Help with Photo Scenery Maker

[Guest GorG]

I'm trying to make my first scenery, and I could use some help with PSM.I found it quite easy to use, easier than TerraBuilder and Ground2k4, mainly because the 2-point calibration is fool's-proof, just what I need.I set up my textures, enter the coords and run the scenery creation process without any errors. But the resulting textures are blank. Fed them anyway into FS9 and the area covered by the texture became a water rectangle. It seems like PSM is ignoring the alpha channel I provided, using a blank one.I checked the Terrain sdk and imagetool I'm using are the required by the application. I checked my coordinates once and once again. Can't wonder where the problem is.My original textures are 16bit BMP, that's the only thing I'm not sure if it's OK, but they display correctly on PSM.Must I make the textures in some specific format? Any suggestion I could check?Thanks ;)

[Guest pecrowther]

One confusing part about PhotoScenery Maker is that it saved different sets of images in different subfolders, e.g. TmpAlpha, TmpBmp and texture. Within the texture folder, it saved both the bmp and tga files. You want the bmp files from the texture folder. They should be 43kb each in size.I have used PhotoScenery Maker to create masked and unmasked files and have gotten both to work.The results you are getting are what I get if I do not use properly formatted images- gray if you use more than an 8-bit image and the ocean if you try some kind of transparent mask (I forget which kind).I hope this helps. I like the program and it was very easy to use.Phil

[Guest GorG]

So I must use a 8-bit image for my original texture? That must be the problem, I think I'm using a 16-bit bmp. Will try this night, thanks for your help ;)

[Guest pecrowther]

That might not be the problem.I am using a couple of techniques to lay textures, including one for laying transparent textures which does not involve the use of Photo Scenery Maker. I think the "gray" problem came when I was not using an 8-bit texture for that. I think that Photo Scenery Maker processes the images so this will not be a problem. I just wanted to make sure that you grabbed the right pics.The way I set it up, I had to manually copy the bgl to Addon Scenery/Scenery and the textures to Addon Scenery/textures. You can presumably automate this process using the output option.In properties, have you selected a water mask?When you generate the scenery, do you select "run all"? Do the pictures seem to show up properly in the viewing area?Phil

[Guest GorG]

Yep, I apply a water mask. I wasn't sure wich black or white means water, so I used a checkerboard pattern for trying purposes. Tried both "run all" and manually going trou the different steps and always got blank textures, in the viewing area too, while they are being created.

[Guest GorG]

Finally solved my problem. Original textures must be 24bit BMP, as stated in the turorial, which I should read first, instead of clicking here and there to see what happens.