Absolute Beginner Question around water masks...

[Guest Catalano]

Hi Guys,please can anybody help me to produce better colours of the sea? After the first trial with EZ-Landclass I am not really satisfied with the result. The Shoreline looks like a sawtooth.I am still working on a huge shoreline (Catalonia/Spain). It is really time consuming - so maybe there are different methodes to tackle this?As a template I only have Google Earth at the moment...I have heard that one can do this with "water masks" and something called "resample" . However, I have no idea at all what this both means. My questions to you are the followings: 1. What does one understand by a water mask? 2. Which components does one need to produce something like that? 3. How does one do this from the technical view? 4. Which programmes can one use for it? I would be very pleased with some support. Provided that there is a documentation to this knowledge area, I would be grateful for a note. Thank you Bodo

[scott967 62]

The "beginner's guide" topic at the top of this forum is a good place to start. But in a nutshell: the whole world is covered with landclass and waterclass in two files. Each of these files split the earth into 1.3 x 1.3 km squares. FS9 uses the information in the two files, along with some other variables, to select a texture file for the landclass file and for the waterclass file. Thus, for every point in the world there are 2 texture files defined covering the 1.3 km square containing the point, one for water and one for land. The "water mask" is a special file which tells FS which one of the 2 textures to show. If there is no water mask, the landclass texture tile is shown. The water masks can contain the entire 1.3km tile, or by defining a polygon area they can select partial tiles to show to create a shore. Think of a sandwich with waterclass texture on the bottom and landclass texture in the middle. The water mask sits on top and "cuts holes" through the landclass texture to allow the waterclass texture to "show through". Note that probably to save the need to cover all the oceans with water masks, a special landclass value of 100 exists, which defines a texture of "water". Thus in the ocean water appears, even with no water mask.So when working with shores, you need to do 3 things:1. Make sure that a landclass is defined for every 1.3 km tile containing land. If the default landclass is value 100 you need to create a new landclass with some other value.2. If you don't like the color of the ocean or lake water in the 1.3km square, create a new waterclass with a different value. 3. Once appropriate land and water is defined in each 1.3km tile, create the watermasks so that land and water appear in the correct place.Note that the way FS works, it blends textures from neighboring 1.3km tiles. The practical effect is that you need to extend your landclass definitions out into the water area a bit to ensure coverage.Note also that the water masks, besides defining areas of water, also can set the elevation overriding mesh. This results in the oceans and lakes appearing flat.the landclass and waterclass files are built with resample. The water masks are built with bglc (FS9) or shp2vec (FSX). Bglc is hopeless to use directly; you need to use a terrain scenery program. Shp2vec is easier, but still helps to use a design program.Again go and look at that first thread to get some links with more details on how to go about making changes.scott s..

[Guest Catalano]

Many thanks to you, Scott S.!!!I understand this principle things and will now have a look at the sources you recommended.Thanks againBodo