How to create photoreal scenery for FSX

Bonners Ferry, if I'm the Jim to which you refer, lol :)

Jim Robinson and Jim F. - On Skype I am jyarddog or look me up --- Robert Lacy.

 

Yep Ione, WA. home of the 5 second rush hour traffic, and the great S23 Ione international airport. ( bwahahahaa) contact me via Skype and I will accept and send my e-mail addy. both of ya.

 

Jim F. Let's do Skype- it is most advantageous for you to have 1. SbuilderX, 2. a good paint program such as Corel's PSP - I have X4 Corel is up to X6. Earlier versions are good. , or Photoshop, or gimp, or Paint.net

 

it is easier to do

Skype rather than try to type things out here. Later we can get into doing seasons and night textures. Send contact request, I will accept, just remind me of who you guys are so I don't think you're someone from Nigeria, wanting to give me a milliion bucks if I'd only send my bank account number. :p

 

I wonder if there is any band in bonner's Ferry who needs a good bass player. Bob

I hear ya howlin' I can eat a mess o tater salad! bob

I guess no one's interested.

;)

Hey jyd,

Sorry for not responding. I don't have Skype and hadn't gotten around to looking into it. Co-incidentally, I came across a series of video tutorials involving scenery creation at SOH this morning. I downloaded but haven't checked them out yet. They were created by "familton" who has produced a lot of photo-realistic scenery for smaller airports. According to the description using the SDK Annotator is covered to create autogen for the area. I have too many things going on right now but don't give up on me quite yet. I really am interested but have to find the time.

Jim F.

Jim- bob Familton is in our "family' as of a couple of months ago. Nice guy.

Autogen annotator is used to create trees, housing, etc once your photoreal is in. You have to have photoreal file to use annotator.

 

I just recently discovered that if you need to or want to delete your photoreal .... once you have put in your trees with annotator you can take out the photoreal and the tree files will remain.

Anyway- as soon as you or both are free to 'come out and play' I'll be here.

 

In the meantime. Basics-

 

1, Open FSX

2. Open SBX

3. create new project 'type in a name' your choice.

4. click on 'show aircraft' (this connects you to FSX)

5. click on edit and check preferences. (here you can choose VE or Google- I usually try this one then that one to see which one looks better "today")

6. choose one then ok or svae whatever it says.

7. Now- click on 'show background'

8. now- important!!! go to 'file' then add map then choose 'from background' (NOT from disk)

9. New screen appears draw red box around your airport. (sometimes hard to see... cannot zoom in... don't try)

10. See the little circles on the right side? Choose the highest or second highest. (This will make a biiiig file but yo will get better resolution. Too low and your photo will not show up. - I usually choose the second highest from the top.

11. Notice this screen is on top of the previous one. CONTINUED NEXT POST.

Hi again,

I still have some running around to take care of. I just saw your post and it sounds good so far. The only thing that seems missing is locating the aircraft. Great start. Right to the point without a bunch of alternatives suggested which often confuse rather than clarify the basic procedure.

Jim F.

 

Perhaps a new thread to prevent confusion with the initial tutorial?

cont'd from last post

 

Ready? click ok or save - whatever it says. Wait a bit. Notice the numbers running. One of two things will happen. a. message cannot continue (or something of the like) place hide and redo the background. OK back back to other screen, hide the background by view clcik o background the again show back ground and try again. Now and then this happens. b. message- wait while x number of tiles completes. (message is kind of like that). NOTICE the screen behind this one is compiling the numbers downwards. Let it do its thing. When it is done your screen you see right now will disappear.

The above is the toughest to explain.

 

12. at this point I would probably want to go to file then saveas. Why this has to be done twice I don't know, but I do it and I don't lose my project... ever.

13. Now- I would just minimize SBX screen. Navigate to SBX's work folder (this is a pain to do so I have a shortcut to it.

14. Here you find a bmp and a txt file both with ugly long numbers as filenames. Fine Some will say.. well you do this or that to rename... yes but we are concerned right now with the main stuff.

15. Take this bmp (it may look somethng like.... LX2834753738950378j4348596.bmp ) to your paint program.

16. In your paint program color everything you want to be seen - white. Color everything you want to show through as default FSX - black. so you see this is kind of like an alpha channel. Around the edges you can make your brush large and choose 'smudge'. Soe paint programs call this 'smear'... same thing. go around the edges back and forth perpendicular to the edge. Then do it again, this time WITH the edge. NOTICE - how the edge becomes nice and blury.

THIS BLENDS THE EDGE FROM YOUR PHOTOREAL TO DEFAULT.... ERGO called BLEND MASK.

17. IMPORTANT- choose saveas!!!!! save this as a TIF file!!! ANG the same filename BUT ADD THIS TO IT AT THE END.... __B. so- your your old name was LX1234567.bmp. You new filename is LX1234567_B.tif

18. close out your paint program.

19. bring up SBX

20. top menu go to 'select' then choose all maps

21. See the green compile arrow? click it. You should see a check next to photoreal. hit OK

22. Wait- this might take a while. Go out and smoke a rope and kick back a bit.

23. when done go to work folder again and find a file called phot01.

24. rename this file to anything you like. and drag this puppy to your active scenery folder. fire up FSX and go see!!!

STICK A FORK IN YA - YOU'RE DONE!

 

I know this looks like a lot but it really is rather simple. It just takes a lot to type it out. We still need to do Skype.

 

BTW- our 'family' is just a bunch of us idiots who have connected on Skype and help each other out. Hope you both can meet up. You both probably have stuff you cna helpl US with! Bob

Locating aircraft? Actually you just go to FSX... to your scenery you are working on. Go to the middle is what I usually do.... say right around the middle of the main rwy.

 

With SBX open you click '''' show aircraft.... then zoom in so your bottome right number shows about 1 or 2km. all this does is connect you with FSX instead of opening SBX, show background then type in lat and lon and/or try to drag over to your scenery.

Hey jyd,

Did a quick read of your last and it looks pretty straightforward. I've often noticed discrepant land classes around existing airports. I've seen posts that suggest that using SBX to change the landclass is possible. I tried for several days but gave up in frustration. I'd like to resolve this before making a photo-realistic image selection.

The last time I chose an airport that seemed to be an appropriate candidate for photo scenery I ran into a problem with the angular differences with a default runway and the google image; and mating an image road with the FSX default.

As an example of what I consider nicely enhanced photo scenery see KRDD by "stovall". I hope I got that right.

Jim F.

Jim- good points here. choose your airport, do your photoreal, then you see the difference around the airport which is FSX default.

 

You can change this witha LC or land-class in SBX or ADE. Make a polygon around the airport. You can take in a lot of area past airport edges. How much? Your choice. then choose in properties in SBX or ADE the LC. This gives you many choices..... city, urban growth, cool crops, tropical, desert, mangrove, on and on. colmpile and take the resulting cvx file and put it in your scenery. This will cover the area you designated and will go right under your photoreal. i.e. say.... left to right. - here's your LC right up to the photoreal, then it disappears and reappears on the other side of the photoreal!! Then yu can put in autogen annotator tress whre the photoreal is if you wish.

Really wish we had Skype to show ya.

 

rwy is off. Usualy the rwys are fairly ok but taxiways etc are terrible! hahaha. You have to change things with ADE or AFX or Airport studio to match the photoreal. This is SOP with all of us. this is what we do when we make photoreal.

If you have ADE when you compile it will generate a cvx file for you. You can see it better if in options you check the box that says make separate bgls.

go get Skyipe now. Install and request contact with me asap. I am here. I gave my info. Bob

In short-

1. choose airport to do

2. do an exclude airport background with your AFCAD program (if some have problems with that term.... too bad. AFCAD term is from the AF2 program by Lee Swordy. basically we mean by this term all airport data. - rwys, taxiways, aprons etc.)

3. If you use ADE you can do that in ADE Also- do this- load default airport data (choose everything you see in the box. Then reverse this... unload -or delete airport data and check all boxes. You can do exclude airport boundaries in SBX also.

4. do your photoreal

5. do your LC now if you wish - with SBX or ADE

6. Get busy straightening out rwys, taxiways, might dump the aprons and do your own. Most of the time the default aprons are junk.

7. delete or move the fuel trigger. Most airports don't have those. If they do they are somewhere else.... not next to the airport restaurant! ;) At least get rid of the default fuel station you can see and make your own.

8. Make sure your scenery is in a folder you named with two sub folders inside 1. scenery, 2. texture and put the hwole shebang in addonscenery and activate.

9. finaly come over to my house and kick my butt for getting you into all this! ;) Bob

Hey jyd,

This hobby has so many facets it's hard to maintain focus. It's likely that I'm going to pick up an inexpensive Android tablet today so I can use Skye as you suggest.

I don't deal well with generalities and after reading the part about changing landclass I got kind of lost. The last time someone mentioned this I spent a couple of days banging my head trying to do something that sounded simple and just gave up.

What I would like to do is, after getting the tablet, focus on making landclass changes in a specific area and then moving on to the next step.

I've never felt any need for a tablet but saw this one at Fry's today:

http://www.frys.com/product/8075564?site=sa:adpages%20page:P44_SUN%20date:081714

Would this be good enough?

Jim F.

Hope you can contact me on Skype. You will be amazsed at the ease of this to get started and have fun! Bob

Hi jyd

 

Im not good at this but I think your way is faster and less complicated, except for this part:

 

You wrote:

 

16. In your paint program color everything you want to be seen - white. Color everything you want to show through as default FSX - black. so you see this is kind of like an alpha channel. Around the edges you can make your brush large and choose 'smudge'. Soe paint programs call this 'smear'... same thing. go around the edges back and forth perpendicular to the edge. Then do it again, this time WITH the edge. NOTICE - how the edge becomes nice and blury.

 

Im not sure I understand you. Do I paint the entire airport area (include terminals etc) white? But paint black the edge (narrow area like airport fences ?) that separates the airport perimeter from the outside (roads, seaside, wooded ground etc) ?

 

Or do I paint a layer of white with another over layer of black (default)on top of white? And followed by a black smear for the edge.?

 

Thanks for your advice :)

 

johnny

Again- If we do Skype it is so much faster and easier to understnad. But with the black and white, you paint everything you want people to see... white. Black lets them see through to the default FSX.

 

So- Paint the whole airport white... period. Everything outside that is black. You end up with a big white spot surrounded with black all the way out to th edge of what you are working on. I tried to upload a pic but I keep getting 'invalid file' I made it a bmp then I zipped it. both ways, no good.

 

Anyway try doing your blend mask again. skype me and let's do it. Bob

Hi Tiberus K! I'm doing several real picture settings but I have a question; as I can do to change or delete roads and place new ones in the real place?

In some scenarios the road passing near the airport in FSX but these are outside that location even pass over the buildings. Thanks

PD: can you help me in sbuilderX too?

Who is Tiberius K? ;) In SbuilderX or ADE you can get rid of those roads and put in new ones... even with Iinstant Scenery3 now as well. In SBX draw a polygon (thin one if you wish) over a good section of a road. Right click on the edge of thepoly and choose properties. Scroll down until you see 'exclude all roads'. save your project and compile to bgl. Make sure you chose 'select' and then select all polys'. You will get a cvx file - pout in in your active scenery and go take a peek. We never know HOW much road goes away. Just have to fuss with it here and there.

makking roads.... draw lines in SBX where you want the roads. Right click on the edge of the line - properties, scroll to find the kind of road you want.... 2 lane, 4 lane etc. and repeat above to get your bgl.

Remember that these will not show up on photoreal. If you have a road from on side to the other side of a photoreal it will show on each side but NOT where the photoreal is, but cars will follow that road even if you can't see it under the photoreal.

To skype you do not need credits. It is all free. Credits are for telephone calling with Skype.

 

So yes- you understand correctly about the blend mask. After you compile you will find your bgl called photo01.bgl in SbuilderX\tools\work

i always have a short cut to it so i don't have to go click-hunting through my computer all the time. Rename the photo01.bgl to anything you want.bgl and put it in your active scenery folder you are working on. Let me know how things go. Truly interested. bob

Johnnyho- Great! progess is coming!!! I am in Washington state. I've work with a fellow in Tasmania recently. Whisper? Is that Whizplacer? If so - I tried that and never had any luck with it. Probably just myfault.

 

what I might suggest is... once your photoreal is in place now go to ADE. do this- (won't go into detail right now) 1. load stock airport data. 2. delete or unload stock airport data.

 

3. Do an exclude airport boundaries. ever done that? use that green poly on the menu and draw a thin (maybe 1 or 2 inch wide rectangle) across the airport in ADE. It does not have to cover the whole airport... just cross one edge to the other (just past each edge). Don't do wht I did once and draw it too long.... I went out into some water and wiped out a bunch of water which added land! hahaha. Easily corrected but funny.

Now you have a new window in ADE. see where it says type? choose exclude general. see whee it says tag? choose 'everything'. You can do it differently but this is easiest.

 

Some say this might not be necessary due to photoreal present but do it anyway so you don't have ugly pieces ticking out everywhere. ;)

Now- have fun readjusting rwys, taxiways, aprons, etc to what you see in your photoreal. This can take some time. Be patient,.... have fun. Might want to move the aprons totally out of the way, recompile and go see then redraw your own aprons. Stock aprons are usually quite wrong.

In Google Earth take measurements of buildings you see... or at least the main ones. In bing you get an angled view in many places so you can see if those buildings are made with metal, wood, roofing type, stuff like that.

Now go make your own buildings.

Here it gets to grate on some peoples' egos. Some thingk Gmax is the greatest thing since sliced bread. it is a great tool but difficult to learn. but it is free and because it is free -ooooo! wonderful!!!! 3dsmax - the big brother to Gmax - again wonderful tool... at a cost fo about $4,000!!! there are student versions for free (while you are a student).

Sketch Up- fine tool- free, works kind of like Gmax but easier to use. good tool if you don't stick wit hthe textures that come with it... looks like cartoons. Learn to make and use textures.

Blender- wonderful tool but again- so much to learn.

I use FSDS only $49.95, crazily easy to learn ( was making stuff within a few hours!) - some stuff wan't half bad.... other stuff was down right awful! bwahahaha!

FSDS can do boolean cuts,, animation and other stuff. Sketch Up can't do animation. But Sketch Up can punch holes in walls quickly.

paint programs. I bought and use Corel's PSP. With this I can also shade parts of wall as if the upper part is underneath where a roof overhanges. Neat plug in came with it.

Others are- Adobe, gmp (free), paintdotnet (free). all are very good. All work about the same way.

so you see I don't slam anyone's tools. I just point out the pros and cons. It's what you get used to using as well.

If you do or if you plan to make your own buildings you will find it very rewarding and so much fun to do. If you or anyone chooses FSDS I am more than willing and able to help all I can. I am helping at least 4 guys already and they are having a blast!!! Very important is to create a library of textures and break this library up into sub folders like, roofing, doors, windows, wood, metal, misc, and so on. Do NOT rely on just FSX main texture folder.

Last.... Your scenery?..... make a folder - call it as you wish, (like this maybe ... folder name= aurora state (kuao) - kuao is the icao ... the id of the airport). icao is pronounced... icky-o. INSIDE this folder you make 2 more folders one called scenery, one called texture (NOT textures). all bgls go into this scenery sub folder. all bmps, dds, etc go into this sub-texture folder. Now go activate it in FSX. Do not stuff everything into addonscenery\scenery!

so- that's basically it. I hope I didn't bore anyone. Why do I do this? I am a retired school teacher. love to teach. love to see the results. Smeone mentioned here that they now can do photoreal much more easily. This is due to 1. easy basic procedure, 2. teaching method. Was a ski instructor as well. Taught people how to ski on their own -basics- in 6 minutes on the avg. some I taught never saw snow before in their lives, and some could not speak English. quite a challenge for me. (taught me to keep my mouth shut! bwahahaha! ) IF I can help further let me know. On Skype I am part of a network of a few guys... like a family.... all wanting to help others. no ego, free, all have a kick in the pants time! Bob

One more time- whether you have active or inactive credit you still can use Skype. Credit ONLY MEANS money for telephone calls. Using Skype is NOT using the telephone! My credit has been inactive for over 2 years, and I use Skype everyday!

 

dpo a connect search for jyarddog or maybe I am under the name Robert Lacy. I'm in IONE, WA. USA will accept. Just remind me who you are. Bob

Johnny- Wonderful!!! I have seen freeware sceneries as good ifnot better than payware. I think this is a hobby and should be left free, but that is my opinion. If there is anything I can do to help in your endeavour let me know, especially if it's for the kids. Please rmember that You are NOT charged any money for being on Skype. It is onl if you make a phone call with it. On Skype we can share screens and work on things togther.

There are other things I can help with like autogen annotator (add a lot of trees without any frame rate hits!!!! ). So many things I can help with. Bob

check out my note to you in PM whent you get it.

Good to hear things are advancing! airport buildings from photos using Whisplacer.... tell me how you will do this.... step by step. Bob

Again- You do not need any Skype credits at all. Credits are only for using your telephone through Skype if you wish.Computer use is totally different.

 

I am in Washingto State, in a small town called Ione. Look it up in Google Earth.

 

what is your progress so far? Bob

Hi guys,

 

I've installed all the programs BUT...I can't seem to find the resample.exe. I do have an authentic copy of FSX Acceleration but can't find that EXE. Any help would greatly be appreciated.

 

Thanks!