How to create photoreal scenery for FSX

Just keep randomly copying stuff around, eventually you'll end up with the right combination.

I don't know if I'm posting this in the right place but I just want to thank the author for this fabulous step by step tutorial. It was right on the money. I went through it twice just to reinforce it (and there were a few steps that I missed but it's all good now.) Thank you so much for all your time and effort on this tutorial. I will be able to apply it to my area.

Frank Clarke

Look me up on Skype. With screen sharing I can help. Nauru.inf. (If this file name is different than the bgl and the txt and the blend mask then this will not work. It has to be the same filename. After you compile THEN change the name all you want.

 

Other guy. The only guy I know who posted step by step instructs for photoreal on here is me. Look for jyarddog on Skype or Robert Lacy. I am in Ione, WA USA. Add a short message to remind me of who you are. I am willing and able to help all I can. If I can't I have friends here who help as well.... kind of a family. We pick each others' brains around here! :) Bob

I am at the very beginning of the tutorial, When i opened the background of the intended airport to design. Your tutorial says it should open to zoom 8 and to increase to zoom 13. The problem is that when I go higher than 12 all I see is a white background.

 

Thanks

thanks. I am on Skype as Robert lacy or try jyarddog I am in Ione, WA ifthat helps. willing to help all I can.

as jim said, often google seems to change the dll I think. follow his instructions to find a good. Other than that sometimes you do not get a good download if you change the zoom level. Try one if it works go from there and experiment. If not try going to VE satellite, or Nokia imagery. i.e. try one or the other and see which looks best for this area and go form there.

Hi all,

First, many thanks to the author of this tutorial!! I got a lot of fun realize a few sceneries and make things real.

I'm working on PKWA Kwajalein, Marshal Islands, and missed a step probably but can't find it: the few first photo steps are ok. I could also remove the FSX default island shore and put the cell in water with XBuilder. However, there is something that prevent my photo scenery to appear only where the default shore were drawn, around the airport. I checked also in ADE to remove any Exclude there could be.

Any idea folks ? Thanks !!

After a few more testing, I realized it is the photo scenery around the airplane that desapears, so if I go away from the airport, the scenery around it shows off.

Removing shoreline removes the moving waves only I think. If you put in wait, you need to put back the land. it's a tricky process, too involved to explain here. Interesting problem. I'd have to look into that.

After a few more testing, I realized it is the photo scenery around the airplane that desapears, so if I go away from the airport, the scenery around it shows off.

 

That means you have to download the imagery at a higher resolution in SBuilderX, when you download at zoom level 12 and below the landclass actually has better resolution than the photoreal so the PR gives way to landclass as you approach it.

 

You can also fix it with LOD=Auto,13 in the .inf but that forces upsampling of the imagery, better to start with a higher resolution image to begin with.

Try to get to 14 or better if possible. If not sometimes you can compensate by choosing more tiles with your red square in the next screen in SBX. This means the highest or second highest LOD button.

OK, thanks for the tips. I'm gonna try this. Also, any idea why we get the error Can't make an image when we select a too hight LOD resulting in too much tiles? It seems that around 800-1000 tiles is the max I can get accepted by the background image tool.

OK, thanks for the tips. I'm gonna try this. Also, any idea why we get the error Can't make an image when we select a too hight LOD resulting in too much tiles? It seems that around 800-1000 tiles is the max I can get accepted by the background image tool.

 

Are you using SBuilderX 3.13 by any chance? The "can't make image" problem was alleviated somewhat in V3.14 (3.14 is 64 bit). I've done images using around 5000 tiles without that problem.

Right. I'm on V3.13. It's been hard to install on my Win8 so I didn't want to retry that.

So v14 is my next move...

Thanks Jim!

in SBX if you get that message go back to the first screen cancel out of the screen you have.... click on view and click on background so the background disappears. Then show back ground again and do 'add map' again and try again. This often works.

Hello everyone,

 

recently I started getting involved building my own photoscenery for FSX using the latest version SbulderX 3.14 and saw some posts (https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?250762-How-to-create-photoreal-scenery-for-FSX/page24) where the issue for which I'm concerned is discussed and obviously solved in the best possible way!!! My concern is the most accurate possible and close to reality water blending.Although the certain posts are already 3 years old, I hope someone still remembers the way it worked out achieving the magnificent water blending I see in the pictures at post #236 (!!!!!!!).

 

I use GIMP 2 instead pf Photoshop for the job,it's almost the same.I'm facing the same issue trying to blend the sea background color to my photoscenery as the part of the world where I live and trying to make (Greece) is full of reefs,sea vegetation and the sea floor is full of white sand all along and adjacent to almost every sea shore.In brief it looks like tropical in most cases.

 

So, in which way the issue was overcome?Do someone remembers?As far as I can tell from the posts between a fellow simmer/scenery developer named annber and Jim Robinson a drawing technic called "lasso" was proposed. It's the same in Gimp2 which I use,I've seen the "lasso" inside my tools but I don't know the proper way to use it in the way Jim Robinson describes.Could someone please explain me how it's done?I already experimenting by starting making my blend watermask boundaries using a normal brush but with reduced harness (50%) and a quite big imprint and it's way better than using a smaller brush at 75% hardness,however my results in any way are so real looking as annber's.I suppose the "lasso" method will be the way to go if I know how to use it correctly.

 

I also tried to overcome the issue by using water polys,water texture polys from the ones already in FSX texture library and some other options to no avail.

Which method do you think - according to your experience - is giving the best results like the ones I see in the pictures at post #236?I'm new to this but eager to learn fast because I'm sure there's a way to do it right and from what I see is more than as real as it gets!!!

 

Thank you for your time and I'm eagerly waiting for your answers!

 

Nick.

Maybe might work- In SbuilderX where you draw your red rectangle, you see on the right side a series of tiny circles in a vertical arrangement. This is level of detail. choose the second one from the top.... not the bottom ones. If this is not done your photoreal will not show or show only partially. This has nothing to do with excludes or flattens concerning photoreal.

Hi again everyone,

 

I think I finally got it!Even though not 100% sure if this is exactly the technic Jim was talking about - probably because Paintshop is a little different compared to Gimp2 - I followed the following procedure:

I used the free selection tool aka "lasso" with a Feathered edges of 30,0 to draw a loose shape all along my coastline extending quite far out into the sea.Then I used the Blend Tool with an offset of 30,0 to fill the outlined area with a black to white color gradient.

However,and even though the resulted .bmp was nearly perfectly blended, there was a slightly visible line where the black to white blending stops and the pure white outside my free selected boundary blended area start to appear.In my efforts to somehow soften the already almost invisible edges close to shore, I gave it a try by using the "Smudge" tool just to scramble the edge a bit in order to appear more "physically" shaped as in real nature there aren't straight lines.

 

Thing is I'm in a different computer right now and my FSX is based at my other rig so I'm unable to test my work in FSX environment at the moment.However I'm almost certain it will look like a charm.

 

In the photos below you see the actual image taken with Google Earth,the primarily waterblended image and also the "smudged" final image.What do you think?Will actually do the work correctly?

 

Any input/proposal is greatly appreciated!

 

Cheers,

Nick.

Well,the result was more than I expected as real as it gets!Even though I get the feeling there's room for further improvements (as always),the blendmask "trick" worked marvelous!

See for yourself:

 

Any thoughts welcomed!

 

Cheers,

Nick.

I tried...I Failed...completely...from the beginning...After much failure with SbuilderX and the Google Satellite Tiles not showing...I gave up...uninstalled everything...didnt even open Gimp once before i uninstalled it..Used VirtualEarth to shw Background of Martinique..got a whole bunch of white blocks across the island... Tried to edit it in paint and load it again for compiling....complete failure...gave up...Now begging someone to rush up a photoscenery of Martinique so i can use an Autogen pack ive downloaded.

Zoepound- PLEASE- find me on Skype. reinstall SbuilderX and let me take you through the process. I've done this with so many other guys. Each took only about 20 minutes to learn it how I teach it.

On Skype I am Robert Lacy or you might find me as jyarddog. I am the Robert Lacy in Ione, Washington state. Make sure you leave a note more than the standard

skype note- just add to it, reminding me who you are. Can't help if you don't call. Bob

Hi, can someone please help me with this?!

I got it up to compiling the watermasks and blendmasks and i'm really confused!

Thanks

See my post to Zoepound. Skype me.

Thanks I'll have a look or message you

wonderful.