Help designing island scenery

[Guest TFLeonard]

I've been tempted many times through the history of MSFS to design scenery for it, and tried off and on to do it. Unfortunately I've usually been stopped by getting stuck due to not understanding something, running into a bug or something unsupported in the software I chose, or just having to wait too long for an update/bug fix. Anyway here's what I'd like to do:I would like to make scenery for the Bahamas. I would like to use a combination of Photoscenery, mesh (probably SRTM data), vector, and Landclass/Autogen scenery.From reading the very good "Sticky Note" at the top of this forum, and browsing others I am sure I'm not going to find a complete solution in one package. I'm leaning towards Terrabuilder and Sbuilder but need to clarify a few things before choosing.I would like my scenery to "automatically" switch from photoreal to vector depending on the viewing distance. In other words when I'm flying at 1000 feet or more, I'd see the photo scenery. When I went below 500 the vector scenery would be viewable. In addition, I'd want photo scenery to be displayed of coastal waters, but below 500 feet, FS2004 landable water would appear. Is this technique possible? If so how would I go about it?I created a small test island with Terrabuilder Lite which worked fine for the photo scenery, but I didn't get any relief(mesh) scenery when I added a terrain map. Is this function not available any more?I did play around a bit with the new Terrabuilder GMAX terrain modifier but, since I don't have the PRO version I was limited in understanding if this would solve my problem. If any PRO users can answer this question:How does one line up the terrain map with the photo map? Since you're doing all the work in GMAX and having to enter coordinates there, it doesn't seem to allow you to preview where your terrain and photo maps match up. I think the old way of doing things in Terrabuilder seemed to allow this. Please fill me in if I'm missing something.I briefly tried sbuilder to do the same thing, but haven't been able to get it to work yet. There are references to tutorials but I can't seem to find them on the web. If anyone can provide me with links to a tutorial, expecially one which deals with creating islands with photos and relief, please send them my way.Thanks for you help.

[Team_P3DSpacePort 6]

Hi,First, the "altitude map" function you refer to in TerraBuilder is the "old-style", not functioning any longer. These days, all the mesh is conforming the MS SDK method. So, the TerraBuilder LITE is capable only of designing the PhotoScenery, and SDK mesh using manual coding.As for PRO - alignment of the mesh and photo scenery must be done through precise lat/long specification - basically, make sure you have your mesh and the photo scenry in the right place, and they will lign up. This will certainly require some tweaking, but nothing too dificult. The "old way" of doing this in TerraBuilder did not allow for any better alignment - there was no 3-d display and you couldn't view the mesh, except the altitude readout under the cursor.As a final note:I am considering adding functionality to GMAX so that there would also be an image overlayed on top of mesh, which would then be exported as mesh AND photoreal scenery - then, you'd get what you're asking for. However, my current workload is forcing this on the backburner. Perhaps in the fall, I will have the time to look into this...Misho Katulic, author,TerraBuilder

[scott967 62]

ISTM that you can't get the behaviour you want -- viewing vector terrain at certain altitude. I think you have to use a 3d modeling technique that allows for setting view distance and placing ground polys/autogen on top of your photo tiles.scott s..