Ground2K exclusion experience

[Guest JohnC]

I thought I would try Ground2k to vastly improve the lakeshore in the vicinity of Burlington, Vermont. I created a transparent overlay of a screen capture of FS2k and a Streets&Trips map, and when I started working with the map I noticed a few things right away that bother me a little.......when I click the LC (or WC) icon I get a grid which is DIFFERENT than when I click the EXCLUDE icon, and I don't see why this would be useful or correct. The center of the LC and WC areas defined by the gridlines gridlines match up with the intersection of the EXCLUDE grid. I have Version 3.0. Isn't this a glitch?Attempts to exclude the shorelines doesn't appear to work, either...I would have expected the land class textures to "fill up" the Area once the exclude works. Is this a correct assumption? I also set the paths to send BGL's directly to a Scenery folder inside my Temp folder. If you try to recompile while FS2k is open, you get a path error and Ground2k shuts down. It apparently won't overwrite a file which FS2k has opened.Any comments? I have spent many hours on this and am still a photoreal bigot.:-hmmm

[arno 1]

>Attempts to exclude the shorelines doesn't appear to work,>either...I would have expected the land class textures to>"fill up" the Area once the exclude works. Is this a correct>assumption? Only the wave effect (and the visualshore line of course) will dissapear, but I haven't seen that the location of the water also changes (that is for the shorelines I have excluded along rivers in the Netherlands).>I also set the paths to send BGL's directly to a Scenery>folder inside my Temp folder. If you try to recompile while>FS2k is open, you get a path error and Ground2k shuts down. It>apparently won't overwrite a file which FS2k has opened.That is correct. When I compile a mesh file from DOS I also get an error when FS is running. This is because the file is locked then (other scenery files don't seem to be locked while FS is running, only the mesh).

[Guest JohnC]

Jeez, I read that to mean that if a coastline is a mile outside where it ought to be, and had geometry that looks just awful, that you can't reposition the place where water stops and land starts.x(

[arno 1]

I haven't tried it near a coast, there it might be different, but for the rivers the water is placed with a LWM polygon I think.

[nudata 10]

Teh Salt Lake coastline in FS2002 is way off. I created a new coast and filled behind it with land fills. Attached is a view of Ground2k with the coast outline as it should be. The background is from Terraserver.Dick

[Guest JohnC]

Other than the grid lines shifting between LC/WC icons and the EXclude icons (does yours do this?), I have the other frustrating situation...I have to pull my coastlines IN in some places, out in others, and even the small attempt to draw a coastline in the image below, I still get a line/curve crosses itself.I assume that in the above case I will have to refill the water class again after the new coastline is defined..if I can ever get it to work...nice job on Salt Lake, BTW....http://forums.avsim.com/user_files/9002.jpg

[Guest]

Nope, it's not a glitch! In MSFS the placement of the center of defined LC and WC is not in the center of a lod13 area but on the intersection of four cells! In Ground2K the grid is changed accordingly, so that you can easily see where your LC and WC actually will be placed. I thing the moving grid is an excellent feature here!The LC textures *should* fill up the area, but it seems that the new coastline has to be within some certain distance from the default coastline for this to work. I haven't managed to make it work in my projects, so I have worked around it by first filling all affected lod13 areas with water, then making a 'Poly without shore' that corresponds to the new shoreline and covers the entire area needed to make the land. Finally I have made a separate shoreline for the coast where needed. A little bit more work as you have to make the coastline twice, but at least it works!Bamce

[nudata 10]

Attached is the LandFill (F icon) "map" of Salt Lake. Landfill is critical to the success of Coastlines. As you will note there are places where the land fill comes very close to the edge of a square that has coastline and in other cases the coastline barely touches a square. ANY place a coastline exists you must have a LandFill "behind" it. Coastline automatically says that anything to the right (checked) is land - to the left is water. Be very careful with crossing curves. You CAN double coastline back on itself BUT you cannot allow it to touch or cross itself. This is best observed (if you get the error) without the backgrounds and magnify it. Small coves require care in this respect.DickKLBE

[Guest]

Ok, that probably explains why i didn't manage to make it work - I did not understand the the landfill is needed, thought it was more or less automatic. Now, I'll do som more testing! Thanks for the explanation, Dick!BamceEFHN

[nudata 10]

Attached is Salt Lake shoreline after treatment with Ground2K. Also, the white and grey areas are landclass changes via Ground2k to try to emulate salt flats. Now, if you look at the same shoreline and water bodies in Terrascene it is even nicer looses some clarity in translation to FS2002. I really hope that someone can interface USGS data to Ground2k so that we can AUTOMATICALLY re-do large areas to realistic standards!Dick KLBE

[Guest JohnC]

Well, I'm happy for you guys, but,after looking to see how many Sceneries are offered up on AVSIM, compared to how many people download Scenery Design programs (the ratio is VERY SMALL) ,I can understand this better after spending ALL DAY trying to replicate the same kind of example shown in Ground2k for beginners, just trying to change a shoreline.I've had it for now....:-mad

[Guest rbrown3rd]

>The LC textures *should* fill up the area, but it seems that>the new coastline has to be within some certain distance from>the default coastline for this to work. I haven't managed to>make it work in my projects, so I have worked around it by>first filling all affected lod13 areas with water, then making>a 'Poly without shore' that corresponds to the new shoreline>and covers the entire area needed to make the land. Finally I>have made a separate shoreline for the coast where needed. A>little bit more work as you have to make the coastline twice,>but at least it works!>>>Bamce>So, is this the final solution? 1. Fill all LOD areas with water.2. Create a polygon without shore for the new lake shape with a land texture.3. Create the same shoreline (polygon?) for the new water area?

[Guest rbrown3rd]

>Well, I'm happy for you guys, but,after looking to see how>many Sceneries are offered up on AVSIM, compared to how many>people download Scenery Design programs (the ratio is VERY>SMALL) ,I can understand this better after spending ALL DAY>trying to replicate the same kind of example shown in Ground2k>for beginners, just trying to change a shoreline.>>I've had it for now....:-mad I've about had it too John after working for two days trying to update a shoreline. This should be a simple task and it has driven me CRAZY.