jyd

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

Trying to get you to Skype me so we can talk. What does your inf contain? Is it the bmp, tiff, and maybe the night version? If the night verison is in there it CANNOT be _LM, should be _N. Did you do anything with the file names other than the _B attachments? Bob

First, what program are you using? Next- did you type or arrange the inf yourself by typing in the various parameters? One typing mistake is all it takes. Using SBX is so much easier and faster. You should post the inf here for us to see. On Skype I could show you in less than 10 minutes how to do this.... 20 minutes or so for you to do it afterwards... me watching. Bob

ali- I saw your skype and accepted. I use PSP and SBX Are you using SbuilderX? Easiest way to go about all this. When naming your night texture, yes a bmp but SAME file name and the _N. notice the _, and also notice it is N.... not _LM. On Skype we will work on this. I've shoen 9 guys how.... each in about 20 minutes. Not bragging, just proper teaching. There are a few good tutorials out there also... a bit lengthy, but good. We will do this! Bob

In Skype look for Robert Lacy or try my e-mail- jyarddog@potc.net

Alirahimi- Looking at your picture i see a staight line between default and your work. Have you made a blend mask yet? If you do not know what a blend mask is, we need to get together and work on this. Basically your night photo is good. What we need to do is take your bmp to your paint program (you probably did this to get your night picture) Then you need to make two layers, one very dark like you have and one yellowish color. Then with eraser tool( with a circle shaped brush) you click here and there to get rid of the dark, leaving the yellow. (Hardness is down to about 48 or so. Opacity the same (can experiment). This is the basics. Question.... around your airport is there THAT much housing and buildings? If not... if there is less orfarm land etc you can change that by adding a LC file all around your photoreal. This will not effect your photoeal! :) Bob Lacy on Skype- contact me. I am in Washington, State, USA. i will help you step by step. Bob

of course. fast, easy. Tried other ways, but the instructions were terrible. I've been teaching for 20 yrs. retired now. took months to figure out what everyone was saying. They would assume the one reading their instructions knew this term or that term. Gloss over steps. After finally figuring things out (about 2 months) I wrote up instructions and posted in SBX forum. The fellow who wrote the SBX program responded and said "that is exactly right." I taught more than 9 other felows how do photoreal and did it in about 20 minutes.... each guy. These were the basics in getting started. Each now can do fine photoreal plus night photo, color changes, seasonal changes, water masks. I'm tellin' ya .... connect on Skype with us. Just a bunch of crazies who love doing design work. In SBX trying Google sat or VE sat... choose whichever looks better for that day. I'll walk you through it. You'll love it. I found a fine tutorial on YouTube, but it's a bit long and in two parts and a bit more involved here and there but good nevertheless. But give my way a shot. I go step by step. Make sure you have a good paint program. Bob

Brett- good instructions. My sdk is in (x86) and no problems but follow his just in case. the MSI will give wraning about having to remove some o fwhat you instlled to install the msi on. say yes. When all is done you're good to go. BUT- in the game on the menu bar on top you should see 'tools'. click to open. there should be 3 choices. If not there is something else to do which Jim or I can help with. it has to do with the dll.xml deeper in your computer. It is safest to do this together in Skype rather than here. In Skype we can share screens and direct you further. BTw- in your SDK when yo opoen you should see the html helpfile showing up now as a yellow question mark... good indication you did the install correctly. Bob

Bret- My procedure is done in SBX. This seems the easiest. After getting the satelite image - add map from background, I go to tools\work in SBX (I have a shortcut to it) and take my new bmp to my paint program which in my case is PSP X4. Here I do my blend mask. save as 'same file name' but add _B and save as a tiff file. Back in SBX I then select 'all maps' and compile. If it's a big file sit back and smoke a rope til it's done. ;) go back to work folder in SBX and you see phot01.bgl. change this to any file name you want and put it in your active scenery. all done. BTW guys messed up on skype name- Robert Lacy or jyarddog either should find me.

never heard of that. interesting. I have now and then accidently right clicked and blown the whole thing out of the water. hahahah! Anyway- Skype me some time- goes for all of ya. Bob

Most of the time you won't need it per se. It is used in SbuilderX and some other applications. Installing SBX the install finds it. I made a copy into a folder I made on desktop if I want to do a resample outside of SBX... which once in a while I do. I'd copy my bmp, my blend mask, the txt, another perrtinant files as well as the inf file. to that ouside folder. Then after I made my changes I would drag the inf file over on top of resample.exe and it would compile all these guys into a photoreal bgl. rename it as I wish and put it in my active scenery folder. and go see what damage i did! ;) look up jyarddog or bob Lacy on Skype. We have a few guys who help each other out a lot. Kind of like a family. We don't want anyone to feel intimidated. We are all idiot designers having a ton of fun. bob

terrain sdk. It is in your sdk in environment sdk then you see terrain sdk . open that up. But why do you need it other than to point one of your programs to it? You can make a copy of it if you need just it now and then (which I have done). I have a copy of it in a folder on desktop if I need to mess with something outside of SBX or whatever. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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