G'day all,At least that's how I feel. On top of the world. Just have to share my euphoria. :-jumpyAfter all my trepidations, techno-fear and just plain ignorance of scenery making I have just produced my first wee bit of terrascenery.Thank you Todd for the terrascene program which is unbelievably automated and intuitive and comes with a brilliantly written tutorial/referrence guide.Thank you also to all who have patiently answered my posts to the forum seeking help.The Scenery is 15 miles radius of YSSY (Sydney) bounded by Helensbourg in the south, Narrabeen lakes to the north and prospect resevoir to the west. Size is 53 MB and the scenery was produced from shapefiles, downloaded from DCW using arcexplorer, which were added to the project file in terrascene and mapped using the base textures supplied with terrascene.Thanks Todd, I owe youCheers,Roger @YSSY

Congratulations Roger!Looking forward to your upload ;) Ben

Congratulations, Roger!I believe this is only your "First Cut" on the scenery :) Now you should go for Terrashape. With Terrashape and a CAD program, you can modify every shapefile to your hearts content...or re-draw all of them like I do...makes your life a LOT easier.

G'day Andrew,OK Andrew you have my undivided attention; I'm all ears :-)How sophisticated a cad program does one need to open and modify the shape files in. ??I have already downloaded terrashape but not installed it yet as I had no idea of just what its purpose was.I am just very happy to get a terrascened result. I have noticed that the roads are really visible across the green forrest background but are hardly noticeable against the urban residential textures. Any ideas as to how to fix this?Also I want to put sandy beaches down the coast and in the inlets and bays.Thanks for the encouragementCheers,roger @YSSY

G'day Ben, At 6 min. / MB and lets see that's 53 MB.....yeah right :-lolThanks for the encouragement..... one day we'll all be on ADSL :-)Cheers,roger @YSSY

Hi Roger,I use AutoCad. But everone cant`t just get this program. There is also IntelliCad2000, you can often get it on the CD`s following PC magazines. Haven`t tried it yet, but at least it is free.Terrashape can do a lot of stuff. The most important is that it can convert your shapefiles and put them all as different layers into a dxf file. Then you can edit the stuff! Make new urban areas, change the coastlines, make new roads, new land types, beaches...and when finished, you convert back to shapefiles. Also there is built in an excellent function to re-make the ponetp file, which has the land, ocean and islands. With Terrashape, you really get the power :)Regarding the roads, experiment with the options. Right now I use a pure gray colour for the roads, not a texture, pixel width=3.It can also depend on which order you map the shapefiles. This order has worked well for me: ponetp, dnnetp, dnnetl, pppolyp, rrline, rdline. Or roughly, the largest polygon shapefiles first, then the polyline files.

RogerWhile writing TerraShape I tested with AutoSketch, AutoCAD, TurboCAD 6.5, IntelliCAD and DesignCAD.Basically any CAD program that can handle layers, read standard R12 dxf files and handle polylines will do the job.These are all very basic functions of a CAD program.Also, all the above programs, with the exception of AutoCAD which I use at work, were free on magazine disks during 2002.The latest version is on my site and the .exe is still under (minor) revision, so check there for updates. I am also trying hard to find the time to write a new manual. I have a couple of other docs that I'll put there for now specifically relating to coastlines.CheersColin

G'day Colin,Thanks for replying. I have a small problem.I downloaded TSH12b.zip and installed it in d:/program files/terrashapeWhen I tried to run the exe I get the error"required DLL not found.... CC3250MT.DLL not found"Any idea's what my problem may be??Thanks for the info about all the CAD programs. The hunt is on :-)I look forward to your docs, especially the one on coastlines. Has a solution been found for the watery runways/taxiways yet,?Cheers,Roger @YSSY

RogerYou need to get the full install first.This contains the required dlls.The later .exe can just be dropped into the install directory afterwards.I'm continually updating the exe as I add things and/or fix things.I always put the date that the last build was uploaded on my site.Colin

Hi Roger,Where did you get this plane? it's beautiful!!!Congratulations for your first scenery. :-DCheers,Keyton

Roger,I can send you a copy of TurboCAD v7.1 Standard.It came with the August ed.of PCAuthority.Rodger Buckley.

G'day Keyton,>Where did you get this plane? it's beautiful!!!My second attempt at a repaint :-)Glad you like it, it's been in the Library for over a year!! :-lol Peregrine Qantas Training 6-10-2001Have you heard of a cure for the watery runways/taxiways?Thanks for the compliment. Cheers,Roger @YSSY

Rodger,Much appreciated; you have mailRoger @ YSSY

G'day Roger, Don't know if you saw Randall's post in the Developer forum or not, but here's info for you regarding the water tile problem! It should allow you to fix those tiles.Quote "I would recommend downloading this great utility: Ground Type Transform v1.1 by Elrond Elvish and Jim Kanold. This will allow you to change the underlying ground tiles to "water", so you can use the Stearman with floats. Here is the download link: http://ftp.avsim.com/library/sendfile.php?DLID=10790 " UnquoteHope this helps you get going!Many Cheers!Ken WoodCNN International Weather :-sun1

G'day Ken,Thanks for the post Ken but I have tried Ground type transform and had a long post with Elrond over the problem way back just after he released it to the library. Unfortunately ground transform doesn't solve the problem where land and water meet. Works well on all land or all water tiles.It seems as though the water mask overwrites water on top of the land tile.Cheers,Roger @YSSY