A question about the photoreal scenery process

Hi everyone,

 

I'm following the stickied photoreal scenery tutorial and I have a question about the water definitions. Close to the beginning you have to create a water mask where all water is designated as black and land is white, and later on you need to create a hydro polygon which surrounds the island once the default one is removed.

 

My question is: why is it necessary to cut the island out as a hole in the hydro polygon when you have already defined the water mask?

 

Thanks for the help :)

Hi everyone,

 

I'm following the stickied photoreal scenery tutorial and I have a question about the water definitions. Close to the beginning you have to create a water mask where all water is designated as black and land is white, and later on you need to create a hydro polygon which surrounds the island once the default one is removed.

 

My question is: why is it necessary to cut the island out as a hole in the hydro polygon when you have already defined the water mask?

 

Thanks for the help :)

 

2 different processes.

 

The first step tells FS what part of your photoreal is land and what is water. This has no affect on the existing landclass/waterclass.

 

That is what the second step is for.

 

peace,

the Bean

Ah, ok, I was aware that the hydro poly is necessary to exclude any existing terrain but I'm a bit confused about why it's necessary to cut the island out as a hole. Couldn't you just fill the entire QMID 7 tile with a hydro poly and let the watermask determine where the land is?

 

Thanks.

Couldn't you just fill the entire QMID 7 tile with a hydro poly and let the watermask determine where the land is?

 

Don't know, try it and tell us what happens.

 

peace,

the Bean

It seems like the watermask distinguishes between the water and land even if the ocean tile has no hole in it. Perhaps it's something to do with elevation data for the terrain?

Perhaps it's something to do with elevation data for the terrain?

 

That's exactly it. The hydro poly has a flattening effect so your photo island would be flat as a billiard table with no elevation. Cutting the hole allows the mesh to come through and defines the island as land. It may not be noticeable or necessary at Nauru but supposing you were doing Hawaii's big island where the volcano is something like 17,000' it certainly would be.

... Hawaii's big island where the volcano is something like 17,000' it certainly would be.

 

Closer to 13,800, who's counting.

 

I did when I was up there. :)

 

peace,

the Bean

OK, corrected again...

Thanks for the clarification :) I am doing a bunch of islands in the Maldives right now and I think the highest point is about 2m AMSL so I doubt there's any elevation data there anyway!