Island Creation - best software to use?

[Guest CapHavoc]

Howdy,As a beginning project, I would like to create a number of small (fictional) South Pacific islands for FS9. What would be the best (and easiest, especially for a new scenery designer :-) ) programme available? From my initial research, it looks like Ground2k may be the tool; but I was wondering what other designers might recommend. TIA.

[Guest cwright]

My AutoAsm program can be used to create islands quite easily. In fact it includes a detailed tutorial for creating an imaginary island with coastline, lakes, roads, buildings running along the roads and terrain - including a volcano! In the next version you will be able to add animated traffic moving along the roads. AutoAsm is quite a complex program with a bit of a learning curve, but it's not that difficult. To create the islands you would simply draw appropriate polygons onto a bitmap using a paint program and the program will convert them into the scenery. You would draw another bitmap to define the terrain etc.... http://www.kline.demon.co.uk/autoasm.zip Best regards, Chris

[Guest CapHavoc]

Howdy,Thanks, Chris; downloading it now.

[Guest bushpilots-chief]

Hi, also my prefered tool is "Sbuilder" from Luis Sa. Look at his http://www.ptsim.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=18forum for further questions.You can easliy create LWM, VTP Polygons, Shorelines, Streams and many more.

[Guest Horst]

Hello,Manfred there are a lot of tools out, doing you things, to come to the target: doing a nice and accurate scenery.It depends, what data you can use, and the area you will cover!Ground2k and Sbuilder are great tools.AutoAsm is more a raster program. Some kind of raster to vector program.But: it also can import vector data.Vector data you draw again! In a different style, with different points.When you get familiar to it, you will find out: it is a nice peace of work.Because raster to vector conversation is a very hard work!It is a complex program Chris did (and you have to get familiar to the GUI), but almost everything is automatic.You can use it for a lot of things and (easy) raster formats and maps.And you can use it also only for parts of scenery design.Kind regardsHorst

[Guest CapHavoc]

Howdy, Well, I'm about a third of the way through the AutoAsm manual (and tutorials) at the moment. It is a learning curve, but not tooooooo steep. :-)The thing I'm grappling with (for the moment) is the issue of scale (that is: how to scale my own map image and get AutoAsm to recognise it). But, as I said, I'm only a third of the way through reading, so maybe all will be revealed.

[Guest cwright]

Hi Cap, good luck and have fun! If you do have any questions or problems just ask and I'll try to answer. About scaling: you set the scaling with the X and Y text boxes marked 'SIZE (DEGREES)'. This sets the size of your entire bitmap in degrees (longitude for X and latitude for Y). Suppose you set X and Y to 1 (i.e. one square degree). If the polygon representing the island stretches half way across the bitmap then its size will be half a degree, and so on. Hope that makes sense.... A small tip: if you change the size or centre position settings you must read in the bitmap again for the changes to take effect. Best regards, Chris

[Guest CapHavoc]

Howdy,Ah! Gottcha. Thanks, Chris. One very powerful tool, indeed.