Ground2K beginner needs help

[larshgf 2]

Hi potential helpers out there!I've tried to read the "Ground2K manual" and the "Ground2K-For Beginners". The last mentioned moves trough a process of making the harbour in Monaco - France more realistic. How do you know where in the original FS2004 scenery you are when you want to change a peace of area with better details from a satelite foto or map. I have a few questions concerning this (for me) difficult start): (1) Do you take a screenshot from FS2004 and put it into Ground2K?(2) I've heard of CellGrid2004 and downloaded the program, but I don't find any manual for using the program?Looking forward for the "revelation"Lars - DK

[Holger 0]

Hi Lars:That's the key point for G2K4 work: you need to know the corner (or center) coordinates of your background bitmap and it needs to be in the right geographic projection. If both are correct, the compiled .bgl scenery files will appear in the correct position in FS9. With the ready-made bitmaps I uploaded, the problem is solved, as they contain all the necessary information.It's possible to use FS screenshots with CellGrid overlays if you don't have any background map of photograph, and I'm sure Rhumba or others can tell you more about that (I've never done this). However, with the "discovery" of online satellite imagery in lat/long WGS84 projection (as required by FS) you should be able to grab an image with known corner coordinates off the web, save it as .bmp, and set up Ground2K4 as described in the manual or my read-me files that comes with the bitmap packages.Here are those two online satellite links again:http://geoengine.nima.mil/ (select "DOI 10m"; limited to parts of the US, Europa, and a few Asian countries)http://www.earthetc.com/ecwearth/asps/ecwe...orld/landsat742 (the entire planet, except polar regions and a big chunk of Siberia)Cheers, Holger

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Lars in beautiful Danmark,CellGrid is very easy to use. Here are the steps to follow in order to place a grid in Flight Simulator:1. Launch Flight Simulator;2. Launch TDFCalc2004a (this requires the use of FSUIPC - you don't have it? See below);3. Slew to the location of your scenery;4. Read the Cell coordinates in TDFCalc2004 (for example, 156, 208);5. Create a simple text file with the following content include Cell_Grid_2004a.inc CellDefine 156, 208Of course, substitute your Cell coordinates for the ones included here;6. Drag this text file over BGLC.exe, making sure that the required INC files are in the same folder;7. This creates a bgl that you should declare in the FS library.If you don't have FSUIPC, then do the following:1. Launch Flight Simulator;2. Press Shift-Z in order to display coordinates at top of screen;3. Slew to location of your scenery;4. Note the coordinates;5. Use TDFCalc2 to determine the Cell coordinates;6. Continue from Step 5 above.Once you have the grid in Flight Simulator, simply slew over the area of your scenery, press the Space bar (this orients your view towards magnetic north), and take a top-down screenshot. Make sure to include all the area that you want to modify. This will be your background image in Ground2K4.Then, slew to the exact north-west and south-east corners of the grid that you want and read the coordinates from TDFCalc2004. You will need them for your Ground2K4 project.In Ground2K4, make sure that you place the indicators of northwest and southeast at the correct points in your bitmap.If you need more information, please do not hesitate to ask.Best regards.Luis

[Guest bnick]

Another beginner needs help... I've made it all the way past excluding all the roads and railroads I've needed to remove prior to adding my new and more accurate roadway system... Per my, Ground2K for Beginners, manual, which I have read several times, to add a road I was told to click on the Road/River/Lake icon, which I do, and next click on the, New icon, which I also do, then I'm suppose to click once where I want to start my road, and I'm suppose to get the, Attributes page for Lines/Polygons... but I don't initially, instead I get a little Error message box that says,"Run-time Error-'9': Subscript out of Range", with an Ok button... Soon as I hit the Ok button, up pops the correct, Attributes page for Lines/Polygons, which I then populate with my new road layer 33, add a road width, check the Line/Lake/Shore box, and set my LWM/Poly to Land... and hit Ok, but the Attributes page never closes and when I finally exit my coordinates are locked, buttons push in but don't work, actually nothing works from that point on, no zoom or pan, but I can exit just fine. I never used the original Ground2K program but it is installed in it's own directory... The new Ground2K4 is installed in it's own Ground2K4 directory... I installed the V40 dll zip as well as Patch5_30 and 5_32.zip and manually put the dll's and ocx file in my Sys32 directory so I feel I've done pretty much what most others have written about but my Ground2K4 just wont let me add roads yet without this Error that disables everything in the program... I'm running:WinXP-ProP4-2.8 GHz1.5 GB DDRNvidia Ti4600/128 Thanks for any help from anyone out there...

[larshgf 2]

Hi Luis!Thanks for your answer. That was really a demonstration of a "LOD8" with it's 32 x 32 Areas. I will continue trying to figure out this "mysterious" world of scenery designing. I have a feeling that there could be some kind of scale-problem between the screenshot from FS2004 (top-down) and the satelite-foto of my greek island from Holger. But if so I would be glad to ask you a few more questions.Thanks for your helpLars - DK

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

This error message is perhaps due to Ground2k4's inability to find the textures that are displayed in the Attributes window.This can happen if you have a partial installation of Flight Simulator. Textures are not installed to the hard disk and Ground2K4 hangs at the point where it tries to find them.If you have a partial installation of Flight Simulator, try using a previous version of Ground2K4. Version 5 (still available in the AvSim library) from last October does not require the presence of textures in order to work.If you have a full installation of FS, then perhaps Ground2K4 cannot find the textures because you have not indicated the correct path for your FS folder. Check the General Parameters for Ground2K4 and be sure that the path points to your FS folder.Best regards.Luis

[larshgf 2]

Hi again Luis!It seems that (at least for me) the "Ground2K-manual" that comes with Ground2K and the "Ground2K_for_beginners" are a bit unclear. I have done the whole Set Up procedure for my new project in Ground2K using one of the satelitte images from Holger and declaring the NW and SE points of this image, and doing the rest of things he describes for the Set Up in his "read-me" file. So now I have this satellite image of a few greek islands in my program. My first goal is the redraw the whole coastline of one of these islands. In relation to that task I have a few questions for you if thats OK:(1)Can I use the satelitte image that I got from Holger directly in the Ground2K program without screenshots from FS2004?(2)If so, what will be the next thing to do? Maybe in this order...- Exlude seashore- Draw new line for seashore (but how to do that?)(3)When will I be ready to compile the new island?Best RegardsLars

[Guest bnick]

Luis... Thanks for your time to respond... I uninstalled all 3 flavors of my Ground2K4 and installed V5 per your instructions in the recommended directory, rather than my own like I had before. The program seems to be working fine now, and I want to ask you, do you recommend installing the updates V5.30 and V5.32 or can I skip V5.30 and just install V5.32...?ThanksBob

[Guest bnick]

Luis... Thanks for your time to respond... I uninstalled all 3 flavors of my Ground2K4 and installed V5 per your instructions in the recommended directory, rather than my own like I had before. The program seems to be working fine now, and I want to ask you, do you recommend installing the updates V5.30 and V5.32 or can I skip V5.30 and just install V5.32...?ThanksBobbnick

[Guest bnick]

Sorry for posting twice the upload locked up and I wasn't sure it sent...

[Guest bnick]

Luis - Hi, I installed the latest patch and Ground2K4 is running fine and up to date...One more question... I've turned on the night lighting on a couple main highways but wow is it ever busy... Is there anyway to limit the amount of traffic that is generated by the Night Lighting switch...?ThanksBob

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Bob,In order to change the quantity of lights on the road (and there are a lot of them!), you will have to fiddle with the SCASM source that is produced by Ground2K4. Please see the SCASM documentation.I have stopped using this night-lit roads option altogether. It is too busy and not so good for frame rates anyway.Best regards.Luis

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Lars,There is no problem in using the Landsat images that Holger has provided - no need to use a screenshot of Ground2K4, if you do not want to. You may find that your newly-drawn islands will not coincide with the FS default islands, however. Instead of having your new islands on top of the default, they may be next to them somewhere. You shall have to see how it all turns out, but if you have this problem, just draw a big Water Mask to cover the default islands.Your operating procedure is correct: - exclude shorelines (and roads, if you want to do them over again); - draw the new island as a Land Mask; - if there are beaches or harbors, draw a Line/LakeShore there; - add any VTP2 land class areas (golf courses, forests, towns, etc); - draw roads; - modify the land class (and make sure that you extend it well into the water in order to cover all of your Land Mask); - modify the water class.You can generate (compile) the bgls whenever you want. I am one of those impatient types, and so I compile after every small addition, just so that I can see how it is starting to look in FS. There is no harm in this and your project will not be damaged by it, but you should do as you prefer.Best regards.Luis

[Guest bnick]

Luis - Hi, Thanks again for the advice on the lights I turned them off as they were just too busy.I do have 2 more questions... 1. I have created 4 new Islands out in a river close to our Airport, that Microsoft has had mis-drawn for some time now, and I have excluded everything possible to try and remove the existing Islands so I can just see my new ones only. The new ones are there and after finally setting their altitude at 9m, I can finally see them, but they coexist with the incorrect Microsoft FS9 Islands...2. I also created an LWM, Poly/With/Shore Line, (as well as every other variation), to correct another Microsoft error along a river bank, both for the North and South sides of our river, which runs East/West... I checked the, Land on the Right box, and set the next layer in line to 9 and LWM to Land, to replace my old excluded Shoreline and Road, (which did exclude properly) My problem here is that all I get is the new Shoreline I get no new Landmass to fill in on the right side to fill in the new land area... I now have water showing between land and my new Shoreline...The Excludes seem to work perfect on roads, rivers, shore-lines and railroads but I'm not sure they have any effect on the Polys/Bridges nor do they seem to have any effect on Big Rivers or 1/2 mile long Islands...Thanks for any works of Wisdom...http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/65670.jpg

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Bob,A few things here.Excludes can only remove line elements, that is, roads, beaches (and other shorelines), streams, and utility lines (power poles).If you want to remove an island (it is a Land Mask), you must cover it with a Water Mask. Just draw a polygon over the island and declare it as a Water Mask. Then, draw the new island.Here is an example - I have been re-doing some islands in the Caribbean. The default island is not in the right place as you can see from this image of the default and the new:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/65685.gifAnd here is what I did when drawing it in Ground2K4:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/65684.jpgTo resume, you must cover the default with a Water Mask before you create the new island.As for your missing river coast, usually if you create a Land Mask and do not see land, it is because land class has not been assigned.Try assigning land class values to the new area covered by your coast. Make sure to cover everything.By the way, you are flying pretty low with that Eagle. I just hope you are not breaking the sound barrier at that altitude!Best regards.Luis