Creating an island

[Guest heclak]

How do i go about creating an island that is not there? I've tried creating a landclass file with LWMViewer but it doesn't work. What do i need to create a new island. The island would be flat. Is this the same for inaccurate coasts? Would i need mesh?

[scott967 62]

I believe both ground2k4 and sbuilder have some tutorials for building a new island. You need the landclass, but you also need a land mask polygon to define the area the landclass should show (at least if your island is in the general area of existing land). OTOH, in the middle of nowhere, you might see the landclass showing, but as square tiles. Then you need water mask polygons to define the area the landclass should not show. This is actually the method used for default land in FS9. Adding mesh and coastlines would spruce things up. scott s..

[Guest heclak]

i just tried using Ground2k4 to build an island. I followed the tutorial and place an LWM and classed it as land. I later on placed landclass and covered the entire polygon. I think there's something wrong with my Ground2k4 now. I can't even select a coasttype ever since i changed it to a VTP2 polygon. I just can't seem to get my land to appear proper with the coast and follow it. It all appears as squares and not coastlines. Can someone help me?

[scott967 62]

Are you examining files in LWMViewer? Make sure you also load the default files as well as your new ones.It's been a while since I used ground2k4. The thing is to understand what you need to do, and then how to use the progtram to get your results.1. By default, the whole world is covered with land, but some of the land uses a "water" landclass so that water textures show. Thus, by applying your own landclass file, you can change which textures are shown, in particular change that water to land texture. These textures are blended, but always cover square tiles of the surface.2. Also in the default, to create lakes, sea coasts, and nearshore water, water LWM polygons are placed. At the sea coasts, these extend out seaward quite a ways (in reality, once you get away from the immediate coast area, "area fills" of water are used rather than LWM polygons, but the idea is the same.3. Finally, a VTP2 line is drawn along the shoreline to create the visual effect of a shore with breaking waves, beaches, etc.Thus, to create your island, you must be aware of this default scenery. The best way is to load by coordinates the default scenery into LWMViewer.Some annotated pictures will follow in the next couple of posts.scott s..

[scott967 62]

Continuation of post.1. as a project, I will put 2 islands off of South America around lat S13.5, long W038.8. First, I load the default terrain into LWMViewer. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/151660.jpgNote that landclass is defined everywhere, but the light blue is landclass 100, which is a water texture.At the default coast, the actual coast is defined with a default water mask file (HP9). This is the dark blue. It extends a ways out from the shore. You must determine if your new island is covered by this water mask or not!2. I define a new landclass file, which places my desired landclass textures where I want islands. The first one is beyond the area covered by the default water masks.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/151661.jpgThe landclass will create a boxy area of land textures.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/151662.jpgLooking from the cockpit you see the land is flat, except for a few autogen trees.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/151663.jpg3. Next I will define landclass but this time it is close to the exisitng coast. It doesn't show in LWMViewer because it is "covered" by the water mask. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/151664.jpgcontinued next postscott s..

[scott967 62]

Final post.Here I have toggled off the display of mask polygons in LWMViewer, so I can see my landclass.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/151665.jpg4. To create the shape of my first island, I must create water masks where I don't want the landclass to show. I can do this using LWM polygons, or area fills. I need to make sure I cover enough area so none of my landclass is exposed at the edges. Because of the way landclass actually is drawn, it is possible to make a mistake by about 1 textrue tile. It's better to make your landclass definitions a ltille bigger than you actually need, and precisely cover up the excess with water masks.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/151666.jpgThis is actually 2 polygons and a few area fills.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/151669.jpg5. for the other island, I must define the land mask which will "cover" the water mask. You can stack masks up, for example, if you want a lake in your island. Masks have a priority within a file, whcih is set by the "imbrication" setting in ground2k4. Between, files, priority is set by the normal scenery priority system.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/151672.jpgThe second island.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/151673.jpgOnce your island is showing you can start adding additional terrain features by layering VTP2 polygons and lines over it. You can also create a mesh for your island, but be aware that the default water masks also have an effect of flattening the mesh, so creating mesh in these areas doesn't work. the typical work around is to delete the default water mask HP9 file, and create a new one which doesn't cover your island, but includes all the other parts of the original file.scott s..