CoastLineMaker Islands

[Guest]

Hi All, I spent quite a bit of the weekend Working with CoastLineMaker, which is a handy tool for reworking coastlines.I've noticed that several people have commented favorably on Ground2k for its ability to save a project separate from the data files - CoastLineMaker does that as well! Thanks Iain for producing a nice program. I am Reworking the entire coastline of the Yap islands (Micronesia)and am pleased with the results so far, but of course I have hit a couple snags...1) I am at a loss as to how I may place a small island that lies completely within an LOD13 area. I have had success with small islands that cross a LOD13 boundary, but when the island is inside a single cell, I cannot make an LWM poly for it. I end up with a nice sandy coastline with water enclosed! Anyone know how to fix this?2) I know I've seen this before in the forum, but I'm wondering if anyone has come up with a solution lately: My terrain is clipped at the boundaries of the old coastline. Since I have new coasts that can extend half a km from the old one, this frequently results in loss of terrain. Is there any way I can exclude the original flattens that caused this?Thanks in advance for any ideas anyone might have. Thanks again to Iain Murray for publishing the tool I needed right when I needed it!andy

[Guest Tony_A]

I have had the same problem with small islands in a single cell. If the cell is the next one out from the original FS2002 coastline it seems to work OK but any further out you get the coastline surrounding WATER not LAND. I have been trying a few things and tried setting the entire cell to LAND then putting in the island coast and then setting the outer part of the cell to WATER. This did not work until I set up one island (just by chance) with the coast reversed. This resulted in a cell of LAND with the island outlined in reversed coastline and LAND in the centre. When I went back and reloaded my project and reversed the coastline and then started up FS and I had my island surrounded by WATER. Don't take this as gospel as I haven't had the chance to try duplicating this and will be experimenting further later on. I will take notes on a step by step basis and post any results. On the question of reversed coastlines, I will also look at whether "clicking" in your coastline for an island in a clockwise or anticlockwise direction (and whether this is reversed in the Northern or Southern hemisphere) causes this.I am working on Keppel Bay (Queensland, Aust) as the default scenery is pretty poor and I also thank Iain Murray for his Coastlinemaker. (I also curse him for the amount of time I can see myself spending using this program. Once you start on a coastline, the next bit looks so poor you just keep going.)Tony A

[Guest]

Thanks Tony!I'll try your trick and we can compare notes.I think I remember seeing something in the forum about clockwise vs counter-clockwise clicking, but I was a mere terrain-engineer then, and hadn't started worrying about coastlines yet, so I don't remember.One thing that occurs to me is that it might be moderately painless to edit the LWM.asm file by hand using the VTP coord.s from the VTP.asm file. I haven't had time to check the SDK's or the asm files and see if that is possible, but I will sometime this week. The nice thing about CoastLineMaker is that it has made it easier for me to finally get a grip on LOD8 vs. LOD13 cells, and VTP vs. LWM. Before I wouldn't have dreamed of editing asm files, but now that I have a visual tool to help me see how they work I might give it a go.I too, now see myself doing more editing than I had originally planned. Once you see what is possible, its hard to settle for anything less. Maybe I'll have a decent coastline before FS2004 comes out...andy

[Guest]

Hi folks,Interesting to read your comments on making small islands/lakes with Coast-Line-Maker.I admit I hadn't expected much need for objects this small within the cells, but was apparently wrong (and I've even had to do a few for my own scenery projects)! My work-around has been exactly what you describe in this thread.The problem has been a limitation in my program when it attempts to fit the LWM polygons round the coastlines. However, I am currently working on a major revision to this which will allow you to have multiple VTP segments within a cell, and still fill them as required.It's the most complex upgrade I've done so far, so it'll be a wee while in coming.Meanwhile, if you haven't got the current Coast-Line-Maker version V1.1.2, please download it from my website at:http://flightsim.computing.dundee.ac.uk/fsirmuti.htmlCheers,Iain.

[Guest Tony_A]

Hi Iain, Apologies for the "curse" it was meant in a nice way!!!! I have spent quite a few enjoyable hours with your program transforming what MS left as a great expanse of empty water off the East coast of Australia at latitude 23' ( with the exception of a 2 flat blobs) into something more or less what this area actually looks like. I had started to add the islands of Keppel Bay back in the MSFS98 days using Airport and have revived this old project. I spent quite a bit of time on the original project which looks so "blocky" that I never inflicted it on anyone else by releasing it but I did take some care in placing the topography as close as possible to the "actual" within the limitations of fitting it to the MS version. I have used this old version as a template to place the coastlines with Coast-Line-Maker and eliminated my ground polygons that I used to depict beaches and reefs. The result is starting to look so good that , after a few more hours of tweaking, I will put it together as a package and release it. I have tried small islands in the Northern and Southern hemispheres and get the same results with entering coastlines. Anti-clockwise is the way to go to avoid having to reverse the coastline segments. Also I find that entering coastline on the "mainland" from South to North has a similar effect. As far as eliminating the WATER filled islands goes, I have had mixed results and will try a few more times to sort out how to get this in one go. Again, thank you for your excellent program. Tony Arnold