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akriesman

Terrascene and FS2002

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My sources are direct conversions of the FS2002 texture files. I've tried specifying 4.8 m/p in the texture settings, and it appears to have no effect.I've also tried to change the entire project output to 4.8, but that also does nothing (and actually after pressing the button within TerraScene, it thinks then reverts back to 7.5)Any tricks for getting it to work would be appreciated!-Greg

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Hi greggerm.Autogen is certainly possible. It needs to be assigned to the CUSTOM textures, with Annotator. If you have 1024 LOD13 slices, you'll need 1024 autogens.I'm thinking the resulting CUSTOM textures may be somewhat blocky, although I'm new to this. A real possibility is the use of the slices as templates for VTP Method2 polys and lines. If we'd need to spend all that time coloring seassons and placing autogen, why not use landclass numbers for textures with VTP2s?. They have the default autogen, and seasons, and night... Each slice is at 256x256 and we know it's location, so making 'cut-outs', or 'tracings' for VTP2s seems a time saver overall. An extra benefit is the use of default groundtile textures... no texture overhead!The points could even be derived from within FS2002 using my cellgrid, and TDFcalc3.There may be newer programs very soon to allow the loading of a slice, and making a list of points with mouse-clicks... Ken "WeBad" Nelson already has a modest program of that type.The VTP2s would allow you to use the existing landclass... so you'd just be adding to that. Or you can override the landclass. Small towns, for example, might need a base of decidious forest, then lines of streets. Or you might want a block of CUSTOM for the town, and have autogen placement for, say, 4-8 texture slices. Make a CUSTOM landclass BGL that can place just the cities...Slices could be made of the streets alone, then use textures converted from the DXT1 defaults, and layer or paste the streets over them with a paint program, to create the final slice. Then there's no loss of resolution there.The water could be a template for LWM masking. Streams could be made as VTP2 lines, or as thin LWM water polys.There's a lot of possibilities, here. More than just the straight use of CUSTOM textures. I really like the accurate placement of roads, streams, water, landuse. DickNowhere near as beautiful as your scenery, but a start, Jim...2 pics. First the FS2002 default ( with no autogen ), then some fooling around with Terrascene.

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Thats right Jim.And don't forget, if you go into any of the project option dialogs or texture mapping dialogs again, it'll revert back. So, make sure you hand edit the project file as the last step before you actually render the TGA. Then simply reload it and start the process (and go to bed :-)).One other thing: if you map the textures and save the mappings as a template, manually edit that file as well. Search and replace both those files and the project files: "7.5" with "4.8" (or your source texture resolution of choice). You'd do this for all the seasonal/night/world variation mapping files as well of course.Take care,Elrond"A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle."

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Hi Dick,You might just be the perfect person Jim has been looking for. He's been on me for months to create an auto-mapping system for AutoGen using TerraScene color coded output as a source. I keep telling him I'm not doing sim work anymore, but alas - he has a thick head. :-)From what I've read of you, you seem to have a natural talent for just such projects. This one might be right up your alley:1) Create an LULC mapping in TerraScene using solid colors - that will map to different types of auto-gen tiles. TerraScene would be setup to paint all LULC data... Roads, rails and water would be black so you could mask it later when scanning the TGA.2-a) Create a variety of .agn tiles that will map to the different LULC colors chosen in step 1. Each mapping should have three varieties of .agn files that blend well together.2-:( Alternatively and a much better option: if someone has taken the time to decode the .agn file format, create these files on the fly from code. This way, one could truly randomize the placement of trees, buildings, etc. while avoiding the masked water, road and other data in the TGA entirely. 2-a would have a problem with AutoGen covering all roads and some water coastlines in areas due to LOD13 restrictions (thinking of a percentage type algorithm here)... This method would alleviate that.3) Create a custom tool that scans the TGA just like resample.exe - but instead of slicing tiles, spit out properly sorted .agn files based on the mapping of the TGA colors (properly named of course).This would automate AutoGen placement for any type of PhotoReal project - TerraScene, aerial or sat based - and could much more accurately place AutoGen even for LandClass projects (at a tiny file size). The biggest job would be step 2 of course... Maybe a group project to get something like that done in a reasonable amount of time.Just another idea to throw in your pot of suggestions. I'd be willing to help with such a project if someone tackled it - just not lead one.Take care,Elrond"A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle."

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Jim and Elrond,Thanks for your pointers! I'm a big fan of using TerraScene for FS2002, as TerraScene was essentially the one reason I picked up Fly2 way back in the days of it's initial release. I can completely see why using TerraScene for landclass placement is good - size and portability come to mind! But I do enjoy a lot of hard drive space, and I REALLY enjoy using the roads and highways for IFR (I Follow Roads) flying. TerraScene does wonders in providing that. While the loss of autogen is a minor blow, the local areas around airports can be improved with the likes of Airport or Lago's FSSE. I'll be sure to try out the project editing method tonight, and I'll report the results!-Greg

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Hi all.We're going to have some fun with this!I've been playing with default textures. In a default series, 001, 003, 005, and 007, can be stitched into a larger image to breakup the repetitive nature of 256x256 image assignments. I'm usiong a 4x4 grid for the larger image, but an odd number may be better...5x5? I'm using 4.77 meters scaling, which is close to the FS2002 default. I'm making LOD8 Cells, to keep my scenery in a restrictive format. The source data cover the whole LOD8 Cell, plus one extra LOD13 Area each direction, for a grid of 34x34 LOD13 Areas. I then import the resulting TGA images to Paintshop Pro, and resize them to 8704x8704, to give me a 1:1 size ratio for resample.exe ( to minimize resample's poor resampling ). With the right INF file, I can get the resulting slices and BGL form the old resample in good shape.Lots of things to play with and tweak... and I still think Terrascene's best use may be for templating VTP and LWM polys and lines! That would give us perfect blending, and no texture overhead, as we could use the default textures.I'll have to mull Elrond's AGN suggestion. It's too bad we don't know the AGN file structure, or we could create a program to make the files directly quite easily.DickBeautiful Whitewater Lake... Whitewater, Wisconsin.. part of the Delavan's LOD8 Cell ( about 25x25 miles squared ). Like Greg, I like IFR (I Follow Roads) flying. :)

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Sorry I just HAD to reply to the above I am sure Jim and I would be glad to offer any help in getting the above tool(s) ready. Jim reallydoes know his way around T.S. It's a great pice of codeing that thispart of the sim world knows all to little of. Dan

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