Using Photo Scenery Maker I've managed to put an aerial photo as background for my airport.Now what I would like is use only a part of that image, leaving the rest with the default FS texture, so I can have a background image only for the fenced area of the airport (see the attached image)I think that should be done using a VTP2 polygon, but that seems a little confusing to manage with my newbie skills.Is there a easier way to make what I want? any specific tool i need? Or a simple way to create a VTP2 poly and texture it that i haven't found?

http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/75183.jpg

Yes, VTP2 polygons seem to be the answer for your problem. And you need to add an alpha channel to the textures to get the transparancy.Maybe you can give SBuilder a try? http://www.ptsim.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=18I think this is the easiest program if you want to place a photo with VTP2 polygons.

Hi all.No need to make anything alpha if you just make the poly the same shape as the airport background. If you use seasons, use VTP texture value 252. If there separate seasons, use value 253. This will place the CUSTOM named tiles correctly, and trim them to the shape of the poly. The CUSTOM textures ( and any CUSTOM autogen ) need to placed be in ...Sceneryworldtexture for FS9.Dick

Hi all.An added caution:The use of CUSTOM values for VTP2 should exist in their own separate BGL. I suspect that VTP2 polys that use non-CUSTOM landclass numbers should be in their separate BGLs. And homemade named textures used with VTP2, should have their own BGL. FS9 is very picky in this regard. Holger Sandmann has found that even VTPs that use landclass values require further separation into BGLS that use night textures or not. And Microsoft keeps VTP2 line types in separate BGLs!Dick

Thanks for the responses guys.I'm trying SBuilder, but when I hit "new file" it crashes whit a runtime error 339. Component TABCTL32.OCX or one of it dependecies is not correctly registered.Any hints? I will ask in the SBuilder forum anyways.

Dick - Hi, In FSSC I too used a background Sat image of our Airport for a while, but it covered all aprons and default runways at the time, so I quite using it even though it was a great image... After reading this string, I'm wondering too, if I create a border around my airport bmp, and transparent out all the outside area as GorG did above, as well as transparent out, all my runways, taxiways, parking etc. if it will work, and will it work without creating a VTP2 Poly around the airport in LWM-Draw5..?I use Photoshop7.01 extensively as well as DXTBMP for most of my DXT1 work, as well as Alpha channels, but I haven't used transparency yet... Isn't that just changing the area you want to make transparent to color 255 true Black...?Thanks

Hi all.If you insist on using transparency with VTP2, then the texture format is 8-bit, mipped, with alpha. If it is not mipped, it can crash FS9. See MS' imagetool. ( Vertically flipped, as well ).Dick

No, I think it will never work if you keep using FSSC. This is because FSSC places the scenery with a different method and that will always cover the default runways and taxiways of Fs2004. So I think VTP2 is the only option (or if you keep it in FSSC you need to rebuild the runways etc there as well).

SBuilder does not even start for me. It gives the message about "Copying of some texture files" then when you say OK to the message it says Runtime Error 53 and closes.Shez

You can better ask Luis on his forum I think. It worked for me without trouble, but I sure it would help him if you report these bugs.

Hello Shez,When SBuilder runs for the first time, it copies all the standard landclasses textures to a local (local to SBuilder) folder. It reads the files from the main FS texture folder and uses ImageTool to format them as 8-bit bitmap. The reason is that I am not a programmer and I do not know how to display DXT formats directly in the SBuilder display. So I create a copy of all the textures in plain bitmap format.Now, there was a fellow that could not start SBuilder. He recently told me that the reason was that he had a "custom" instal of FS9. He also told me that when he made a "full" install, SBuilder started normally. May be I am copying the European set of textures (I will have to check this). I do not know if this is the reason of your problem. Regards, Luis

Hello,SBuilder is a Visual Basic 6 programme. You need to install the runtime files available at:http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...&NoWebContent=1The following may be important:"Component TABCTL32.OCX or one of its dependencies is not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid." - This error has been reported with all versions of Windows. To fix this error...- First download TABCTL32.OCX and copy it into the WindowsSystem32 directory.- Then, open the run dialog box using "Start | Run..." and enter "Regsvr32 c:windowssystem32tabctl32.ocx" to register the DLL.Regards, Luis

Thanks Luis. My install is actually full but only on a different drive and not in the usual c:Program Files..... However, I think your other post below might be the trouble. I will check it out when I get back home later and report.Shez

Fantastic, thanks Luis, obrigado ;)

Luissa,The VBRun download and the registration of the OCX did not work. What program directories have you set up SBuilder in? It may be that SBuilder is looking for FS2004 and cannot find it. Is there an entry in the ini file which I can amend to point SBuilder to the FS2004 folder?Shez