Zoandar

Well, I just read that thread Jim suggested, and in it those lines I was complaining I wanted to remove are actually specifically addressed! So I'll have to try the procedure outlined in that thread. I'll report back how that goes. Not having to remove any CVX files would also save a lot of work in having to make sure all the water areas of a large lake like Lake Erie would be filled with hydro-polys. On the extreme eastern end of where I am working, North East, Pennsylvania, I did not remove that CVX file. So far the only thing I see needed is to exclude those lines, which I no know are default FSX shorelines, from showing in the lake. Thanks again, Jim! :)

Hey, thanks Jim! It wasn't that I "wanted" do remove those CVX files. But following the tutorial (designed on an island way out in the middle of nowhere, so none of those many features would be impacted) I tried pulling the CVX to see if it would work, and it did. But as you say, you lose a LOT in doing so. I am very eager to see how I could possibly eliminate those lines in the water and yet still have all the nifty features a stock CVX gives. So I am going to read that thread ASAP. :) If that thread does not cover your statement of " On the other hand it is possible to exclude only the water polys and only the shorelines, leaving everything else intact." Please fill us in on how one would do that. Thanks again!

Thank you ! I enjoy sharing what I have learned. :) First, I went back and reviewed the tutorial section on hydro poly grid blocks because I could not remember why it was that Tiberius had us remove the whole block. Once I read it I now understand why. He is doing the same thing in removing CVX9232.BGL from its folder that I described in making the choice to remove CVX2517.BGL and 2617.BGL in my area. If he had left 9232 in place, we would likely be seeing outlines in the water of the original shoreline, and maybe the airport flatten and runway, all of which we had to move to their correct location. I know of no way to remove part of a CVX file (nor dig into any compiled BGL file for that matter) so there is only one option, to remove the entire 9232 file which, as he shows, covers an entire CMID 7 block. BUT...... (there is always a but! ) ;) You need not create they hydro poly that will fill in the default terrain "void" left by removing the CVX file all in one step. All you really need is to make sure that you have the entire area covered when you are done. And THAT is precisely why my example above showing how I drew the hydro-poly along the lake shore uses a poly that is very tall and keystone shaped. I needed that shape to fill in the remaining void in Lake Erie's water in that segment of shoreline. As long as you make sure the whole area gets covered with they hydro polys (in water areas - this does not apply on land) of your created scenery, you can have as many constituent CVX files doing it as you want. They just need to overlap. So yes, you do need to rebuild a whole grid block if you remove a CVX terrain file, but you don't have to do it all in one step. If I had an easy way to show you the group of hydro-polys filling in Lake Erie on my project it would look like a collection of overlapping mosaic tiles. FSX will show you if you missed anything easily enough by using the global view and zooming out. This is why I had said it wasn't necessary to work with whole grid blocks. But I had not thought about the requirement to fill in an entire block vacated by pulling a CVX file, as I did mine a piece at a time over months of work, having removed those CVX files quite some time ago. I went back and edited the above tutorial segment I had added, to clarify this issue a bit.

Very nice, archfer! I noticed the rectangle of lighter blue in the water in the basin here. With careful experimentation of applied color in a transparent layer (the principle I described for correcting red shifted scenery) that is positioned exactly atop the rectangle, you can probably make that barely noticeable. I like to try to preserve at least some of these kinds of shallow water imagery colors because they look really nice from the air. But if the captured satellite imagery is poor, it is sometimes very hard to do so.

I agree the tutorial is really nice, and am very thankful to Tiberius K. for creating it. That said, some of his procedures are not cut in stone. Things I have learned along the way for my own use, which includes doing the Erie Islands in Lake Erie, USA, are: You don't have to delete the layers you don't want included in an export in GIMP. Just make them not visible. GIMP will export only the visible layers to the BMP file. Although the only way to remove one of FSX's existing hydro polys is to remove a whole CMID 7 grid block, you do not have to use an entire grid block when creating a new hydro-poly. (More on this below - as you will eventually have to fill the entire grid block with one or more new hydro polys to hide any default land scenery FSX would put there when the CVX terrain file covering that grid block is removed.) One thing I had to do was adapt this tutorial's concepts on working with an island surround by a lot of open water to working on a shoreline, on which water was only present on one side. I quickly learned I did NOT want the hydro-poly to extend back under the shoreline, because it will affect the elevation of the land sitting on it. So my hydro-poly for a shoreline area will look something like this: [ATTACH=CONFIG]140482[/ATTACH] The reason it is tall and keystone shaped is that it works with other polys from other segments of scenery I made here and they all overlap to give the water the desired seamless appearance. And here is a closeup of how I drew the coastal boundary of the polygon [ATTACH=CONFIG]140483[/ATTACH] I ran into situations where a hydro poly drawn further inland actually creates a "bluff" where the land will sharply change elevations if the elevation data in that area is supposed to be a lot higher than the level of the water. Of course I also quickly wondered why my first attempt at doing an island in Lake Erie created a bluff in the water itself! Tiberius, working at sea level, does not point out that you can set the elevation of the water in the properties of the hydro poly. Lake Erie is about 567 ft. above sea level. When I tried to use 567 as an elevation, the bluff made a massive cliff over 800 feet tall (you can get the elevation by using an aircraft in FSX as a measuring tool). Then it hit me that difference in numbers seemed roughly like the difference between feet and meters. So when I converted and entered 173 meters for elevation, and it was correct. If the land area you are working on stays at or near the level of your water, it won't matter much where you draw the side of the poly that passes through the coast, so long as you don't stray off the coastal edge of your own scenery bitmap (doing so can allow default FSX land to show through) . But if your land is higher or lower, the hydro poly line has to be drawn as close as possible along the coast line itself to get the best results. I should mention here that the part in the tutorial about removing the CVX file is also not mandatory, depending upon where you are working. The difference it 'can' make on a land mass is where the default FSX scenery draws things like coastal edges where land meets water. Leaving the CVX file in place 'can' sometimes cause lines to be rendered in the water, which will show, if the FSX default scenery for the area happens to be misplaced out into the lake/ocean. But in landlocked areas, you can leave the CVX file there. Just make sure your scenery file is higher in the Scenery Library list than the original scenery you are overwriting, and yours will show on top. One down side to removing the CVX files (I don't think he mentioned this) is that you lose things like AI traffic on your highways. And these files cover very large areas! In order to prevent lines appearing in the water around the first island I did, which was Kellys Island, in Lake Erie, I had to remove the file CVX2517.BGL from subfolder folder 0302 in the FSX/Scenery folder. This corrected the lines. But, it also removed AI traffic over its whole area: [ATTACH=CONFIG]140484[/ATTACH] I added a red arrow pointing to Kellys Island, tiny in the grand scheme of this area coverage. Sorry for the rather blurry image, but I had to keep the uploaded happy with a small file size. As you can see, to deal with not seeing some lines in the water I removed AI traffic over many hundreds of square miles. Eventually I may change my mind and put the file back in. But for now my main focus on this whole project has been improving the shoreline appearance around this lake, as mentioned earlier. This was one of the trade-off decisions I had to make along the way. But it is easily reversible. Here is a screen shot of where my current scenery efforts end, and the default FSX scenery resumes, heading east from the town of North East, Pennsylvania. You can see the line in the water I mentioned, which would be the original shoreline for the default scenery. With CVX2517.BGL in place, there were such lines around the Erie Islands and along the shorelines to the south, but they did not line up with the edge of the water nicely like this line does here. They are out in the water itself, and very visible in low altitude flight. That's why I opted to remove the file. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140485[/ATTACH] If anyone knows of a way to make the FSX generated water obscure that line, I would like to learn of it. Then I could put both the CVX2517 and 2617 files back in and regain the AI vehicle traffic across the area. As it stands, marine traffic is not affected by having those files removed.

Sure, I'd love to see the work you are doing! :) Tonight I am working with another new thing I have learned, how to constrain GIMP's Fuzzy Selection tool (which can sometimes spread far and wide away from what I really want) to a previously freehand selected area, using a Channel. That way I can, for example, select all the water surrounding docks and boats in a small harbor, yet not select anything outside the harbor. Having this ability makes it easier to include a harbor in a water mask if desired, for the added realism of seeing FSX generated water within the harbor. However, it also works when wanting to apply a static color to such an area. I've found that applying a 10% opaque shade of dark blue over the green water areas typical to the scenery I am working in yields a color that, from 2500 feet AGL, looks hardly different than that rendered by FSX. This works as an alternative to adding in an area to already finished Watermask and Blendmask areas which have had the gradient already applied. That can be done, but it takes a bit of work to make it look right.

One thing I meant to mention at the start and then it slipped my mind. You may be wondering about the dark green coloration I have on all the parts of this image where FSX will render water. Satellite imagery typically has a lot of crazy coloration surrounding islands and along shorelines where the water should be. I got tired of trying to deal with changes in the way water looked everywhere (it is transparent, after all, so any color you place under it will have an impact on its appearance). In order to get a nice uniformity along the shores, especially when using my gradient Blendmask procedure outlined above, I eventually settled on a single color, after trying quite a few. GIMP references specific colors and their shades with what it calls an HTML Notation code in Hexadecimal. The color you see here is code 273d2d. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140379[/ATTACH] I found a very easy way to apply it too, which seriously beats painting along the shoreline, as I did in the beginning. What I do is right-click the Watermask.BMP image file for the area under construction, and Edit with GIMP. Select All, then under the Colors menu, choose Invert. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140380[/ATTACH] You end up with a negative image of the Watermask.BMP file: [ATTACH=CONFIG]140381[/ATTACH] making the water area white. Now, use the Bucket Fill tool, with the green color 273d2d selected, and fill the white areas with the green color. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140382[/ATTACH] Next, with the Select menu, use Select/By Color, and click on the black part of the image. Then use Edit/Clear and it will remove the black part (where the land would be) making it white. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140383[/ATTACH] Now Select ALL in this watermask image you just filled, Edit / Copy. Switch back to the Point Pelee image, and choose Edit/Paste as New Layer. You can name the layer something like Watermask, or whatever you like. But make sure the new layer is at the TOP of all the layers. If it is not, drag it up there. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140384[/ATTACH] Now, making sure you are working on this new layer (good idea to lock all the other ones under it) Select / By Color and click on the white area. Then Edit/Clear, followed by Select/None. Your land will now show through and you'll have the green everywhere there will be FSX rendered water. In instances where you have meticulously watermasked around piers and harbors, this will assure that the coloration of the water in them is uniform with the rest of the area.

Adjust the Hue slider, which defaults to 180, to set to 140-150. 150 will be a bit more into the blue range, and can help a lot with toning down the reds. Ugly, no? [ATTACH=CONFIG]140373[/ATTACH] Now, go over to the Layers - Brushes dock for GIMP, and set the Opacity of the layer down to 28. You can use whatever setting looks right for the specific area you are dealing with. For most of the Ohio red areas I did I used a setting here between 17-27. It depends on how red the satellite image ended up being stored on their server. It does vary a lot across geographical areas. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140374[/ATTACH] The red area looks somewhat better now, but of course the area above it with the fields sometimes might not need this much correction. So it becomes a trade off. How much correction to make the large red area more green, without overdoing correcting the pink fields above it. Varying the shade of coloration can help a lot here, as well as setting the other sliders, such as Lightness or Saturation. Sometimes I will have to colorize an area, lower the opacity, then use the Colors / Brightness - Contrast menu to make the area lighter or darker, especially if I am doing a red area right next to an area that is naturally green. If no compromise can be reached, you can start over on the Green Layer and do a selection of just the red "point" section and work with that. Then make another duplicate layer of the original, select only the fields area above the point, and make a different amount of correction with that. As long as you leave all 3 layers visible when you export the Point Pelee.BMP, it will look just like what you are seeing in GIMP with all 3 layers visible. I think in order to get the red area looking better, without doing more to the fields, I'll add another layer and just select the red parts. So right-click the base layer Point Pelee.BMP and Duplicate Layer again. Name this one Green2. Note that since we locked the base layer, its duplicate layer we just created is also locked, so we have to unlock it. Lock layer Green now. Select Layer Green2 and then use the Free Select tool (also known as the Lasso Tool in some programs) and select the red area. The "marching ants" aren't showing up very well in the inline view of this image, so I suggest you click on the image to get a better view of the actual selected area, and then read on. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140375[/ATTACH] Then use the Colorize tool to adjust the color you are overlaying on the selected area, as well as the Opacity of the Green2 Layer, until you like what you see. One thing here to consider is that you would like not only to quell the red, but to also try to get an acceptable match with the green surrounding it. By varying the Hue to 139, and Lightness to -16, and Opacity to 69, I got a fairly decent match up. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140376[/ATTACH] If you are happy with how it looks, Select/None to remove the selection “marching ants”. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140377[/ATTACH] One thing I have been doing is not only exporting the BMP when I am finished, but also saving the current 3 layer file in GIMP's XCF format. This makes it very easy to come back later and make changes if, for example, you do several areas and while flying over them in FSX decide " I wish I had made that second section a little more or less green", for example. Just re-open the file in GIMP, make the changes to whatever layer you choose, save the file anew, and re-export the bitmaps. So, at this point I lock all 3 layers as a matter of habit, making sure they are all visible, Save the GIMP file with a descriptive name, then Export the new Point Pelee.BMP. Then drag the Point Pelee.INF file onto resample.exe and let it compile the new BGL file. As I mentioned above in my shoreline gradient presentation, I have learned that it isn't necessary to shut down and restart FSX when working with scenery files. The only thing you can NOT do, without negative repercussions, is to move or delete a BGL file that is in USE. But you CAN OVERWRITE IT on the fly, and FSX won't care. So once I have the new Point Pelee.BGL file compiled, I copy it into the Scenery folder, then (with FSX running through all of this) I go into the Scenery Library in FSX and work the voodoo I mentioned above to reload the scenery. Simply un-check ANY one of the loaded files. Then re-check it, then click OK. All the files will reload, and FSX will display your changed scenery. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140378[/ATTACH] Mission Accomplished! This area does not have any rivers in it. I have also devised a procedure to recolor rivers in areas where their coloration is not acceptable. If anyone would like to know how I do that, just let me know and I can post that here as well.

For this project on fixing red-shifted FSX scenery I'll use Pelee Point, Ontario Canada as an example. Here you see a screen capture of just how the point image looks from FSX at about 13,000 feet AGL. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140368[/ATTACH] As you can see I have already addressed the shoreline gradient for shallow water along the beaches, as mentioned earlier. I'll assume you have worked with this scenery tutorial enough already to have a grasp on the basic steps leading up to compiling the final BGL file, so I will only include images of what I am doing that is different from above. One thing I DO strongly recommend is adjusting the default number of UNDO levels in GIMP, if you have sufficient memory to do so. By default you are given only 4. The setting is under Edit/Preferences. I worked with 12 levels of UNDO for quite awhile, but still got into wishing I had more, so I now have 20 levels of UNDO set. It may seem like a lot, but it sure is nice when experimenting to be able to move back through time and try something different at any point along the way. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140369[/ATTACH] I have already created and saved the following files for this area to make the BGL currently in use: Point Pelee Watermask.BMP Point Pelee Blendmask.BMP Point Pelee.BMP Point Pelee.INF Point Pelee.BGL And of course I have a copy of resample.exe in the projet folder as well, so I can drag Point Pelee.INF and drop it there any time I want to recompile the BGL file. So to start, I'll right click Point Pelee.BMP and Edit with GIMP. Then, right click on the layer Point Pelee.BMP and select Duplicate Layer. [ATTACH=CONFIG]140370[/ATTACH] Once you have a second copy, ABOVE the original (this is important - if it isn't above the original drag it up there and release it) right-click the new copy and select Edit Layer Attributes. I then change the name to "Green". Select the original layer and lock it (click on the brush icon where it says Lock, above) so you don't accidentally edit the original bitmap. Leave BOTH layers visible. Now select layer Green. In the GIMP window, use the Colors menu and select Colorize. Instantly the image will take on a bluish shade. Don't worry about that just yet. It will look even worse before it gets better. :) [ATTACH=CONFIG]140371[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]140372[/ATTACH]

Dealing with off-color imagery captured from the satellite servers can be an annoyance or a downright frustration. When I was working my way around Lake Erie along the north shore of Ohio, USA I found that of the 3 servers available in SBuilderX313 at this time, (Google, Virtual Earth, and Yahoo) Virtual Earth yields the best looking scenery and most natural coloration. But for some odd reason, when I crossed the international border into the Canadian side of the lake, its islands, and shorelines, I found getting decent scenery is next to impossible. I should mention that, from the very start, I could NOT achieve capturing ANY scenery at the LOD 16 Tiberius K. describes in this very nice tutorial. I just won't happen. The very best I can get is LOD 15, which I used for most of my project dealing with US scenery. Ontario, Canada shoreline and its islands, such as Pelee Island, I had to settle for LOD 14 or 13, simply because there IS NO scenery above that level. The screen just blanks out in SBX when trying to capture that part of the world in the higher resolutions using either Virtual Earth or Yahoo, so I was forced to use Google. But I had to go with terribly low resolution to not have part of the image simply missing. In fact, one of the Canadian Lake Erie islands yielded such terribly poor imagery that I had to "paint it" with forest imagery garnered from one of the LOD 15 Bass Islands as a GIMP pattern, just to have it look any better than butt ugly. :) Aside from the terrible mess these satellite servers create along Lake Erie shoreline (which was the driving force for my wanting to get into this project in the first place) they also have a tendency to put the aforementioned red tint on certain areas. I'd love to learn why this happens. But it certainly doesn't look normal. It reminds me of the blood-thirsty aliens from the recent remake of the movie War of the Worlds and how they began terraforming our planet by spraying blood all over it. Not pretty. ;) So, with the help of the Gimpernet forum members, I learned some more cool tricks with GIMP and used them to help fix what I call the 'red-shifted' scenery areas. Sometimes very nice results can be achieved. Other times I was not so fortunate, but at least I made it look better. I also learned how to handle rivers that aren't very naturally colored. Many times in the red-shifted areas the river water is pink. I'll work on putting together a post with the details on how I did it. :)

Since it is completely free, why not update to GIMP 2.8? I'm not sure what you mean by relocating and alignment references. For items on the land mass, such as airport features, the Airport Design Editor (ADE) section of the tutorial has that covered. But for the land masses themselves, placement is very accurately done using LAT/LON coordinates to a large number of decimal places. Why would you want to move a land mass? It is true that some islands and coasts are misplaced in the default FSX scenery, but that can be obscured using the hydro-poly in SBX so the misplaced land doesn't show in FSX. If you really wanted to move an island, you could calculate the offset in gps coordinates and apply it to the INF file when you prepare it for the resample compiler. It will dutifully place your scenery exactly where you tell it to place it, even if you make a mistake. :) But as far as matching up the edges of adjacent scenery BGL files, FSX does that perfectly, so long as the coordinates are spot on. In fact it will technically overlap the edges, and the resample compiler allows for enough edge to overlap when creating your scenery BGL.

Hi archfer, Since my questions posted to Tiberius back in October have remained unanswered, it appears he hasn't been back here since his last post in September 2012. But I'll try to help if I can. Why do you say GIMP can't export anymore? I'm exporting scores of files ever day, spending hours working on various methods to polish my scenery in FSX. Elevation data comes from a couple different places. The first place I would check is any water-poly you have applied. I described the quirk of it losing its elevation setting a few posts up above here. If that is not the cause, something may have gone wrong in the capture of the satellite image and resulting compiling with resample.exe. You might need to run those steps over again. Are you doing Nauru, or a different island?

As my project has evolved, I have had to deal with some satellite imagery which is very poorly colored, often with a shade of red. Thanks to the fine folks on the GIMP support forum, I have learned how to apply some effects to the imagery to make the colors more realistic. I am also developing a process to re-color rivers and inland water bodies that just don't look right when the satellite image coloring is off. If anyone would like to know how I am doing these procedures, let me know and I can add the information here.

Nice work! Both of these issues are something I have dealt with numerous times, and are fixed using SBuilderX313. For some reason setting the elevation on the hydro-poly (the part in the tutorial where you draw a polygon around the perimeter of the island, then set its properties, type of water, transparency, (and elevation which if I recall he never mentions)) is quirky. It has to be the very LAST thing you do before you close the properties dialog window after going there to set the water type. If you set the elevation FIRST, and then the water type, the elevation won't get preserved. Perhaps a bug in SBX? To set the elevation, after selecting the water type (where the tutorial says to press H for the most commonly used non-seasonal ocean water) notice in this dialog window there are tabs at the top. Click the first one on the left. Enter the desired elevation in meters in the field toward the upper right, then click SET. (If you forget it won't work :) You will see another elevation field below take on the setting you entered. Then click OK or Apply (which ever it says, I am not near my PC right now) and close the window. You will notice the hydro-poly you had previously set to a transparency of 25 is once again opaque. Right click the edge of the hydro-poly and reset its transparency to 25. NOTE This is one of very few steps I have found after setting the elevation of a hydro-poly that does not undo the elevation setting. Now, still in SBX, Select/All Polygons, and click Compile, remembering to check the box that copies the resulting BGL to your scenery folder for the project. You can also fix the exposed default terrain right now, without affecting the elevation data. So leave SBX open until you read below. Now, for the exposed default terrain. It took me awhile to wrap my head around this concept, but what you are doing when you draw the hydro poly (aside from setting an elevation and water type) is creating a polygon OUTSIDE OF WHICH no FSX default terrain is allowed to be displayed. But it doesn't affect YOUR satellite image scenery, so it can be (and must be) drawn either exactly along where your land meets your water, or more easily drawn a little bit inland, all the way around the island. BUT....... (there is always a but!) :-D The change in elevation, from the level you set in your hydro-poly, to the elevation data buried within the compiled BGL file, is going to happen precisely on the edge of your hydro-poly. This means if you are doing an island such as Nauru, not much. But an island such as yours, with vaulting seaside cliffs, a LOT. For those cliff areas I would try to zoom in and literally draw that part of the hydro-poly very exactly along the edge of the actual image. The reason some default terrain is showing is that FSX has terrain that is not realistically and accurately rendered in that spot. Your hydro-poly line strayed out away from the actual edge of your island image's true location, and thus has exposed FSX incorrectly positioned default terrain for the island. All you need to do is zoom in to that location and, if you have enough "nodes" (the little square data points where you clicked to draw the hydro-poly) on the poly line in that area, drag them back to or just past the shoreline onto your island image. Then click Compile again (making sure all polygons are still selected). At this point you should be able to see the elevation and unwanted default scenery both fixed, once you either start or update the scenery library in FSX. :) I have not found a way to add a node to the hydro-poly line (as one might do in a CAD program). So if there are not enough nodes to drag around and fix the exposed default terrain, you may have to delete the hydro-poly in SBX and re-draw it. A word about SBX313 - for every satellite image capture project you do in SBX, when you add a map and compile, 4 files are created in the SBX Work folder. If you aren't satisfied with the resulting image, and delete the map and add another one, SBX will create 2 new files (both having names with a long string of numbers) and overwrite the other 2 files with shorter names. If you start another project (say a different island) SBX will add to/overwrite these same files in the Work folder. However, if you want to return to an earlier project, such as to make the edits described above, those 4 original files from when you first compiled the map MUST be in the Work folder. Since SBX OVERWRITES some of these folders for new projects, the only way I have found around this problem is to keep archival copies of each set of these 4 files so I can empty the Work folder and paste them into it before trying to open the previous project. So I suggest you also do this. And since the 4 files are cryptically named so you have no clue what they are, I suggest each set be accompanied by a text file whose file name is the same as the project itself. That way when you load the file set into the SBX Work folder you can easily identify them.

Thank you very much! I really enjoy working on this myself, so I am glad I can share with others. When you get into it, I'd like to know which satellite server of the 3 choices offers you the best imagery. It is puzzling to me why Google Earth looks so good all around the globe, yet their downloaded lakeshore scenery in Canada is often barely usable, and the other 2 range from worse to no imagery at all for Canada. Merry Christmas to you as well, and have a Joyous New Year!

From here it's the same as the tutorial. To get the changes into the BGL file for FSX, you must drag the INF file for the area onto resample.exe and compile the new BGL, then copy it to your Scenery folder. Now, here's a tip I encountered while learning to place 3D scenery with tools like RWY12 Object Placer and Instant Scenery 2. Did you know that you do not have to close and restart FSX to effect a scenery change? This saves a lot of time! :) There is only one thing you must avoid. You can't delete or move any files in the Scenery Library that are currently in use. FSX will immediately toss a hissy fit and you will usually have to use the Task Manager to get FSX to close before you can use it again. But you CAN add to them, or even overwrite an active BGL file. Adding to them, as in when you do a water-Class addition from SbuilderX (such as the CVX type files) and add the file into your Scenery folder. Or overwrite the BGL as we will do here. Copy the BGL file and paste it into FSX with it actually running and showing the Erie PA basin, if you like. Now, go into the Scenery Library. All you need to do to get FSX to load the new or changed scenery file, once it's Scenery folder has been loaded into the Library, of course, is to un-check ANY ONE of the listed files. [ATTACH=CONFIG]139193[/ATTACH] It doesn't matter which one. You don't need to un-check the scenery you are working on. Just pick one, like the first one in the list. Un-check it. Then re-check it. Then click OK. FSX will totally reload all the terrain and scenery files it is using. Once it is done loading them you will see the changes you have made. You can do this repeatedly. I often leave FSX running for hours while working on these files, sometimes so long the sun will set and I have to reset FSX to daylight again so I can see the work. :)) I hope I have covered how this process works. If anyone has questions I will be happy to answer them as best I can. Enjoy!!

A word about GIMP's levels of 'Undo'. When I first followed this tutorial, I got into trouble with the practice of deleting 2 of the 3 layers when exporting the third layer, as well as wrangling which layers were visible. GIMP treats both setting and un-setting the visibility of a layer as one increment of available 'undo' actions. If you delete one layer, realize you did not have the next layer set as visible, so set that layer visible, delete another layer, then realize you did not have the third layer visible, and set the Third layer as visible, you just did "4 levels" of actions. GIMP defaults to only 4 undo levels. You're on thin ice now. If you do anything else at this point, say, decide to adjust the color level of this 3rd base image layer, before exporting it, boom. You have just done 5 "levels" of action. You won't be able to undo far enough back to get your first layer that you deleted. It's history. If you frequently save your changes to files, and you save this file at this point, rather then carefully closing the file "without saving" and thus lose all your changes, BUT preserve the original copy of the file before it was changed, then the loss of that first deleted level gets written in stone and there is no way to get it back. Because someone close to me did this, (yep!) and had to totally redraw a complex watermask all over again, I, um, I mean HE learned something. :) I went into the preference settings of GIMP and found the levels of UNDO setting and cranked it up to 12. No problem if you have plenty of PC memory/disc space. I advise you to increase this setting. OK, we have the airbrush tool ready, and the gradient settings ready to go. If you have experience with spray painting the next part is pretty easy. I typically use a zoom level of 100% during this process. Just start near the edge of the drawing, along the hard edge black line of the Blendmask, and follow along the line moving toward the edge of the image. If you have not spray painted before, you have a bit if learning coming. [ATTACH=CONFIG]139190[/ATTACH] Paint sprays out of the tool at a consistent rate over time. We are technically spraying white here, or more technically actually spraying "anti-black", because we are wanting to soften the edge of the black Blendmask. The longer you linger in one spot, or the slower you move, the more paint comes out and accumulates. So how fast you move along has a very large affect on the result. I chose these settings so I could move along at the pace I wanted. You may want to adjust them accordingly. Once you get a feel for the tool, you can pretty much get a consistently applied gradient along the Blendmask Edge. After starting and back-filling toward one end of the Blendmask, go back and head the other way. I do this because if you happen to click your tool right on the ruler surrounding the image when trying to start at an edge, GIMP has the annoying feature of instantly switching you to the "move layer" tool, and starts moving the layer on which you are working. If anyone can tell me how to disable that annoyance, I'll buy you a coffee! So I prefer to be dragging when I get to the ruler, to avoid that issue. If you do move a layer, it will create a visible line in FSX where the layer mismatch occurs. So if you find this switch occurring, use the UNDO immediately for as many listings as there are for "undo move layer". I have been able to fix this once by using the "align visible layers" tool when I did not catch it during drawing the mask. When you are doing an area of gradient to a Blendmask not at the edge, start wherever you like and just paint along the Blendmask edge until you come to its end or full circle, if applicable. Here I have started the gradient out in the basin of the Erie PA area. [ATTACH=CONFIG]139191[/ATTACH] For the most part, I linger long enough (or make a second pass) so that the original edge of the black Blendmask gradient just fades from view. But you can vary this to get desired effects. If the area to get the gradient has sharp drop offs like piers and shipping channels the transition won't look like gradually shallow water from the air, so no need for the gradient, or else only a very minor one if you like. When I did the Erie basin I actually looked up a depth chart for the basin to get an idea of what I wanted to do out in the center. My efforts roughly follow the depth chart, including leaving the shipping channel. After you have applied the edge gradient to your satisfaction, Save the Erie Blendmask.xcf file. Then turn off the visibility of the Erie Watermask layer (I've found this to work just fine rather than deleting the layer) and then Export the Erie Blendmask layer as Erie Blendmask.BMP. Always remember to use the same "do not write colorspace info" and "24 bit" settings when exporting any layer. This next step is not really necessary, but I turn the Erie Watermask layer visibility back on and then save the xcf file again as a safety precaution. Then close GIMP.

Next, lock the Erie Watermask layer so you will only be editing the Blendmask layer. I have to admit that when I encountered the “lock a layer” step in the above tutorial, and as I later started repeating this process without having to refer back to the tutorial anymore, somehow I was either misinformed, or forgot, where the actual 'lock' tool button really is. I came to think it is the “chain” icon. That is NOT the lock button. The lock button is up where it shows “Lock:”, and gives you the choice of locking the whole layer (rather cryptically symbolized by a paintbrush), or lock the Alpha Channel (symbolized by the checkerboard). Once clicked, the paintbrush icon will show 'depressed' when you click on any layer that is locked, and not depressed otherwise. Lock the Erie Watermask layer. Then click on the Erie Blendmask layer, but leave both layers visible. Now for the magic! These settings I use as a guideline for the Airbrush tool. They can be adjusted to achieve different results, but over doing a whole LOT of these scenery Blendmasks I have come to use these as a starting point when no previous gradient has been applied, and I am working in an open area large enough to support the brush diameter. So, looking at the Toolbox – Tool Options dock, select the airbrush tool, then go down through each setting from the top and set them as follows: [ATTACH=CONFIG]139189[/ATTACH] Set the Foreground (FG) color to pure white. Set the Background (BG) color to pure black. Leave Opacity at 100% Brush Hardness at 25% Size to 260. I chose this by experimenting and looking at the result. You may prefer a wider or narrower gradient and can adjust this setting to get it. Or if you want to work in tight detail areas, a much smaller width will help. The reason I use a brush this wide is that I follow the hard edge of the current Blendmask layer with the very center of the brush tool. That gives me a consistent width for the gradient. On the 'white side' of the process nothing is really changing, so I am actually only using 'half' of the brush. I should mention that this is the only step in drawing where I usually use my trackball instead of the tablet. It is easy to do, and faster to progress along the line than it would be dragging the brush along the tablet. Leave Aspect Ratio and Angle at their default 0 setting. When adjusting these settings, it helped me to picture a paint sprayer (which I have used many times) or an actual airbrush (which I have never used) and think about the adjustments vs. how the pattern of paint will look on the target. As I understand these last two adjustments, totally through trial and error, it seems that Rate is 'how the spray disperses across its width', and Flow is 'how much paint flows per second'. When I set out to find these settings I originally had settings that were very conservative, and required me to pass over the same area about 4 times to get it light enough. I quickly tired of that, and wanted a setting that will give me the desired result in a single pass, or at most 2 passes, over an area. That is what I have here. Set Rate to about 50 and Flow to about 30. (Note these need not be extremely accurate settings. If you try to use the up and down arrows, they vary the setting by tenths, and take forever to adjust. If you drag the ribbon, they change so quickly it is very hard to hit a specific number. If you want a specific number, you can type it in, but it is tricky to click on and get the actual value highlighted and NOT be dragging the ribbon instead.) I've used close variations on these settings without much difference. You can use the little icons at the bottom of this dock to save your settings with a name, and later to reload the settings. I do that because it lets me use identical gradient application for each scenery area I process. GIMP will switch its tool settings back to default when you close and reopen it. One thing to keep in mind here is, if you are doing several adjacent areas of FSX shoreline, and you are not very careful about how consistently you start and stop the gradient at the edges of the file window, they can mismatch when loaded in FSX. FSX actually overlaps its scenery BGL files by an amount wider than I would have guessed. But I try to make sure the gradient is consistently half a brush width when both starting and ending along a shoreline, so they match up fairly well. It gets more tricky sometimes if the shoreline is curved, or on a very steep angle where it enters or exits the image.

OK, back to the process at hand. In the GIMP window where you edited the Erie Watermask, use the Select menu to Select ALL. Then use the Edit menu to Copy. Now, switch back to the GIMP window that is showing the Erie Blendmask.BMP file. Use the Edit menu to Paste as New Layer. [ATTACH=CONFIG]139183[/ATTACH] Go back and close the GIMP window where you chose to Edit the Watermask. It will ask if you want to close without saving. That's exactly what you want to do. GIMP has some safeguards built in, and one of them is to use the Export feature as mentioned in the tutorial above. One reason for this is to get what you want without having to actually change the original image. Handy if you make a mistake. :) Next, in the GIMP program window, select File/Save As, and (I prefer to) make sure your destination folder is the same as where you are storing the mask files you just opened, then save the current GIMP file as Erie Blendmask.xcf. This way, if you take a look at the finished product in FSX and decide you need to change something in the Blendmask, you can simply re-open this GIMP file and make the changes. Now, in the GIMP window for the Erie Blendmask, you need to make sure you are displaying both the Layers-Brushes and Toolbox – Tool Options Docks. If they are not showing, as mentioned above, you can get them to display by using GIMP's Windows menu. You should see something like this in the Layers-Brushes dock: [ATTACH=CONFIG]139184[/ATTACH] Right-click on the new layer which shows Clipboard, and select Edit Layer Attributes (it's the first option on the context menu that opens). This opens a small Layer Attributes window. Click on the name “Clipboard” in that window and change it to Erie Watermask, then tap OK. [ATTACH=CONFIG]139185[/ATTACH] Now the Layers dock looks like this: [ATTACH=CONFIG]139186[/ATTACH] Make sure the Erie Watermask layer you just added is highlighted. Notice above it there is a control setting ribbon named “Opacity”, and it is at 100%. Change that to about 25% or thereabouts. [ATTACH=CONFIG]139187[/ATTACH] Keeping both layers visible, look at your GIMP window. You can now easily discern the differences between the 2 layers. I did this so I could tell where the actual boundaries of where I had drawn the Watermask layer lie, while I will be editing the Blendmask layer in the following steps. For this particular area, that is important to get the gradient of depth to appear where I wanted it to be out in the center of the basin. But in general, avoid crossing the Watermask boundary when drawing the Blendmask. Not so easily done as separate steps earlier in the tutorial, but here it is quite easy to see where the two mask layers lie. [ATTACH=CONFIG]139188[/ATTACH]

Before I get started I'd like to mention that I quickly found trying to accurately draw with a mouse input device is frustrating for me. So I invested in a graphics tablet that uses a pen input tool. I knew I was going to be doing this work for months, and I wanted it to be fun. The Adesso tablet I bought has made it a very pleasant experience, and I enjoy diving into each new scenery area and working on it. Because I was not able to make this same gradient process work for me while the Blendmask layer was still accompanying the base image and Watermask layer in GIMP, before these layers were exported to individual bitmap files, I devised my technique to use the exported bitmap files themselves. So this step is done after the point in the tutorial, above, where you have exported both Blendmask.bmp and Watermask.bmp It is helpful here to understand what the mask bitmaps are. They are just black and white images, which you can open and view with any image viewer, including GIMP. If you are intimately familiar with GIMP or apps like Photoshop, you may find a better or easier way to do what I am about to describe. Before this tutorial, I had never seen GIMP, and I have never used Photoshop. So I developed this process through experimenting with GIMP's available tools. First, I suggest you save the Watermask.BMP and Blendmask.BMP files you just exported in case you need to use them to start over after you try this. I put them in another subfolder of the scenery area I am doing, alongside the Scenery and Texture folders in a folder I named Saved Masks. Next, right click on the Blendmask.BMP file for the project underway. I'll use my files for the Erie PA basin area, because I think it makes a very nice example of what this technique can do to add more realism to the changes in depth of water. So right clicking Erie Blendmask.BMP, select Edit with GIMP [ATTACH=CONFIG]139181[/ATTACH] This opens a copy of the file in GIMP so you can see it. As I mentioned, just black and white. Black is water. White is everything else. The “resample.exe” utility will know what to do with it. ;) [ATTACH=CONFIG]139180[/ATTACH] Next, right click Erie Watermask.BMP, and select Edit with GIMP again. This opens a second GIMP window, showing the Erie Watermask. One reason I chose to use this area in my example is because of the question posed about 'what is the difference between Watermask and Blendmask'. Stop and take a moment to compare these two images, and it is quickly evident that the simple answer can be 'a lot'! :) [ATTACH=CONFIG]139182[/ATTACH] The beauty part of this tutorial is that you can choose just how detailed you want your scenery to be. In this case, I traced around a lot of piers and coastal features when I made the Watermask. This is why I typically work at 400% zoom and use a brush only 3 pixels wide for this step. Trying to trace this much detail in this harbor with a 20 pixel wide brush would be impossible. For some areas where the docks are really too close together, I don't trace around them at all, and just leave them as part of the 'photo' portion of the scenery. But here I was able to get very detailed, and I am quite happy with how it turned out. So as you can see, the difference between water and blend masks is that the Watermask defines the very outer edges where water meets land. The Blendmask is going to define areas where the water is deep. The space in BETWEEN the two masks, that is, the parts of the Watermask that are not overlayed by the Blendmask, are where the shallow water will be rendered. Because you use a gradient such as the 50% Hardness setting, the water in this shallow area gets to be semi-transparent (thanks to the resample.exe engine) and will allow whatever color the base image is showing as water to bleed up through the color of the water being used in this area (either determined by FSX or by your choices in the Water-Class steps performed in the SbuilderX portion of the tutorial) and as such will usually be a lighter color. How much lighter is very much determined by that color of water in the base image. If it has 'blown out' very light water color, your ultimate result will be very light colored, and sometimes 'dayglo' water for shallow water. There is a way to fix that. You simply paint darker color along the shoreline by editing the base image layer, as wide as your masking efforts require.

OK, I think I have the narrative written out and all the screen shots ready. I believe the reason Tiberius posted over several segments had to do with a limit on how many pictures on can attach to a post. Not sure about that. So please bear with me as I attempt to put all the information on here. Written out I have 5 pages (without pictures). Here goes! :) Tiberius K, if you're watching, it is definitely NOT my intent to hijack your fine tutorial. I'd just like to share some added information about which I was asked here.

I am happy to share my technique. I didn't want to dominate this fine tutorial unless I knew for sure someone wanted the information. I'll try to start putting the explanation together later today. Pictures make the best explanation of this procedure, so I need to gather several screen shots of the process in action. Stay tuned. :)

Hi Den, When I first looked at the tutorial I was confused about the differences between Watermask and Blendmask too. However, having gone through the entire process so many times now that I can do it in my sleep, I think I can help clarify the differences. :) Keep in mind that the resample.exe utility (I'll call it the compiler, as that is what it does) uses 3 files to create the BGL file you will be able to load into FSX to see your result. It uses Watermask.bmp, Blendmask.bmp, and a bitmap which, for the tutorial, will be named Nauru.bmp, which is the 'photo' of the island from the satellite imagery. Look closely at exactly where he is drawing the black line around the island in GIMP during each of those two masking steps. You will see that with the Watermask, the black line goes tight up against the beach all the way around. The Watermask tells the compiler where the actual boundary is between water and land. Everything you will mask by drawing the line and then filling in against it will be rendered as water when FSX loads the scenery BGL file. The Blendmask line that he shows is not tight up against the beach. It is drawn roughly along where the surf starts breaking. This line tells the compiler that the difference between deep water and shallow water takes place at this point. Technically, you can draw the Blendmask line anywhere you want it, so long as it never crosses over the Watermask line. So if you want the project to look like it has a very shallow and long beachhead (where you could wade out for a long ways before it gets deep) you simply draw the Blendmask line further away from shore. For areas such as piers, docks, and shipping channels, where you do not want to show shallow water up against the water's edge, draw the Blendmask line either very close to, or ON top of, the Watermask line. The reason the Blendmask and its fill are done with a percentage of black (GIMP offers 25,50, and 75% by default, but you can program this manually to any percentage) is due to how the shallow water gets rendered. And this also leads me up to a warning if you are going to do a lot of scenery like I am doing. To make the water look shallower, it is actually some percentage of transparent, in the areas between the Blendmask line and Watermask line. The color that is the 'water' in your captured satellite image of the area will show through to some degree, and usually cause the shallow water to look lighter in color. The warning comes from how so many variances exist in the coloration of satellite imagery from one area to the next. If you get an image that shows a really light color for the water (silver, light blue, light green, or even white) your shallow water is going to look like dayglo colors! Definitely not desirable. So you may find the need to paint a blue-green band of color around, in this case, the island you are working on, in order for the shallow water to look realistic. I've had to do that several times in the Lake Erie USA area I am doing. Especially on the Canadian side. Their satellite imagery is, in a word, lousy as provided by Google Earth. Virtual Earth and Yahoo won't even yield Canadian imagery in any useful resolution. One other point. The default brush width for the tutorial in GIMP is 20, which he applies at 200% zoom. If you want to work around piers and docks, that is WAY too wide for precision work. I regularly use a brush width of 3 at 400% zoom for detailed Watermask work, and a width of 5 at 150-200% for Blendmask work. Since the Blendmask needs to vary in darkness, a width of 3 doesn't show all the variance and it will let your fill sometimes leak through. I hope that clarifies your question. However, using his technique will get you a very sharply defined change from dark to shallow. I was not happy with how that looks, so I developed a different technique which applies a gradient to the difference between the deep and shallow water. I'll attach some images to show you what I mean. If you would like to know how I did it, I can explain it, but it does add more steps to the process for each area you want to do. It's not really difficult, just a little more time spent. [ATTACH=CONFIG]138991[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]138990[/ATTACH] This is the Erie, Pennsylvania basin in Lake Erie. It is shallow around the edges and deeper in the center. The first image shows how it would look done with the technique taught in the tutorial. The second image shows the same area where I have applied my gradient technique. This can be done along any blendmask, be it around an island, in a bay, or along a shoreline. In short it involves editing the Blendmask.bmp file AFTER it is exported. I tried to do it before exporting, but without getting into the nuts and bolts, it can't be done because BMP files are used (which can't display Alpha Layer information, so will discard any gradient applied before the export step). The compiler only works with bitmaps, so no other choice but to do the gradient after the export. Oddly though, I still use GIMP to do the gradient, and the result is exported again as the Blendmask.BMP file, which preserves the gradient the second time. I don't fully understand why. I just know it works. :)

Hi Afraj. The tutorial IS this entire thread. :) Just start at the very top and work your way down. When I printed it in PDF form it came to 94 pages. :) I've gone a long way since I followed this tutorial, and applied the techniques I learned, as well as devising some techniques of my own, to editing the shorelines in the US Great Lakes area to make them look far more real. This was a great find for me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. Please note that you have been the only person to post in addition to my unanswered question on 10/18, pretty much 2 MONTHS ago. Apparently the creator has left this behind. I had to figure things out for myself if they were not clearly explained here.

While downloading all the bits needed to begin this tutorial, I just noticed something. In your list of requisite software, there is a blue URL link labeled "FSX SDK SP2". However, when you follow that link, you land on a page which has "Flight Simulator X SP2 English". Note the absence of "SDK" on this page. The FSX Software Development Kit is not mentioned in at all in reference to this download, which appears to be SP2 for the FSX application itself. In its list of requirements for installation, it never mentions the SDK at all, and shows "Download the service pack to the existing Flight Simulator X installation." However, at the bottom of that page, there IS mention of FSX SDK SP1a and if I click that link I do arrive at a page entitled "Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK SP1A". And in its list of requirements for installation, it DOES mention FSX SDK already be installed. So, I presume I would want SP2 for FSX regardless of my interest in this tutorial. I also assume I will need to install the FSX SDK from my FSX Gold with Acceleration discs. Should I then be downloading this SDK SP1a that I found? Or is there an actual FSX SDK SP2 available somewhere?