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Guest snowmanf

Noobie Isle

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Guest rbrown3rd

Jim. Oh boy does that help me. Thanks a bunch. You have given me a lot to chew on but even on the first read it makes sense to me. Some key things that were enlightenment to me were the fact that the source does not have to be 257 x 257 chunks and secondly that you can change the CellX/Ydimensiondeg values to anything. Also, it is liberating that I can work in a 16 bit image. You can easily spot the fact that I come from the landclass world can't you? So, it is a little bit of trial and error as far as getting the real earth location right? Using the upper left corner one must then calculate the area covered and use that to position the island in the original raw file?I did find evidence of my island in FS when I flew towards a suspicious looking area using the top down view. When I switched back to a cockpit view I could see the ocean welling up in the shape of my island. However, instead of being a small island it appeared to be huge. At least something was there.Thank you very much for taking the time to type such an informative and helpful posting.I will experiment some more but you have given me a great boost. Thanks Jim.Bob

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Guest jimkeir

Hi.No worries, glad it's sorted. Your huge island will probably be the result of the large CellX/YDim values. If it's ocean, it could be covered by LWMs, or it could be that there's no landclass in the area - back on your territory, I think :)As long as you have fixed coords for at least two points on your island (maybe from a map and preferably as far away from each other in both lat and long as possible), a bit of arithmetic should get you decent CellX/YDim values. Then you can work out the top left coords of the image using the cell dimensions and the known pixel and geographic location of one of your points.Cheers,Jim

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Guest rbrown3rd

Thanks Jim. I am getting there slowly. If the ocean is covered with an LWM water, which I suspect it is, do I use a tool like Ground2K4 or similar to remove it? I vaguely remember doing that a long, long time ago with a project.

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Hello Bob,Sorry about the mixup concerning coordinates - my mistake.A short comment concerning default water - in Flight Simulator, all ocean water is set to an altitude of 0 meters (that is "metres" for our British, Australian, and New Zealand friends.) We do not have any easy way to remove this limitation (although it is possible - see below) so if you create an altitude mesh on top of this default water, you will not see any elevation. The Water Mask (L/WM = Land/Water Masks) overrides your altitude mesh and keeps everything at sea level (0 meters in the FS world.)If you really insist on creating an altitude mesh in this location, you can remove the Water Mask there by modifying the default bgl that controls it. Jim has provided the possibility with his LWMViewer so that you can export the source of that bgl and then delete the section that you want. Then, just recompile and replace the default bgl with your modified version. The Water Mask will no longer exist and your altitude mesh will appear.However, do not forget that you must: 1) draw a Land Mask for your island, and; 2) assign land class values there.Otherwise, you will see the water following your new relief, but no land.Or, as an alternative, you could consider modifying an existing island where a new altitude mesh will appear without having to go through all this effort for a fictitious island.Best regards.Luis

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Guest rbrown3rd

Thank you Luis. You guys are so helpful and I want to be sure that you know I appreciate it greatly. It appears that I still have a lot to do to make my little island look right but it is a wonderful learning process thanks to you guys. I may have to put this little project on the back burner for a bit because we have house guests coming but you have given me some excellent guidance and instruction. There is enough information in this discussion thread to keep me busy for a while. I will probably start working on it again next week and when I get some results I will post some screenshots for everyone.

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Howdy,now I am confused ;-)Luis said: "A short comment concerning default water - in Flight Simulator, all ocean water is set to an altitude of 0 meters" I thought only those areas defined by LWM code are set to 0m elevation. Attached is the LWMViewer image of Bob's area of interest (white circle), which is part of LOD5 section 49x12. The dark blue is undefined as LWM, only the light blue areas near the German coast are defined, i.e. set to 0 meters. (obviously, the other coasts have similar fringes of LWM code but they are in different LOD5 sections not shown in the screenshot). All undefined areas should have mesh show up, and the mesh should show as land, if it is declared as such via landclass. Or am I wrong here...Cheers, Holger http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/82169.jpg

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Or, I am wrong, Holger. It would not be the first time. Thanks for the correction and for bringing this up.Best regards.Luis

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Guest rbrown3rd

Just popping in for a quick check, our house guests are here. If I understand correctly, and it makes sense based on what I have seen, the terrain exists but only needs some landclass definitions to make it visible as something other than mounded up water. I also need to get the island in the right place and the right size which is something my feeble brain is wrestling with. Thanks again everyone.

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Guest jimkeir

Hi.I think that's it. If the island is in the place shown on Holger's map, it's probably got landclass set to "water". Check in LWMViewer :D Load your mesh, select 'load this area' then switch off the other mesh files that get loaded (dw*.bgl) . Alternatively, find and drop the file "worldlc.bgl" onto the window. Make sure you've got the landclass display switched on, you'll be able to see what class is there.So... landclass for your island will make it appear as land. However, it will also make the surrounding ocean appear as land. You need to create LWMs - Land/Water Masks - to make your coastlines. The LWM is a vector object - the ones in lighter blue with black outlines in Holger's screenshot near the coast to the south. I believe Ground"k$ is the tool of choice for these. You should be able to use LWMViewer (again!) to create a georeferences background image for Ground2K4 which will let you draw your coastlines in.After your guests depart, that is :)Cheers,Jim

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Guest rbrown3rd

Thanks Jim. Got up early this morning and took a quick look. Here is the top down view of my island in FS9. I drew the yellow outline on the screen capture with my graphics program. Everything you guys are saying now makes sense. There is evidence of a version of my island as you can see in the attached image. It is gigantic and way too large but shaped right. It also has terraced elevations instead of smooth rounded ones. It shows as water because there are no landclass categories designated for it. The good news is that I am learning and there is something out there.

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Guest snowmanf

Its a bit of an old thread but I still found some useful ideas in here. Wonder what ever happened to your island. I too am creating something that isnt/wasnt there. This will help... just looking at LWMViewer now.FrostyCreator of New Eden

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