Photo-Scenery Raleigh NC Area

[Guest rotarypower27513]

Hey, I'm working with Photo Scenery Maker to do the Raleigh, NC area. Please see my earlier post here:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...d=130923&page=2But, I know I am going to have the same downfall that everyone else has when creating this type of scenery...mainly, the transition from the photoreal imagery to the default MS scenery tiles. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/72750.jpgCan you guys give me some suggestions on the best way to handle this? I was thinking of taking part of the image from the MS default scenery and actually using it in my scenery to creat transitions, maybe stop at major roads or geographic changes.....forest to fields, roads, highways, building parking lots, etc.... I think this idea may work, but I have no idea on how to efficiently copy these MS default transitions zones into my scenery tiles except to launch MSFS and slew in top down mode, and copy and past about a zillion times. Any suggestions???Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!Thanks...

[Guest luissa]

Hello,May be SBuilder does what you need. Because SBuilder uses VTP polygons - instead of the Microsoft Resample tool - to make the phototiles, the transparency map controls the blending between the phototiles and the default. White is completely opaque, black is completely transparent and mid grays give you mid transparency. No water as it happens with the Microsoft Resample tool.I will update a new version of SBuilder later tonight but the present version has already the PhotoScenery tool fully working.http://www.ptsim.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=18Your scenery looks beautifully. The only problem with (any)photoscenery is the lack of autogen! Do you agree?Regards, Luis

[bob.bernstein 0]

I tend to find the default texture name by viewing the area of interest with ms sdk tool called tmfviewer. This gives you the landclass codes. A crossreference between landclass code and texture is available in the sdks also.Now you have the texture name, simple to make a mosaic of the texture variants and provide that as a layer below your image, carvy your image using feathered mask tools.an example provided.Have fun!Bob Bernsteinhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/72771.jpg

[bob.bernstein 0]

Luis,you wrote: <I see this said often. I don't know why folks think this. Annotator by MS is the tool used to add autogen to photo scenery. Quite simple to do.All my scenerys since fs2002 are photo scenery with autogen.Best,Bob Bernstein

[Guest luissa]

Hi Bob,I am sorry for using wrong words. In fact I would like to say a different thing. I will clarify my thinking in the next lines.If I had very good aerial photos of a region, I would think twice before making the photoscenery because of the extra work required by the annotation. I think so because annotation can be very tedious to make (may be this is personal, of course). Also I think that autogen is best suited for landclass scenery. May be we need to go from the "landclass + autogen" paradigm to a "photo + customgen" one.But, now that I went so far, let me finish with a wish for the next version of the simulator (hey - MS development team!): please do not change things in a way that turn useless our efforts (I am referrering to us - 3rd part designers) in improving the sim. For example, and regarding to photographic scenery, keep the format of the graphic language and simply allow 512x512 or 1024x1024 textures. Or even higher resolutions at very short ranges.Kind Regards, Luis