How to create photoreal scenery for FSX

[Tiberius K.]

It's truly fun to create your own sceneries. I'm sure a lot of simmers would like to do their own photoreal sceneries but don't know how to do it, try a bit here and there and often give up somewhere along the way after browsing several forums for weeks and months without solving some basic problems.

Sure, it takes a lot of time to do photoreal sceneries. But once you've got used to flying over photoreal terrain, you'll be addicted to it - there's just nothing better!

I don't recommend doing photoreal sceneries with a texture resolution of less than 1m/pixel or LOD15 (Level of Detail). 60cm/pixel or LOD16 is best. Why? With LOD15 you can fly as low as 1500 ft above ground and it still looks good, with LOD16 you can even go down to 500 ft above ground and it will still look mighty real.

You also have to consider file size. If you do LOD15 sceneries, you will need at least 0.2MB/sq km, for LOD16 sceneries 0,8MB/sq km. So if you want to do Sardinia with an area of 24,000 sq km, you will need at least 5GB for LOD15 and a whopping 20GB if you do it in LOD16! And that's just for the photoreal textures. You also have to consider mesh and objects.

So, one day in the near future when 250TB hard drives will be available, we can easily put the entire planet in photoreal LOD16 on one single hard drive.

I will use Nauru as an example for this tutorial.

[Tiberius K.]

PART I - Preparations


1) Install FSX SDK SP2
(you have to first install SDK (from your FSX DVD), then SDK SP1, then SDK SP2 in exactly that order)

2) Install SbuilderX and latest Tile server plugins

3) Install ADE

4) Install a image editing software that can work with layers (Photoshop, Gimp etc.)

5) Create a folder "Nauru" on your C: drive

6) Create a folder "Scenery" and a folder "Texture" in your "Nauru" folder

7) Copy (don't move!!!) resample.exe from your "Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK" folder into your "Nauru" folder

[Tiberius K.]

PART II - Getting your background image

1) Start SBuilderX (if you start it the first time, it will copy some files first, wait until that is done)

2) Create a new project





3) Type "Nauru" as project name, use "C:/Nauru/Scenery" as your BGL folder and then click "OK"





4) Go to "Preferences"





5) Choose a tile server (usually Google Satellite or VirtualEarth Satellite), check "Use GoogleSatellite" and click "OK"





6) Go to "Go to Position"





7) According to Wikipedia Nauru lies at about 0.52°S 166.9°E, fill in the numbers (be careful, Wikipedia shows decimals, SbuilderX uses minutes and seconds, so you have to convert it!) and click "OK"





8) Make sure you are connected to the internet and then go to "Show Background"





9) Now the satellite image will show up at zoom level 8, zoom in to zoom level 13 with the zoom tool in the toolbar





10) Go to "Add map from Background"

[Tiberius K.]

PART II - Getting your background image (continued)

11) Draw a square over your island so that everything is covered by holding your left mouse button while drawing





12) Check "zoom = 17" on the upper right, this will give us a LOD16 background image





13) Click "OK" and SBuilderX will start downloading tiles (about 2000 tiles for this size), wait until it's done





14) Sometimes SbuilderX has a problem with downloading the last 1 or 2 tiles, if you click "OK" you will get an error message, so if that happens just click "Cancel" instead





15) Hide background by unchecking "Show Background", now SBuilder won't show the tiles downloading info anymore





16) After background image disappeared, go back and check "Show Background" again





17) When your background image shows up again, go to "Add Map From Background" again





18) Draw your square again, make sure that "Zoom = 17" is checked and click "OK", SBuilder will put all downloaded tiles together to compile your image now





19) When your image is compiled, you will see it at zoom level 17 (never mind if it still says zoom=13 on the lower left, once you click around on you image, it will show the correct zoom level)





20) If you don't click around on your image, it will be already selected, if not, then go to "Select All Maps"

[Tiberius K.]

PART II - Getting your background image (continued)

21) Now click the "BGL Compile" button in the toolbar





22) check "Copy BGL files to BGL folder" (your scenery bgl will go directly into your Nauru Scenery folder) and click "Compile"





23) Now resample will compile your scenery, it will turn it from a BMP image into a BGL file so that FSX can use it





24) When resample has finished compiling your BGL file, go to your Nauru/Scenery folder. You will find there a file "Photo01.bgl" Double-click on that file and choose to always open it with TmfViewer. "TmfViewer.exe" is stored in your "Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK/SDK/Environment Kit/Terrain SDK" folder together with "resample.exe"

When you open that bgl file TmfViewer will show you how your scenery will look in FSX:





25) You can check out the texture resolution and Level of Detail (LOD) of your scenery, it's LOD16 (60cm/pixel)





26) Now close TmfViewer and start FSX

27) Go to "Settings" ---> "Scenery Library" ---> "Add Area" and add your "Nauru" folder. Click "OK" and scenery library will update automatically.

28) Now go back to "Free Flight" and go to Nauru Airport

29) Now you should see your scenery, it should look like this:







30) Since our scenery is LOD16, you should go to "Options" ---> "Settings" ---> "Display" and set your texture resolution to 60cm


Well, when looking at the result, I'd say:

the good news is that our scenery shows up
the bad news is that Microsoft didn't place Nauru and its airport accurately enough (which is mostly the case when it comes to islands! )

Up to here it should have been a piece of cake. The real work starts now!

[Tiberius K.]

PART III - Watermasks and Blendmasks


Now it's time to work with our background image we've just downloaded.

First we have to copy a few files


1) Go to your "SBuilderX/Tools/Work" folder and copy all files to your "Nauru" folder





2) Your "Nauru" folder should now look like this:





3) Change the name of your "L17X252609X252651Y131434Y131477.BMP" file to "Nauru original.bmp"

4) Change the name of your "L17X252609X252651Y131434Y131477.TXT" file to "Nauru.txt"

5) Delete your "Photo01.bgl" file



Creating a Watermask


Now we have to show FSX where the water is. If we don't add a watermask FSX will take the entire photoreal area as land. So we have to put a water layer over the photoreal background layer.
I will use Gimp as image editing software here, you can download it for free. Remember to save your project from time to time.


6) Start Gimp and go to File --> Open and open your "Nauru original.bmp"





7) Add a new layer





8) Name your layer "Watermask" and click "OK"





9) Lock your background layer by clicking on the symbol next to the eye icon and then click on Watermask to make sure you are drawing on your watermask layer. (if that Layer toolbar on the right won't show up later for some strange reason, go to the menu bar ---> Windows ---> Recently closed docks ---> Layers, Channels, Paths)





10) Choose a normal paintbrush

[Tiberius K.]

PART III - Watermasks and Blendmasks (continued)


11) Choose 100% Hardness (watermasks are only in black/white, which means water/no water, there are no grey scales)





12) Zoom into your image to 200% and start drawing your waterline - everything that is painted black will be shown as water later in FSX. To cover your entire water area will usually take a while - depending on how accurate you want to do it. Doing a watermask is usually the most time consuming part. For Nauru it might take only 30 minutes but for larger islands or atolls it can take hours or even weeks until the job is done. It all depends on length and shape of your coastlines.





13) When you are done it should look like this:







Creating a Blendmask



Usually you don't want the entire background image to show up in FSX, only parts of it. So you need to carve out the parts you want or cover up those you don't want. You do that with a blendmask. It's similar to a watermask where everything painted in black will be water in FSX. But when doing a blendmask, everything that is painted in black won't show up at all in FSX. The good thing about that blendmask thingy is that it does not have to be in either black or white, it can have grey scales which means you can soften the edges of your image and let it blend in with the default FSX scenery or ocean water background.


14) Add a new layer and name it "Blendmask", and click "OK"





15) Now lock your watermask layer (because you don't want to accidentally screw up the watermask you've just created) by clicking on the icon next to the eye and then hide your watermask by clicking on the eye icon, your black watermask should disappear and your background image should now shine thru again.





16) Choose Hardness 50% or 75% for your brush





17) Zoom in to zoom 33% and start painting black the parts you don't want to see later





18) When you are done with your blendmask, it should look like this:





19) Now delete your background image layer and then your watermask layer (right click)





20) Export your blendmask

[Tiberius K.]

PART III - Watermasks and Blendmasks (continued)


21) Choose your "Nauru" folder as destination folder and name your file "Nauru Blendmask", choose under select file type "Windows BMP image" and click "Export"





22) Check "Do not write color space information" under Compatability Options and "24 bits" under Advanced Options and then click "Export"





23) After your blendmask has been exported go to "Undo Remove Layer" so that your watermask layer will show up again''





24) Delete your blendmask layer and make your watermask layer visible again





25) Now export your watermask layer to your "Nauru" folder as "Nauru Watermask" in the same way you've just exported your blendmask layer, when you are done, close Gimp.



Satellite images usually look a little pale in FSX, so it's better to add a little more contrast.

26) Open your "Nauru original.bmp" image file with Gimp and go to "brightness-contrast"





27) Check "Preview" and play around with that contrast slider until you are satisfied, usually setting it to 10 is enough, then click "OK" and export your image to your "Nauru" folder as "Nauru.bmp" in the same way you've done it with your blendmask and watermask layers before.


Now we are ready to compile our new scenery bgl file!

[Tiberius K.]

PART IV - Working with resample.exe

Now we want to create our scenery bgl with watermask and blendmask. We have to use resample.exe and write a code for resample.
The numbers that are used here are the numbers of my files, so don't use them. Your numbers should be slightly different.
Only use your own numbers, use my numbers only as orientation!!!!



1) Open your Notepad and copy this (that's the standard resample code for photoreal images with watermask and blendmask) and save it as "Nauru.INF" in your "Nauru" folder.


[Source]
Type = MultiSource
NumberOfSources = 3

[Source1]
Type = BMP
Layer = Imagery
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "Nauru.bmp"
Variation = January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
Channel_BlendMask = 2.0
Channel_LandWaterMask = 3.0
ulyMap = -0.487512
ulxMap = 166.904955
xDim = 5.2577237215909090909091E-06
yDim = 5.2348547149122807017543E-06

[Source2]
Type = BMP
Layer = None
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "Nauru Blendmask.bmp"
SamplingMethod = Gaussian
ulyMap = -0.487512
ulxMap = 166.904955
xDim = 5.2577237215909090909091E-06
yDim = 5.2348547149122807017543E-06

[Source3]
Type = BMP
Layer = None
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "Nauru Watermask.bmp"
SamplingMethod = Gaussian
ulyMap = -0.487512
ulxMap = 166.904955
xDim = 5.2577237215909090909091E-06
yDim = 5.2348547149122807017543E-06


[Destination]
DestDir = "."
DestBaseFileName = "Nauru"
DestFileType = BGL
LOD = Auto
UseSourceDimensions = 1
CompressionQuality = 85




2) Now open your "Photo01.INF" file with Notepad, it should look something like this:


[Source]
Type = BMP
Layer = Imagery
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "Nauru.bmp"
Variation = All
NullValue = 255,255,255
SamplingMethod = Gaussian
ulyMap = -0.49712511018201
ulxMap = 166.905670166016
xDim = 5.36441802978516E-06
yDim = 5.36419057532689E-06

[Destination]
DestDir = "."
DestBaseFileName = "Photo01"
DestFileType = BGL
LOD = Auto
UseSourceDimensions = 1
CompressionQuality = 85


3) Now replace the red parts in your "Nauru.INF" file with the red numbers from your "Photo01.INF" file. With my numbers it now looks like this:

[Source]
Type = MultiSource
NumberOfSources = 3

[Source1]
Type = BMP
Layer = Imagery
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "Nauru.bmp"
Variation = January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
Channel_BlendMask = 2.0
Channel_LandWaterMask = 3.0
ulyMap = -0.49712511018201
ulxMap = 166.905670166016
xDim = 5.36441802978516E-06
yDim = 5.36419057532689E-06

[Source2]
Type = BMP
Layer = None
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "Nauru Blendmask.bmp"
SamplingMethod = Gaussian
ulyMap = -0.49712511018201
ulxMap = 166.905670166016
xDim = 5.36441802978516E-06
yDim = 5.36419057532689E-06

[Source3]
Type = BMP
Layer = None
SourceDir = "."
SourceFile = "Nauru Watermask.bmp"
SamplingMethod = Gaussian
ulyMap = -0.49712511018201
ulxMap = 166.905670166016
xDim = 5.36441802978516E-06
yDim = 5.36419057532689E-06


[Destination]
DestDir = "."
DestBaseFileName = "Nauru"
DestFileType = BGL
LOD = Auto
UseSourceDimensions = 1
CompressionQuality = 85



4) Save your modified "Nauru.INF" file and close all Notepad files.

4) Now drag and drop your "Nauru.INF" file onto your resample.exe file, resample should now start compiling your bgl file

5) When resample is done, move your new "Nauru.bgl" file into your "Nauru/Scenery" folder and delete the old "Photo01.bgl" file there.

6) Now start FSX, go to Nauru and have a look, it should now look like this:








Blendmask and watermask look good. But FSX default terrain is still visible. That means we cannot use the default water polygon and have to create our own water poly (which is often the case). To make the default terrain disappear and still keep all elevation data, we just have to draw a few polygons with SBuilderX.

[Tiberius K.]

PART V - Working with SBuilderX - Polygons



This is the part only a few simmers understand. It might be a little confusing in the beginning, but once you know how FSX works, it should be clear what we are going to do here.

There was some default terrain looking thru. We have to get rid of that. We could just draw a exclusion polygon over the entire island area but then all terrain would be gone, there wouldn't be any elevation data left which means our island would be flat as a pancake and wouldn't even show up on our GPS.

So we have to replace the default FSX hydro poly for the entire Nauru region with our own custom hydro poly. First we have to find that default poly.


1) Go to your "Nauru/Scenery" and double-click on your "Nauru.bgl" so that you can see it with TmfViewer:

2) On the lower right (below the mouse pointer) TmfViewer shows you to which default hydro poly your scenery belongs, it says: Dir#1104, File#9232 which means that poly is located in your "Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Scenery/1104/Scenery" folder





3) Go to your "Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Scenery/1104/Scenery" folder on your C: drive and look for file cvx9232.bgl





4) Move (not copy, it has to disappear from it's original folder!) your cvx9232.bgl file to your Nauru folder, double click it and have a look at it in TmfViewer, you will see your island in the upper part of the grid:





5) Zoom in and have closer look:
You will see that this poly is not only a hydro poly, it does not only tell FSX where the land and where the water is (water here means elevation = 0 ft). It also includes a airport flatten poly and shorelines (with waves!). And - the worst! - this poly does not really match the original shape of Nauru.





6) Now zoom out and select "QMID Grid Level 7"





7) You will see that one default hydro poly has exactly the size of one QMID 7 square. Since we have to replace the entire default hydro poly, we have to replace it with a poly of the same size. Which means we will have to create a hydro poly in SBuilderX with a size of one QMID 7 square.





8) Before we start drawing the new hydro poly we have to resize our Nauru background image so that SBuilderX and ADE won't crash so easily later. Start Gimp and open your "Nauru.bmp" file. Then go to "Scale Image"





9) Set width to 3500, click "px" on the right, Gimp will automatically calculate hight, and then click "scale"





10) After resizing your image you export it to "SbuilderX/Tools" folder as "Nauru.bmp" in the same way you've already done it with all the other image files and layers. Then you copy (not move!) your "Nauru.txt" file into that same "SbuilderX/Tools" folder. Both files have to be in the same folder and have to have the same name, if not SBuilderX can't calibrate the image automatically.