TS: Choosing Land Types

[dkohl 0]

How does one figure out what land types are in a given area so that one can select the most accurate looking textures for that area? I've been "TerraScening" (new word - created here!) various parts of the US, but find that the default settings do not accurately reflect the ground types in a lot of the country. For example, I created scenery for Salt Lake City and found it to be to green, with too much farm-land. I could experiment by swapping texture assignments in the land-type selections, but there must be a more scientific way to do this? I'd like to be creating more realistic looking ground types (like jagged rocky mountains in the West or more urban and suburban looking areas in the NY Metro area).Help appreciated. And once I've done this well, I will post TerraScene project and render-options "packs" to the AVSIM library so everyone can create the scenery.-DK----Fly! II v230Dell 8200 P4/1.8G, 512MB RAM, Nvidia GF4 Ti4600 v28.83, WinXP Home Edition.CH Pro Pedals and Yoke USB.

[dkohl 0]

By way of example, here are two pix over Grand Canyon - very green instead of orange/red rock. I wasn't sure what ground-tile type the rocky faces of the canyon are, so without experimentation, I wouldn't be able to make the appropriate land-type (day) texture choices in TerraScene.Thanks for the help.-DK----David KohlFly! II v230Dell 8200 P4/1.8G, 512MB RAM, Nvidia GF4 Ti4600 v28.83, WinXP Home Edition.CH Pro Pedals and Yoke USB.

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

I faced the same problem, i.e to know which ground type is used in which location.I found out that TS is very good at drawing maps.Assign a specific pure color for each ground type. Be very systematic, because there are a lot of ground types. The best is to draw a reference chart in a paint program with each color and the ground type's name.In Project Options, change the resolution to 60 - 100 meters/pixel or more, it depends on the map's scale you want.Uncheck shadow and slice option and render. It's much faster than a standard rendering. Inside your output folder you should find a map like this: (don't care about the text, I used this one to show how to hilight the airport zones)http://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3d18adb1330519f8.gifTo draw very nice maps, you can even design some very small textures (jpeg format) with lines and points or even some little repetitive symbols. TS is able to tile even very small textures.It's a bit work, but you can reuse your map project file, so do it once... And it's much fun!Maybe one day if I find the time I might distribute a map project, but now I don't.Cheers!Pascal

[dkohl 0]

Cool idea. But you're right, this would probably take some time. When I have a block of time to play, I'll do the project you described, maybe even with some symbols, and then post it here to AVSIM for everyone to enjoy. But don't hold your breath - with two kids, a wife who complains I fly too much, and a demanding job, it'll be a while.But thanks. Great idea. -DK----David KohlFly! II v230Dell 8200 P4/1.8G, 512MB RAM, Nvidia GF4 Ti4600 v28.83, WinXP Home Edition.CH Pro Pedals and Yoke USB.

[MGS 0]

David, I experimented with a combination of TS textures for Colorado. The most serious problem I had was avoiding the appearance melting ice cream with combinations of certain light textures on dark. I also used Paintshop Pro to reduce the green in the color balance, and made some adjustments in color balance. I don't think the results I came up with are for everyone (although I'm quite happy). I'll make up a list of textures I modified and others which I used unmodified if you want. Needless to say, it would be not be permissable to distribute them. In fact, I feel a bit queasy about displaying some shots. I show just one, west of Denver.

[dkohl 0]

I played around with textures randomly yesterday and ran TS for the Grand Canyon area. My results were actually quite good considering I used the default Fly!2 7.5M/P textures without any mods. It would be nice if I can find a redder texture, but for now, this is pretty good. I'm posting my render and project options to the AVSIM TerraScene library for others to use.Picture is attached. -DK---David KohlFly! II v230Dell 8200 P4/1.8G, 512MB RAM, Nvidia GF4 Ti4600 v28.83, WinXP Home Edition.CH Pro Pedals and Yoke USB.

[Guest]

Excellant suggestions from Pascal, as usual! I would only add that to make it even easier, you can just use the 'Set all to solid colors' button on the Render Options dialog to set each land type to a solid color in one step. That way you don't need to manually set the color for each land type.Todd

[Pascal_LSGC 298]

:-beerchugHi Todd! It happens that I always forget the little detail that makes thinks easier. :+(what? push only one button, when you can spend funny hours choosing the nicest colors :-lol )Cheers! Pascal