LWM Tutorial Questions

[Guest]

I have been reading thru the tutorial by Richard Ludowise. I find the tutorial quite good, but a bit much for my meager brain, but I'll keep trying.I have two questions:I cant get the

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi David,I just downloaded the AreaFillWater.txt and tried to compile the example. No problems... just drag'n'drop onto the BGLC icon. Note that TDFMacros.inc, TDFHeaders.inc, BGLC.exe, and AreaFillWater.txt should all reside in the same folder."N30* 37.15' S26* 34.86" should, of course be "N30* 37.15' E26* 34.86".There's probably more than that wrong! Reread the AVSIM posts on LWMs, and you'll see that more info developed since the tutorial was written ( especially concerning multispanning, and extendedpolys ).Also, the macros need to be updated... click TDFMacrosDick

[Guest]

Hi Dick,Thanks for the advice, I had been doing that but it didn

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi David.The best course is to create a LandClass BGL to add the land. Landclass Assistant is fine. Use value #254 for the base value ( transparent ). Use one of the default values for the LOD13 Areas that need land added.The landclass BGL should be placed into a Project folder that has a 'scenery' sub-folder, but no 'texture' sub-folder, as that confuses the sim as to where the default ground textures are. I have a Project folder named "LandClass" that has just a 'scenery' sub-folder. All my FS2002 landclasses go into this folder.. at least the ones that use default textures. LandCalc can help you find the x, y location for those Areas that have no landclass.I'm not sure why CellGrid BGLs would crash your system, unless we are somehow overloading the CPU or video card. I've had no problems with FS2002 and CellGrid, but in CFS2, I've had a program crash or two... not always. I use WindowsXP, so I wouln't expect a system-wide crash, but I can see it happening in Windows98. I'm not sure why this would happen at all, but it's something we may need to pay attention to as more and more VTP sceneries are introduced. It actually could be that the BGL headerbounds are too great. The macro was very "quick and dirty" programing, to make the CellGrid as easily made as possible. BGL header bounds are something of a problem with BGLC coding. So a clever programmer may be needed to figure that out. If you get adept at BGLC programming, you could make your own code for grids that would tighten up the bounds ( if that is where the problem lies ).Dick

[Guest]

Thanks again for the advice, I have now shown all default land, and made a landclass file to cover the missing areas. I presume I now start trimming the coastlines. Is method 1 or method 2 from the tutorial the best way to go?Also, when you make the polygons for the coastlines, how to you actually decide where to place them. I understand how you find the coordinates from a paint program but for instance , can a polygon fill the whole of an area?.Hope this makes sense, its late and I've been sat here all day. Thanks again David ZZZzzzzz

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi David.An update to CellGrid problems. I'll get a crash of FS2002 when I change the time to night! This could cause all kinds of problems, as I believe my code is OK. There really is no reason time of day should crash because of the VTP polygons.One possible cause may be the texture type I used ( 8-bit mipped with alpha ). I'll look into that later.Dick

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi David and all.Users of the Cellgrid macros, to visually mark cells, can keep using the macros, but don't use them at night!It turns out VTP Method1 custom textures in FS2002 must have an entire seasonal/night set defined. And this definition nees a Semi-colon delimited string... not the comma-delimited the SDK stupidly mentions. Another SDK error.I'll release an improved GellGrid macro with the VTP Tutorial in about a week or two.In response to your question about the trimming of the Land/water... it's done with LWM polygons. They expose, or mask the landclass. They can have elevation set, or be mesh-clinging. You might want to trim with mesh-clinging, as you can use invisible LWM flattens later in the datastream to suppress the mesh.Dick