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MGS

D199159 gxx.trn files uploaded

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For anyone interested, I just uploaded the gxx.trn files which flatten bodies of water in globe tile D199159. The globe tile includes Pittsburgh proper, but not KPIT, and is the companion to D199160, whose gxx.trn files I uploaded about a month ago. Two airfields in D199159 are KAGC and JST.

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Guest Richard Hill

MGS;Do you plan to edit any other tiles? I have TerraScened all of West Virginia and never could figure out how to flatten all my bodies of water. I went ti the trouble of adding the water effects, but they looked rather stupid with lakes following the elevations of the area.To tell the truth I have just about given up on Fly!2. Tried to get some answers from Todd with no results, and I doubt if any patches will be seen to enable us without the knowhow to correct elevation problems.I was a loyal FS user for many years FS2 and up to FS2000 when things were not progressing. I now have FS2002 and must say VFR flying may be very realistic with the new version of Terrabuilder.Richard;

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Richard, sorry I didn't answer sooner. I just now got online to see if my upload was posted and saw your message. I have to agree with you about the water. IMHO, Terrascened water is second to none, and when flattened, it simply adds an order of magnitude to my enjoyment of Fly2. I plan to Terrascene across PA to Philly and then fly for awhile. At some point I may flatten more water. I know from Fly2k days that the Harrisburg area could use some flattening. I hand edited all the gxx.trn files. Each globe tile took a month of any spare time I could find. Editing gxx.trn files is well described by Matt's (Forkboy, SoCal fame) message in the old forum archive from July 2001? I'd post a link, but I don't know how. Search under WARNING in the old scenery forum and you'll bring it up (I will email it to you if you have trouble). I may be wrong, but I don't recall any directions on the 3x3, 5x5, and 9x9 high detail grids that need to be edited in high resolution 8x8 terrain, but if you have trouble with these, I can help you. In the meantime, my advice is to use lower resolution elevations (subDivide density=4) when rendering and on a case by case basis turn off the water effects. The water will then be no worse than it was with Fly2k. I took this advice when rendering Colorado and am fairly happy with it (although I did flatten the Colorado R in the Grand Junction globe tile). I hope this helps.

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Richard, actually, with Colorado I used the Fly2 default elevations (rendered with no DEMS), except for the Grand Junction tile mentioned, and found the water reasonably acceptable. Now that I am over my senior moment, even 4x4 elevations with DEMS can easily yield disappointing results with water.

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Guest Richard Hill

Mark;I do all my scenery tiles 8x8. This is the only way I get elevation changes close to actual area. I was awaiting an addition to the editor like in Fly!2K that would allow users to visualy change the elevations, but I guess that will never happen as I have seen no mention of anyone working on any updates or patches. It is a shame as Fly!2 was on the move to be a superior simulator, with tools to allow one to do amazing things with their areas.I may try and find the meesage you mentioned and give things another try, I still find it hard to give up on fly even though things are getting rather quiet Fly! related.

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Guest Richard Hill

Mark;If you have anything you may want to pass along, please feel free to do so.richardlhll@wmconnect.comRichard L Hill

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I spent three hours yesterday studying the terrain files to learn how to flatten areas. One thing I found in my experiments is the following:Many of the times that I updated the subdividedensity and subdividetolerance within TS2, the terrain generated was NOT as I indicated. I found out, after much investigation, that TS2 was not updating the values in the .txt file that is used as arguments for the slicer. Also, just editing the .txt file is not good enough as it would get reset every time I tried to slice. These values also exist in the .prj file. I had to edit the values in both files and then reopen the project to get the terrain sliced with the settings I wanted. Changing the values in within TS2 would work sometimes, but not often for me.The moral of the story is that elevation may not be sliced as you intended if you run the slicer from TS2.nick

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Hi Richard,I've put something together for you (its long). Actually, changing elevations is not very difficult, just tedious. I can step you thru it. You can start by locating the gxx.trn files in the appropriate Dxxxyyy directory created in the Fly2 DATA directory after slicing is complete. Copy these somewhere safe as a backup. You can then edit any one of the gxx.trn files as a text file in Wordpad (double click on the one you decide to edit). To figure out which one to edit, see below.Ctrl E into the Fly2 editor and go to the site in your scenery where you want to adjust elevation (I usually start at a nearby airport and slew aroung). Write down the Tile X,Z number (X=0-63, Z=0-63) at that site. To figure out which gxx.trn to edit, use the following table:g00.trn X=0-31, Z=0-31g10.trn X=32-63 Z=0-31g01.trn X=0-31 Z=32-63g11.trn X=32-63 Z=32-63For 8x8 scenery, each Gxx.trn is divided into an 8x8 matrix of 64 Supertiles. The lowest left corner label is supertile 0,0 and the upper right corner label is supertile 7,7, the upper left corner is 0,7, and the lower right corner is 7,0. To determine which supertile to edit, you must again examine the Tile X,Z number you wrote down earlier (see above). If any X or Z number exceeds 31, then subtract 32 from it. Then divide each number by 4, discarding the remainder. That resulting indices are the super tile you will edit.For example, if Tile X,Z is 29,51, then use g01.trn, and the supertile to edit will be 7,4, that is 29/4=7 and (51-32)/4=(19/4)=4.Scroll thru the g01.trn until you find your supertile 7,4 as follows:--super tile74Scroll down past the list of textures and other info until you see a list of 25 numbers (elevations)as follows:--alt(MSL)for each vertex25 numbers listedThese 25 numbers are a 5x5 matrix of elevations in the supertile.The first 5 numbers are the bottom row, left to right. The second five numbers are the second row, etc. Write these down in a 5x5 matrix. These are the elevations you will change.It is important to know that the border elevations of any supertile will be repeated in each neighboring supertile. For example, for the lowest row of 5 elevations in supertile 7,4, there will be a topmost row of the same matching 5 elevations in supertile 7,3, which neighbors supertile 7,4 just underneath. The lowest left corner elevation of 7,4 will be the upper left corner elevation of 7,3, the upper right corner elevation of 6,3, and the lower right corner elevation of 6,4. If you change a border elevation, there will be a mismatch with an elevation in an adjacent supertile, and you will then create a tear in the scenery. I always start editing by creating such a tear intentionally, so I have a visual reference when slewing around the scenery to admire my progress.After creating a tear, ctrl E to the Fly2 editor, slew around the scenery until you find the tear in Tile X,Y. You can use this tear to get your bearings while adjusting elevations, and later you can restore the original elevation and close up the tear, or you can move to the neighboring supertile and make elevation adjustments there.Hint, cross out (do not erase) any elevations you are changing, and write the new elevation above the number. Always do this, so you can go back.Notice that supertile 7,4 is on the border with an adjacent gxx.trn (actually g11.trn I believe). (I seem to recall that you might not actually see the tear if you mismatch a border elevation in supertile 7,4 of g01.trn and the adjacent supertile 0,4 of g11.trn, that is neighboring supertiles in different gxx.trn, as examples). At any rate, make sure these elevations at borders of supertiles match, even if they lie in different gxx.trn, when you are finally finished with editing.If you change an elevation at a vertex of a high detail grid, you will open more tears. If you get as far as opening a tear at a desired spot, I will help you with the high detail grids, which come as 3x3, 5x5, and 9x9 ones.This is long and may even confusing enough. Nevertheless, I hope this helps for now. It is ALOT easier to do than to read (or write) the above.

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Actually, Richard, I can explain the 3x3, 5x5, and 9x9 high detail grids quickly. If there are any, they are listed right after the 25 elevations of the supertile, as as for example, a 3x3: -- high detail grid ========== BEGIN OBJECT ========== -- dimension in tiles 2 -- tiles in this grid are this type 1 -- indeces in parent grid 3 0 -- alt (MSL) for each vertex 1320. 1392. 1100. 1312. 1100. 1100. 1476. 1068. 1100.The lowest row is the first 3 elev. left to right and so on. Each corner of the 3x3 matches an elevation in the supertile matrix of 25 elevations discussed earlier. This is also true for the 5x5 and 9x9 high detail grids.Adjacent high detail grids must have matching border elevations, or there will be a tear in the scenery, just as discussed earlier. 3x3 (or 5x5) grids may be adjacent to 9x9 grids, in which case 3 border elevations of a 3x3 will match 3 border elevations (or 5 for a 5x5) of a 9x9 high detail grid, or there will be a tear. You can take advantage of intentional mismatches (corresponding tears in scenery) as visual reference points to reduce trial and error in editing elevations. Also note that high detail grids can be adjacent when each one lies within a neighboring supertile, and border elevations of these high detail grids must again all match in the end.Finally, if you do any editing, you will notice that high detail grids occur irregularly and are usually most common in areas like ridges, gorges, steep valleys, and bluffs. Many supertiles will not have any high detail grids at all, some have only a few.

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Guest

Mark,The GXX.trn files are always divided into 64 Supertiles no matter if the terrain was sliced with 2x2, 4x4, or 8x8. The slicing settings only affect the high detail grids. The Supertiles are always a 4x4 grid (5x5 data points).Nice explanation you wrote up. I wish I had that before I spent all afternoon Monday figuring it out! :-lolnick

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I'd like to add that I had another problem with TS2 that only a few of us experienced. It would hang if I tried to move the map before indicating an area to render. Not many people had that problem, but whatever causes it might be causing my settings not to update. I just wanted to point that out because you might not see the updating problem that I am seeing. Maybe you or someone can confirm it.nick

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Thanks for your correction on the 2x2 vs 4x4 vs 8x8 slicing as it relates to the high detail grid and not the 64 element gxx.trn files.

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I just examined one of the gxx.trn of globe tile 178,158 which contains Grand Junction. I had flattened the Colorado R. about 6 months ago. The TS2 elevation options specified 4x4 scenery, and the gxx.trn contained no 9x9 element high detail grids, only 3x3 and 5x5 element high detail grids. It seems that slicing at 8x8 settings will furnish the 9x9 element high detail grids.

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Exactly...2x2 yields 3x3 data, 4x4 = 5x5, and 8x8 = 9x9. I don't know what determines using a density less than what is specified by the user. That's still a mystery....

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