Enhanced TerraScene Tutorial

[Guest]

The real world is indeed beautiful from a bird's (or pilot's) eye, but you have taken the virtual world one step closer to it!Todd

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Biber,Thanks for having been impatienly patient! :-) :-) :-)

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Allen,Thanks for the kind comments!In fact, most of what you see is Todd's work, I just dropped some ink on it. Don't try it over your tax forms, they wouldn't look any better! :-lolPascal

[Guest]

Pascal, if you haven't already, take a look at our frontpage news for today. :-)

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Scott,:-eekIt's great!!! :-yellow1 :-jumpy :-yellow1................. *:-* *:-* *:-*Thanks a lot!Pascal

[Guest]

Pascal, Well worth the wait! You are a PS guru! I am well on my way to having some scenery done. First tech question for you, I have all three renderings done for a quarter globe tile in the U.S. I have both complete .tga files and cut pieces, i.e. Project1-1.tga, Project1-2.tga. Do I need to follow your tutorial with EACH cut section or can I make the PS enhancements from the complete Project.tga, ProjectShadow.tga, and ProjectSel.tga? Thanks!! Ben

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Hi Ben!Nice to see you are already in the making!Yes, do it for each piece. A quarter tile is certainly too big. In fact it depends on how much RAM you have (I have 384Megs), and how much you allocate to PS (see PS options). Remember, you will often have many layers or channels in the same time, and each will add to memory requirements. Don't forget to delete channels when you don't need them anymore, and to convert ProjectShadow.tga to grayscale.However, only if you have a LOT of RAM, you could try to work on the whole quarter tile. Try it, you'll see if it's too slow (many swaps to HD), especially when you use the diplace filter. However, I see another problem: I believe TerraScene reuses the small parts when you launch it again, and overwrites the big one. Not sure. In this case, you have to change the max segment size so that you have only one part, and TS will not overwrite your work!Hope this helps!Cheers!Pascal

[Guest]

Pascal, I continued with your tutorial last night and have a few questions that may help the group. First when selecting the ExpandedUrban channel, you mention expanding the selection with the modify menu. How many pixels do you typically expand here? Same for the jagged edge section, it seems like 8-10 pixels is to small and 40 or so may be too be too big for the expand and contract modifications in this section? Finally, the jagged edge section may have a backward instruction (or I may be backwards!!). You mention expanding and then contracting, the photo sequence seems to show the opposite happening, contracting then expanding. This seems to make a difference in getting the border selected around the desired area. Thanks for your help with this. Ben

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Hi Ben!>a few questions that may help the group. First when >selecting the ExpandedUrban channel, you mention expanding >the selection with the modify menu. How many pixels do you >typically expand here?The first expand is 16. The exact amount is not very important, it just makes some room between urban and forest.>Same for the jagged edge section, it >seems like 8-10 pixels is to small and 40 or so may be too >be too big for the expand and contract modifications in this >section?I expanded by 4 pixels, and 6 for contract. You can compare with the big size on line pictures if you set your zoom to 200%. They are all at this ratio.>Finally, the jagged edge section may have a >backward instruction (or I may be backwards!!). You mention >expanding and then contracting, the photo sequence seems to >show the opposite happening, contracting then expanding. >This seems to make a difference in getting the border >selected around the desired area.I verified the in-line tutorial, seems that the picture's order is correct. Note that in my pictures, THE SELECTED AREA IS BLACK! You can choose this in the channels options.Does it help?Cheers! Pascal

[Guest]

Hello all. Like many posting here, I'm very excited to see this incredible scenery and hope to fly w/ it someday soon. I have two questions:* Pascal..you're screenshots are unbelievable. I'm assuming you're using high detail textures w/ a 64MB or better graphics card. Any idea on how this type of scenery will look for those of use w/ a 32MB card?* You mentioned that it would be good to share the selection images so that everyone doesn't have to reinvent the wheel. I started working w/ your tutorial...and like you said, its very time consuming. Is anyone willing to share the selection images they've created for any of the ground tiles?This scenery really gets my mind racing for how good flight simulation can be. I think the bump mapping and shadows that you illustrate in your tutorials add a great deal more realism than the performance-crippling effect of adding hundreds of 3D buildings. Let me thank you, Pascal...and encourage everyone else (myself included) to work w/ techniques like this to keep releasing great scenery for Fly II.Dan

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Dan,I appreciate your comments. I really hope that enthusiastic people like you take the pencil and start a scenery! :-) I'd like to add some more ideas in the future, that might ease some operations and the ability to share each one's work. The scenery files are huge, and we HAVE to find a way to share them easily, since we can't ask everyone to buy Photoshop and start his scenery!My video card is a GeForce2 GTS Pro 64 meg. My system is not very good: PIII 667. In fact I cheat a bit when I take screenshots: once paused in a nice view, I change the graphic options only for the shot! I could'nt fly nicely with those settings.However, the scenery might look right with a 32 megs card, but from higher altitude! (given that you don't cheat the graphic settings using the high resolution textures). The process must work in Fly!2k as well.The number of polys affects the framerate as well, and it depends on the "tolerance" set in TS advanced options (don't remember the exact name).As for the texures for selection sharing, I hope that some other people make their own. It's time consuming, but it might result in some more diversified landscapes. Who wants that all parts of the US look the same?! :-) I might share mine in the future, but not before I finish the scenery and distribute it. :-)Cheers!Pascal

[Guest]

>diplace filter. However, I see another problem: I believe >TerraScene reuses the small parts when you launch it again, >and overwrites the big one. Not sure. In this case, you have >to change the max segment size so that you have only one >part, and TS will not overwrite your work! Pascal,You can avoid this by selecting 'use existing' for the day image, which will tell TS2 to NOT regenerate the final, big file and just use the one already on disk. This is different than the 'use existing segments' option which will tell it to rebuild the big final image from the existing small segments.Thanks again for your work!Todd

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Todd,Yes! That's it! I wasn't in front of TerraScene and didn't remember, but I have already used this neat feature! Thank you very much for pointing this out! :-)It's one perfect example of your software's adaptability! Things are logical and easy to tweak. It's always a pleasure to start TS and choose this texture or this other one, render a small map to see how the area looks like, play with some snow, the sun, the season. There's really much to do, the possibilities are infinite. It's more than a simple software: it'a a tool!Cheers!Pascal

[Guest amerton]

Hi there,C'est vrai que les pics sont sublimes.... WowMoi c'est LSGG, bord du lac !Si vous passez par l

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

Hi Anthony!Incredible! Nice surprise!Je passe assez souvent