Satellite background.

[Guest CarlHill]

I've spent a couple of weeks doing my local airport. I've got everything built from scratch and hand textured. It is time to do the photo background texture in order to finish this up. I have made a big jpeg of the airport using google earth. The problem is that I want the image to follow the outline of the airport perimeter. All of the programs I have found seem to just do square areas. The perimeter is not square. How do I get the satellite texture to be in an irregular shape(not square) to match the perimeter of the airport? Also, what is the easiest program to do this with?I am using FS2004, not FSX. It seems Sbuilder would screw up my afcad2 visuals. Is there something better?CH

[scruffyduck 4]

SBuilder should be able to produces a textured Polygon in FS9. This should not mess up any AFCAD information. There are some tutorials on my site www.scruffyduckscenery.co.uk on using SBuilder and AFCAD. One of them certainly deals with textured polygons.

[Guest CarlHill]

I will check it out, thanks!!!!CH

[scott967 62]

There is also the possibiity to use sbuilder to create a photo terrain, and you can use an alpha channel in your images to have it show where you want it to. But IIRC this might require some processing in imagetool to get the file format correct. one advantage is you can get a "fade out" rather than a hard edge, like is done with the blend channel in FSX resample.scott s..

[Guest Tiberius1250]

Hi guys. I've been trying this the past few days for a scenery in FS9. Got myself some textured models exported from Blender, MDL exporter works fine. Problem is the airport I'm modelling is near some docks and the default base textures in FS are so blurred, no matter what you do with the airport that default texture is just going to ruin it. In any other game I'd model the paved dock/apron/car park area in Blender and just align the whole thing on the existing terrain but I guess there's a reason why this approach wouldn't work in FS.I read through the "Google Eath and photo scenery" thread, at the end Luis says SbuilderX can grab the image tiles from Google and import them to FSX, he says it should also work for FS9 if you save the image and configure it manually. Alas, I downloaded everything the other night and installed SbuilderX, it crashes because I've not got FSX installed, get a crash box where it can't copy over the textures :(Still a lot to learn, still trying to work out how to use the exclude boxes to mask the default autogen and delete all the 1000+ stock models leaving just the modded stuff once I import the BGLs into ScenegenX :)Regards, Bruce.

[scott967 62]

Terrain in FS9 is limited to a max resolution of 4.8m/pixel. From what I've seen, the approach used to get around this is to either use the pre-FS9 method of creating textured ground scenery, or GMAX using the FS2k2 gamepack which allows some tweaking of ground level scenery (I think this is needed for shadows, etc). I don't know if there is some way to get Blender to work for this. Recommend going to fsdeveloper.com scenery forums.scott s..

[Guest luissa]

>I read through the "Google Eath and photo scenery" thread, at>the end Luis says SbuilderX can grab the image tiles from>Google and import them to FSX, he says it should also work for>FS9 if you save the image and configure it manually. Alas, I>downloaded everything the other night and installed SbuilderX,>it crashes because I've not got FSX installed, get a crash box>where it can't copy over the textures :(Hi Bruce,If you create the folders where FSX places the SDK tools (resample, shp2vec, imagetool, ...) and if you place inside dummy files with the right names, SBuilderX will pass the installation process. Of course that you will not be able to generate BGL files (as you need the referred to tools) but you will be able to get the background pictures.If you want to give it a try check my forum (ptsim dot com) and search for the word REGISTRY to get threads that explain what SBuilderX expects to find in your disk when it starts.Kind Regards,Luis

[Guest CarlHill]

Okay, I've got the image in there and correctly scaled/aligned. Is there any way to keep the image from covering up the default runways/taxiways, etc? The signs are all there, but no ground features. I have a bad feeling this is unavoidable, but I just wanted to see if anyone knew a way around it.CH

[Guest Tiberius1250]

Hi Luis, sorry for late reply.I'll check your forum for that, would be great to be able to get the tiles...I only need a square mile or so at the moment for the airport base and surrounding roads.The upgrade to FSX will come but stuck with good old FS9 for the moment :-)Cheers, Bruce.

[scruffyduck 4]

I suspect this is all to do with altitide setting. You need to get the altitude of the ground polygon just below that of the airport.

[Guest CarlHill]

So what about the runways, aprons, etc. Is there not a way to get them to show up without having to mask the runways, aprons in the image.CH

[scruffyduck 4]

Are you talking about in SBuilderX or FSX?

[Guest CarlHill]

FS2004. It seems the satellite image sits on top of the default taxiways and runways. The only way I see around it is to create an alpha mask where the runways and taxiways are. In the old days you could use layers to address this, but I've been out of the loop for so long, I don't really know the newer techniques. The last airport I made prior to this was FS2002. If I could just get this part right, I'd be done.CH

[scruffyduck 4]

What altitude setting do you have for the satellite image compared to the airport reference altitude?

[Guest CarlHill]

Let's see if I can explain it. I made a huge image from a bunch of Google Earth images put together by hand (pain in the you know what).I then erased the boundary line that I wanted to keep for the perimeter. I couldn't figure out how to do this in SBuilder so I placed it using the old FS Architect photo grid tool. I set the altitude 963.9 ft under the airports altitude of 964ft. It is too low and doesn't show up. If I place it at the same altitude, the runways and taxiways don't show up.To work around it, I masked out the runways and taxiways. They show up now, but alignment is nearly impossible. Even using AFX that lets me see what is going on "LIVE", it just doesn't work out too well. I guess my question should have been whether or not there is still a way to assign the photo poly lower than the default runway and taxiways by using some type of layering.. I have been unable to figure this out. Thanks for all of your replies so far.CH