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New terrain progress

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Guest fu3

Ah yes, I said I'd have a go at this :-roll S'funny, it's kinda addictive. I've flattened a few spots and experimented with a lake ;-) Here's some shots;Easton State. The mounds on each side of the runway are because the terrain data included the trees (sort of). I might flatten that part too.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161449.jpgLewis Creek. This was difficult because it straddles 2 tiles.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161450.jpgBandera State. Once boring, now quite pretty, with the terrain improvements - and a few thousand tons of fill to sort the strip out.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161451.jpgChester Morse Lake (!). Not far from Bandera and absolutely massive - now that it's flat and 100% usable.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161452.jpg:-waveRegards,Jon Point

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Guest fu3

Well sorta ;-)You see, I still have to finish the D17's cockpit and I've just spent all my spare weekend time on terrain :-rollBut yes, it is fun - and rewarding...Oh well, maybe sort the cockpit tonight?:-waveRegards,Jon Point

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Guest fu3

Thanks, Andre ;-)I tried the map export tool but it doesn't always work because the megatiles are bizarre. Yesterday I did Bergseth, which resides on tile AGAD which the map tool doesn't extract. What I had to do was export AEAG and find the correct 512x512 part of it, resize etc. I'm finding also that initially, I'm off by about 0.5 to 1km and that when I move the yellow area (say, against itself to the left), it jumps about 1-2km in the other direction :-grr To resolve this, if I'm doing an airport, I set the elevation to ~500ft above the terrain, then fly around in FU3 to find it.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161533.jpgFor lakes, I set the height to ~500ft BELOW the terrain and do the same.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161534.jpgAnyway, nice shorelines? Around Kachess Lake. The 'bump' on the other side is a display artefact - when you get closer to it, it flattens ;-) A bit gnarly because it straddles 2 megatiles.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161535.jpgChester Morse Lake (I like this one - expect a package or 2...). This one took a few tries and also butts-up against another megatile.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161536.jpgOf course, this method lends itself well to creating evil canyon-racing courses :-banghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161537.jpg:-waveRegards,Jon Point

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Guest fu3

Andre,Is there any way of extracting night mapfiles (.bin)? I asked this years ago but didn't understand the answer! And, assuming one COULD do it, how would one put them back?Yes, I want to seriously kill some night lights :-grr In fact, simply removing them would be fine, but strategically placing a few might help too :-rollI got the idea (again) when I was using the L3 map extractor tool (l3map6x5.exe) and wondered if it could be made to extract N3 files as well?To be truthful, a bit of hand editing wouldn't go astray on the day maps either but that's too much work :-wavePS Got Harvey flattened now ;-)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161607.jpgRegards,Jon Point

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Hi Jon, greath work :-)For the night maps: I never have worked with it. They have another format, but before I can say more I will have to make some reverse engineering jobs on it.It's a good idea to view the flat area by oversizing it.Extraction must be possible for all the tiles. You must select the level 5 map in the treeview to export it. You can't export level 0 and 2 maps, because we work with the level 5 only and generate level 2 and 0 during the import. At import you must select the main node of the tile and not the level map itself. This is due to the internal treeview handling and addressing. LG has designed each separate level using a never publshed GMax interface. That why the levels are not together for a tile in the original LG GeoTiles.tag. In my new version there are all together so import and export is never a problem. :-wave agtim

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Guest R_Driscoll

I love the new work, agtim and Jon! This is brilliant scenery and I can't wait to get my hands on it. Maybe a small environmental concern or two, though. All of this filling and flattening. Where are you getting all of the dirt from?Robert.

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Guest fu3

Huh?Well, most of it coming from the kilometres of shorelines that I've cleaned-up (Chester Morse Lake lost about half a mountain - good granite there ;-) ) but actually, we traded some sand mining futures for woodchip stocks. Seems like some guy had tons of perfectly good timber to 'hide' and we had an unproductive woodchip mill in Tassie. The guy in the middle owned a profitable sand mining operation!As they say, a "win, win, win situation":-lol :-lol :-lolBut if you 'find' any more, that log-jam idea is looking pretty good ;-) Regards,Jon Point

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G'day Jon,I did a little bit of work on the night lights... but then I got diverted. The sum total of my knowledge is...You can delete all the lights by trashing all the files in the region/maps/nlights folder. But, FU will crash as soon as the sun sets unless you have at least a blank l7 lights file (attached).The lights work in a similar way to the maps, except there are no level 0-1 tiles, and no tile index.Each map tile (e.g. aaaa) has a corresponding l2aaaa-l4aaaa light tile associated with it, assuming there are lights in that tile. Out at sea there's not too many.. Level 4 tiles are then clustered to form level 5 tiles in groups of 4. So, tiles aaaa, aaab, abaa, and abab form a level 5 tile aaaa. How you going there? I can see your eyes rolling back at this point..:-roll Level 5 tiles are again clustered in groups of 4 to form level 6 tiles starting with tile aaaa, and likewise level 6 are clustered to form level 7.So... if you don't want to put out all the lights, you could delete whatever tiles for the offending map. It should be possible for someone smarter than me (hint.. :-hah) to build a similar tool to the absolutely teriffic ones Andre has done for the maps which will generate all the tiles from base level 2 light tiles.The l2 tile is (I think) just a white/yellow/whatever spot color on black background. Fairly easy to build, but when you've got a lot of them, a BIG job. Maybe another day.I guess at some stage UKS is going to need lights (hint.. :-hah) so perhaps between the lot of us we come up with something.CheersBruce H

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Guest fu3

Bruce, Yes, I know about the blank l7 file requirement (also that file called 'modelmip.tag' must reside in both gen and nitemaps folders to get ANY models) however, I digress...I just delete tiles but I actualy want to leave most of the light there - just remove them from runways, taxiways and under major models. There are also a 'few' places where the thermal mapping process picked-out gravel quarries and beaches as nitelit areas too, and whilst I'm sure that importing the French Riviera to the eastern shores of Puget Sound might excite some people, I'd rather see THOSE lights gone ;-)There is also the huge block of light south of Seattle, which can be seen from, er - further than any other lights. When you are close-up, it's not too bad, but on the lower-res maps it's a bleedin' beacon that one can see from Wenatchee! Gotta fix THAT. Also, I'd like to add some more 'traffic' here and there."All" I need ( :-roll ) are some tools like what Andre has already done for extracting maps and inserting, but one that works with night maps as well. Not to put any pressure on, of course ;-) I have been wanting to fix this ever since I advanced the time past sundown, back in early '99 :-lolRegards,Jon Point

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Hi Bruce and Jon,Actually I don't find time to start tools for the night maps but:Try to use the daylight maps tools for the night maps.With the renameit.exe rename the night maps as level4 day maps.then use level57maker to generate the mapsthen again use renameit.exe to rename it back to night mapsto use GenQuadrant or L3map6x5 you just must rename the night tiles fron n3aaaa.bin to l3aaaa.binfirst copy the night folder outside fu3 to do that copy the tools inside this workfolderhope it works :-)and here a documentation on tileindex.bin the night maps are registered there, even this file is in maps folder only !look at the tile value :-wave agtim

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Guest fu3

Andre,Thanks, I'll try this tonight :-waveRegards,Jon Point

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Guest fu3

OK, it works (sorta) :-jumpyBothe the Level57Maker and L3map6x5 work, as long as the maps are renamed (to "L" instead of "N") AND there is a blank tile for the level you are using (i.e. L3 tiles need the L3blank.bin file copied from the day maps folder ;-)Soooo, I extracted a few files but I haven't got a clue how they work 'coz they don't seem to resemble the L3 maps I'm (now) familiar with. Here's an L5 map output full size - it's waaaaay too low-res to see anything :-(http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161826.jpgBut, here's the L3map6x5 outputs from a couple of tiles:ACAGhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161827.jpgA close-up:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161828.jpgAHAFhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161829.jpgA close-uphttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161830.jpgLike the other L3 tiles, these 2 seem rather different and I have no idea what goes where *:-* Obviously, I have to remap parts of different tiles to, well, different tiles :-roll Also, like the day maps, not all of them extract :-(Maybe someone can shed some light (sorry about the pun) on:A) How I identify which parts are which?:( How do I do something useful (i.e. reimport them back into FU3) afterwards?We're ~~~~25% of the way there - at least we know that we can extract the durn things ;-) Regards,Jon Point

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Jon, the way back is to create a tga picture level 0 4096x4096 then using genquadrant to create the l0 to l4 .bin files - but first we must validate the map itself or the result will look bad.The other question is how to get real night maps of the Seattle/sanfran/UKS/Switzerland areas ? :-wave agtim

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