian]

I've always thought about the possibility that the lines may be compressed, and always came to the conclusion that that won't make sense. There just isn't enough line data to make it worthwhile to compress the lot IMHO.I think that the points are bit fields rather than bytes, and that makes them tough to crack.I think one of the keys is that each line segment has to be equal distant (to get correct texture mapping and wave effects).The other key is the possibility that the bitfields have different lengths. This would make it very hard to crack the code, but it should be possible...That's were I got up to before I quit...Cheers, Christian

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Christian.Good to hear from you. Yes, I'm where you were when you quit, and for now, I'm abandoning the FS2002 line code.I'm turning my attention to CFS2 code for lines. The bgls work in FS2002, and their code is much easier to read... the data is always a segment count byte, a point count byte, followed by sets of 4 bytes for the actual points... then the next segment's count and points, etc... I believe there is bit data, but the code is easier to read. I might make sense of that eventually. The bgls are not 'proper' FS2002 code, but the terrain engine reads them, just as it reads the strange mesh-clinging water TMFs of CFS2.I still believe the use of skinny TMF decals and mesh-clinging water would be a viable substitution for lines... we just need some user-friendly tooling. However, without tools to help designers, there will never be widespread acceptance of these techniques. Nobody likes working at the level of MASM or BGLC, not even experienced SCASM users.One of my reasons for studying this, was to eventually add lakes and streams to CFS2. This is probably not going to happen. There are 402,653,184 LOD13 tiles on the earth... about 120,000,000 tiles are landmass, capable of containing lakes, streams, and shores. I think I'll wait for CFS3, and hope FS2002 TMF bgls are compatable. The CFS3 designers have stated they will not 'detail' the world beyond the European WW2 theatre.*:-*

[Guest christian]

Hmm, maybe you can send me a CFS2 line bgl and what you have found out? I might have a look, but can't promise anything :)I was planning to add some functionality to ArcGIS. Then I can read topographical data and convert it directly to FS2K2 files. However, ArcGIS is quite expensive so that would only be a solution for me. But I still don't think I'm prepared to spend all this time for FS2K2 scenery, but maybe if I can crack the line decals without a mayor hassle, I may do some more scenery for FS2K2....Cheers, Christian