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greggerm

Ground2K4 - Coast but no land...

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Hi experts!I'm having one of the more common problems with G2K4, and I am looking for your input.I am using Ground2k4 5.03 to design scenery for FS*2002*. I had to copy and rename my terraintexture file to be terrain.cfg, as it is in FS9 for the program to initialize, but for the basics the program seems to work well.I am running into the common "Coasts with no land" problem. In my steps to redefine a coastline, I have:* Excluded existing coastlines.* Drawn in my coast with land on the proper side.* Declared the boxes (can't get the right term) as LWM Land.* Added landclass values to all 4 vertices of the newly declared LWM areas.But, my efforts are coming up short. In the "boxes" where my narrow coastline travels, they are all water, except for the actual coast-lines. Even though I thought I declared them land and defined landclass numbers for them. I read that FS9 uses different layer numbers for it's scenery. Could *THIS* be the problem I am running into? Or should G2k4 work no problem with FS2002? I wish I was able to work on this here AT work, but I'll take any suggestions you may have home tonight to see if I can get it to work. Thank you for all your help,-Greg Germ

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Addendum: Could it have something to do with the LOCATION of my landclass BGL files? If I recall, there was either a special location for landclass BGLs or some special considerations that were needed if they were to be used.

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download LWMViewer 1.2 I think is the current official release. Load your .bgl files and verify that your landclass and polys are where you think they should be. I don't know how you build your coast, but if you use the "coast" option, it can result in strange results. Sometimes the program puts water LWM polys in unexplainable places. I never tried to use g2k4 with FS2k2, just the g2k.scott s..

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Hello Greg,You seem to have done everything correctly. If you are seeing shorelines (beach), but no land is displayed, then your bgls are in the right place, and this is not the problem.Most likely, you have not quite covered the 4 vertices of the "boxes", that is, the Areas, (or LOD13), with sufficient land class assignments.When you switch to the land class function in Ground2K4, the grid is shifted so as to better represent the location of the ground textures. This can be confusing as this land class grid is NOT the LOD13 (Area) grid. So, you may think that you are placing land class values on each required vertex, when, in fact, you are not.Perhaps you could try extending land class assignments one or two more vertices out into the water. This will ensure that you have really coverered them all.Best regards.Luis

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For me the key is to go into LC or WC mode in Ground2k4. Then move your mouse over the corners of the grids, until you find the corner that matches the area that is missing texture. (Each corner equates to a different area.) Then, make sure all 4 blocks surrounding that corner have land class. Unfortunately G2k4 doesn't show you where landclass is already defined, you need LWMViewer for that, but you can probably guess that the blocks that are furthest out towards sea are the ones missing LC. I find it best to turn off the background image when looking at this.scott s..

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I've actually tried reclassifying the landclass for a 3-block radius around the water, but to no avail. I'll take another look after I run out for my morning coffee..But, I have another theory. Are you allowed to have "2" shorelines in a LOD13 box? The waterway I am trying to do is a narrow inlet off a bay. I have TWO shorelines on the east and west, both inside one LOD13 square. Can the system handle that, or is it really looking for only ONE shoreline within a square? I seem to recall somewhere that narrow passages were done as lakes and not "oceans/shores" Can anyone shed light on that theory?Here's a picture of the effected area... http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/82682.jpg

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Well, that's why I suggest using LWMViewer. First confirm that you have LWM water polys in the right places, then fix any missing landclass. AFAIK, a "coast" or "shoreline" is just another VTP line, you can have as many as you want in a cell. But the coast option in g2k4 will attempt to use the points where the line crosses the area boundary to intelligently draw an LWM poly to fill the remainder of the area on the right side of the line (or left, if you check the "land on right" box).scott s..

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Thanks Scott - I though I had it figured out, but when I reset my scenery and attempted to re-create (to insure I knew what I was doing), it failed miserably again.I've opened up the LWM viewer, and I am seeing this...http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/83018.jpgThis most likely shows that I've messed up my classification of the LWM type surrounding the bay reaches.There is one SMALL sliver of the bay (just south of the middle on the left side) which appears correct (green land, blue water) - but the solid blue tiles are in fact where I have a coastline but no land. :) I've triplechecked my landclass assignments to insure I have coverage on all my vertices, but I am unsure on the whole LWM classification and "invert masks" and things of that sort. What should I be using as settings for that (F1) button in G2K4?Trying to get my hands around this program!-Greg

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That looks more like you did area fills with land/water rather than polys. Since your area isn't huge, try saving your project to another file, then deleting the coast you drew and start over (I know that doesn't sound too encouraging :( ). Start redrawing your coast, and when your coast crosses an area boundary, stop and do a compile, then look at the results in LWMViewer. I have found cases where the coast justs "nicks" the corner of an area, and that causes problems. Alternatively, give up on using the "coast" option, and convert the "coast" to a "line", and then draw separate LWM water polys following your line. This is work, since there doesn't seem to be any way to snap the poly to the same points as the line, but you can ensure the generated poly doesn't try to fill an area.At least, that's what I've experienced so far. Maybe someone with more experience has a better idea how to fix it or make it easier to fix.scott s..

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Scott,It's odd - all the water blocks in the picture above are classified as LAND fills, but the block containing a "properly" rendered inlet (slightly below the middle on the left) is also. All those water tiles should be filled with land as opposed to water.There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the way it's working. I am sure it's most likely my lack of knowledge, but it's working in such a random way that I may shelve the project for a week or so to regroup.I was able to use the LWM POLY method to create the upper reaches of the bay in the picture above - it came out GREAT! Now that I have moved down to the larger portions of the bay, in the lower portions of the picture and beyond, LWM POLYs become less of a help and more of a hinderance, as there are large chunks of water which need to be done. Again, I am running into the same issues with the coastlines and land/water textures. Whenever I try to use a coastline to do my shores, it turns the whole area cell into water, with a "coast-line" running through it. Most odd. It's a pain in the pooper. I'll keep scavenging for information on what may be happening, as well as playing around - but most importantly, I need to simmer the frustration level down. :) -Greg

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Hello Greg,Please forgive me for insisting, but this most definitely seems to be a problem with land class assignment.From your screenshots, it appears that you are not using the land class function (the "LC" icon), but rather are filling each Area with land using the Area function (F1). I could be wrong, of course.All you need to do to define land where there is water is: - draw a Land Mask. This is a polygon that is defined as LWM - Land; - assign land class values using the land class function (LC icon).The only possible problem that arises is when not enough vertices have received a land class assignment, in which case that Area does not show land, but water.Other than that, drawing a coast presents no particular problem. If you had, in fact, used the land class function, and not the Area fill function, then you would not see the ground texture outside of the Land Mask polygon, whereas your screenshot definitely shows this. So, I suspect that this is your problem. But, I could be wrong.Please do not get frustrated. All problems in Ground2K4 have an easy solution.Best regards.Luis

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Hi Greg.This is why I'd never use the "coast" function of G2K4.I'd make a land mask to cover the area, to change the whole area to land... then check it in the sim to see if landclass needs to be made.Then mask the water, then draw the shorelines.More work, but if you had originally done this, you would have been done a long time ago.The "coast" function is unpredictable for me, too.Dick

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It's the coastlines that are causing the acute problems, but a lack of knowledge that is the chronic one. :)Baby step time:Creating a land mask - I see that many of the threads chastise people for using the F1 - (Fill 1x1/LWM) option. Is this how to create a land mask? It is how I sucessfully created the upper reaches of the pictured bay. OR, conversly, do I have to create a poly without shore, and in the LWM tab designate it LAND? Is *that* my land mask?, on top of which I create water polys?I'll now avoid the coastline method, and go with polys.I'm going to {Initialize...} my project once more, and see if I can't get this straightened out. Updates as they warrant. :) -Greg

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Guest luissa

Hi Greg,Please excuse me if am adding more confusion. But I am convinced that you should verify that all your work area has a LandClass_Index of type equal to Land as Luis suggested.Say that there were no LWM masks in FS but only LandClasses. :-( If that was the case all coastlines would be horrible with corners following the LOD13 grid. However it is important to understand how FS represents the LOD13 squares in such a situation. The best description that I know (for FS2002) is found in Christian Sock TMF manual. Basically FS gets information from 2 files: worldLC.bgl and worldWC.bgl. These 2 files define, for each square in the world, 2 classes of textures (one of type = Land and another of type = Water). The first thing that we need to know is how FS decides between the 2 textures that are available for a particular LOD13 square. I think that FS reads the LC file first. If the indices at all the 4 vertices of the LOD13 are different from ZERO, FS treats that square as land and builds a texture made as a mixture of the 4 corner's textures. However if (in the LC global file) at least 1 vertex is ZERO, FS interprets the territory as water and goes to the WC file to read the water textures defined for that square. Therefore the value of ZERO in the LC file should be understood as a "Land/Water Switch".Now we have the LWM masks. :-) I think of the LWM masks as an addition to the described "Land/Water Switch". Say that we draw a closed LWM polygon and define its type as:a) - "water" in the open ocean. Nothing will change as the main "Land/Water Switch" is already water in the open ocean.:( - "land" in the open ocean. Nothing will change again unless you create your own landclass file for the region. FS will get textures to cover the polygon from the existing LC file (the default has ZERO which redirects FS to the global WC file). However if there is an user LC file, a complete "LOD13 island" can appear. You will see land not because of your mask polygon but because you changed the whole LOD13 square to land. In order to make the island, what you need is to draw the "inversion of the island". What I mean is to draw LWM masks of water to erase the land that protudes from the island until the LOD13 edges.c) - "land" in a continental area. In this case the main "Land/Water Switch" is already land so nothing changes.d) - "water" in a continental area. A lake appears with the water texture taken from the textures found in the global WC file or the user WC if any exists.Returning to your example I think that you should treat it as case d) but I suspect that you do not have a "continental area". You should change the LandClass to land all over and then make the masks where you want water to appear.Final note_1: you can use "masks on top of maks". For example you could have a polygonal mask of land on the top of your polygonal water bay mask to build a small island on your bay. If your small land mask is processed after the water mask (alphabetical files names are important to determine this order if the masks are in different files) it will show OK in the main Cockpit FS view but not in the Map View. In Map View land polygons are not drwan over water polygons. On the other hand, water polygons over land polygons are OK in Map view.Final note_2: Area Fills, of water or land, are just mask polygons with 4 vertices that cover exactly a certaim number of LOD13 squares. Think of them as if they were hand made LWM mask polygons.Regards, Luis

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Wow - long thread!Well, here's where I am at...(See attached picture...)The upper reaches of Narragansett Bay are taking shape nicely. I am creating WATER masks using a non-shoreline LWM polygon set to water. Where I need it, I am adding the 1x1 FILL of LAND, in order to splat some landmass there. I've only run into one or two instances where the landclass itself wasn't defined - this doesn't surprise me, as the bay is rather tight. This method seems to be working for me. In time, I'll have the entire bay rendered. Then I'll move to lakes, ponds, and tweaking the landclass. Then it'll be time to drop in some custom golf courses and textures. Then, thanks to all of you, it will be released on AVSIM! WHile I still don't 100% understand what's going on, I have a handle on how I am managing my project now. Thank you all for your patience! I'll report when it's all done, in case anyone is interested in Rhode Island scenery!-Greg

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