How to create photoreal scenery for FSX

I've run into something weird and would like to ask for some help. I had to use an Exclusion Rectangle at the Blue Water bridges between Sarnia, Ontario and the US, across the Saint Clair River, to remove the incorrectly rendered FSX bridges (ending in the middle of the river) and replace them with a pair of similar bridges, using Instant Scenery 2.

 

At first I was noticing that the traffic was 'swimming across the river' instead of using the FSX default bridges after I had removed them, before I was finished installing the new bridges. But today I saw the traffic was missing near the bridges. I guessed it was because my exclusion was set to 'all objects', so I changed it to be set to 'Library objects'. That puts the default bridges BACK, so I had to leave it at excluding 'all objects' to make them stay gone. But now, the traffic approaches, gets to where the exclusion rectangle takes effect, TURNS AROUND, and heads back the other way!!?? (it is a freeway - dual highways with 2 lanes). I've seen AI traffic disappear and reappear around certain things, but never have I seen it actually do a U-turn! Is there a way I can fix this? Ideally I'd like it to USE my bridges, but I don't know how to do that.

 

Edit - Ooooh! I just was experimenting with drawing a LINE in SBX, and they can be defined as Freeway_Traffic_Line, which provides a path for the AI vehicles! :) I drew it as a "bypass" away from my bridges just to make sure the line was what I was actually seeing, and the vehicles are running on it. I see it can also have an elevation defined. So I am experimenting with that. But so far the elevation setting seems to have absolutely no effect.

So this isn't the same bridge you were trying to exclude a few pages back? If so then possibly this one is an extrusion bridge? I'd try ticking just the exclusion bridges box in the exclude properties. To my knowledge you can't exclude a traffic line with a rectangular exclusion so I don't know what's up with the u-turns, although I've seen them do that myself at times.

 

You'll probably need to make a polygon exclude and tag it "Exclude_All_Freeway_Traffic" to get rid of the cars driving across the river. Traffic lines are clipped at QMID 15 boundaries so you'll likely have to rebuild an entire QMID 15 cell to get traffic to return. If that was in fact an extrusion bridge that you're trying to exclude (or even if it isn't) you can replace it with a line in SBuilder, when you do properties on the line you'll see an extrusion bridge tab with options for turning it into an extrusion bridge. If you uncheck "suppress platform" you can lay a freeway traffic line across the bridge and cars will drive across it, otherwise they'll ignore it and drive across the water underneath. If you use a library object for a bridge it will have to be one with a platform attached to it for the road traffic to drive across it. That is something that must have been done in gmax prior to exporting the model and I don't know if all the default library object bridges have platforms, most likely not because they are known to have a significant performance impact in large quantities. Basically if you can park an aircraft on them they have a platform, if the aircraft falls through they don't.

 

Setting an elevation has no effect on traffic lines, in fact it has no effect on most anything you do in SBX, only water polys, AB_Flattens, extrusion bridges, and possibly a few others are affected by setting an elevation, all other vector types are designed to hug the terrain. If you need to smooth or adjust the elevation of a roadway you'll need to make an AB_Flatten underneath the road and adjust the elevation with that. Easiest way to do that is start with a line (of type_none), set the elevation of each point and set the width to match the width of the roadway. Right click the line and choose "convert to poly" (not "make poly", that has a different effect). Tag the resulting poly with "AB_flatten" and you're done.

 

Jim

So this isn't the same bridge you were trying to exclude a few pages back? If so then possibly this one is an extrusion bridge? I'd try ticking just the exclusion bridges box in the exclude properties. To my knowledge you can't exclude a traffic line with a rectangular exclusion so I don't know what's up with the u-turns, although I've seen them do that myself at times.

 

You'll probably need to make a polygon exclude and tag it "Exclude_All_Freeway_Traffic" to get rid of the cars driving across the river. Traffic lines are clipped at QMID 15 boundaries so you'll likely have to rebuild an entire QMID 15 cell to get traffic to return. If that was in fact an extrusion bridge that you're trying to exclude (or even if it isn't) you can replace it with a line in SBuilder, when you do properties on the line you'll see an extrusion bridge tab with options for turning it into an extrusion bridge. If you uncheck "suppress platform" you can lay a freeway traffic line across the bridge and cars will drive across it, otherwise they'll ignore it and drive across the water underneath. If you use a library object for a bridge it will have to be one with a platform attached to it for the road traffic to drive across it. That is something that must have been done in gmax prior to exporting the model and I don't know if all the default library object bridges have platforms, most likely not because they are known to have a significant performance impact in large quantities. Basically if you can park an aircraft on them they have a platform, if the aircraft falls through they don't.

 

Setting an elevation has no effect on traffic lines, in fact it has no effect on most anything you do in SBX, only water polys, AB_Flattens, extrusion bridges, and possibly a few others are affected by setting an elevation, all other vector types are designed to hug the terrain. If you need to smooth or adjust the elevation of a roadway you'll need to make an AB_Flatten underneath the road and adjust the elevation with that. Easiest way to do that is start with a line (of type_none), set the elevation of each point and set the width to match the width of the roadway. Right click the line and choose "convert to poly" (not "make poly", that has a different effect). Tag the resulting poly with "AB_flatten" and you're done.

 

Jim

 

Nope, not the same bridge. Progress, my friend! That was the Ambassador Bridge to Windsor. This one is further north, and is called the Blue Water bridge, going into Sarnia, but it actually has 2 bridges. FSX had rendered them as extrusion bridges by default. Not only is that unattractive, compared to the real world, it also won't work on a Great Lakes shipping channel. They are far to low to the water. :) Thanks to street level Google Earth photos I got a nice look at what the real bridges look like, and the ones I mentioned using are very similar.

 

These are 'high level' bridges to allow the passage of lake freighters under them. So unless I can find a way to place platforms on a slope (I've placed helicopter pad platforms, but have not used them for anything else) I won't be able to direct the AI traffic across them. I do recall that many of IS2 Library Objects can have a Z axis slope setting though, so it might actually work. I would have to make several platforms conformed to the curvature of the access ramps and bridges themselves.

 

I did encounter the ability to turn a line into an exclusion bridge, while looking through all the settings for lines drawn in SBX. That may come in handy later.

 

I don't recall even seeing traffic at the Ambassador Bridge (perhaps because it is technically not a 'freeway'). But the Blue Water bridge, being a pair of 4-lane bridges, must be seen by FSX as freeway traffic.

 

There is something else going on at this location, the south end of Lake Huron, even with the default FSX scenery. They had a problem with the elevation of the lake and river coming together. There are several 'cliffs' in the actual water here. One runs up the middle of the river out into the lake, and there are more within the lake itself. Since they are there even when I remove my scenery, it has to be an error on the 0302/CVX2616.bgl file that covers this whole area, no? I will probably just leave it be, because I don't know how to fix it. I tried putting a hydro-poly set to the correct elevation over top of it in my scenery, but it gets ignored. When I drew the line and made it freeway traffic across the water, the vehicles conform to the cliffs, dropping down or climbing up the water in the river to get across.

 

Hmm. What if I put a flatten in this whole area under the water. Would that possibly fix the broken elevation continuity issue?

 

Thanks for the platform idea. I'll try that and see what happens.

The flatten I tried had no effect at all. Here's a shot of the elevation issues in the headwaters of the Saint Clair river:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]142120[/ATTACH]

 

I did look into platforms for having the AI traffic use the bridges, but the platforms I have access to are small. The largest one is 10 meters square. It would take a TON of them to even begin to try to do a large high-level bridge. So I am just going to leave this traffic issue be and move on. I did get the traffic excluded from the water with the exclusion poly suggestion.

 

With some trial and error I was able to mitigate this elevation issue somewhat by using a slope setting of -0.2 on the hydro-poly for this segment. But once the river opens up into Lake Huron (into which I have extended my hydro-poly) there is another elevation issue that I can't seem to have any effect on. It's like they have intersecting elevations in the CVX file here, but they don't align. Each of the Great Lakes has a different elevation, and I was expecting to run into something like this. But I had hoped I could work it out. I think I have it as good as it will get.

Just guessing but I'd bet some of the default hyrdro polys escaped being excluded. About 5 minutes in SBX and mine looks like this:

 

http://www.cat-tamer.com/flightsim/atchmnts/huron01.jpg

 

I looked at it prior to the fix and saw the same mess in your screenshot. Try "fill to QMID 11" on your water poly and shorelines excludes.

 

Jim

...and a little less than 3 hrs later (taking time out to cook dinner) your bridges have platforms and traffic driving across them:

 

http://www.cat-tamer.com/flightsim/atchmnts/huron02.jpg

 

 

blue_water_bridge.zip

 

Jim

...and a little less than 3 hrs later (taking time out to cook dinner) your bridges have platforms and traffic driving across them:

 

http://www.cat-tamer.com/flightsim/atchmnts/huron02.jpg

 

 

blue_water_bridge.zip

 

Jim

 

Holy Crap!! :) That's gorgeous! Now I HAVE to do it! :D You're the man!!

 

{ afterthought before I sent this -- I was just re-reading your posts after I typed this reply, and I am thinking I may have misinterpreted something. Did you meant to say I should fill to QMID 11 on the EXCLUDES? If so, I do not have a default hydro poly exclusion here. Is that how you fixed the river? Normally I can just let my hydro poly intersect with the default lake water and it works, so long as my set elevation is correct. The only time I have excluded anything was when it needed to be hidden or replaced. Never thought to try that on the water issue here. }

 

 

I could sure use some dialog on exactly what kinds of steps you took, and how you arranged the platforms, and whether or not they can be resized (I don't remember.....if they can, it would be much simpler, for sure). Nothing I tried last night fixed the water, but it looks like you fixed it. If you don't want to tie up the thread, PM me on how you did this. Also could you tell me which scenery library provided your platforms? Mine are I think from a download I got on one of the Sim forums (maybe even this one, but its been a long time since I downloaded them). Seems like the name Finney was in their description.

 

I did not create a shoreline exclusion here, because I wasn't seeing any remnant shoreline "lines" in the scenery. Had you done that?

 

If you meant filling a hydro-poly to QMID 11- Originally I tried that, specifying my land area as a hole in it. But there are some downsides to doing it. Mainly that when you do so, the whole terrain area's elevation gets sucked down to whatever height you set the hydro poly, and if you check the land scenery at the edge of such a QMID 11 setup, you get the same unwanted cliffs as we saw in the water here in Sarnia. So I adapted my procedures to use hydro polys only where they are needed, never under the land. It eliminated the problem. It works fine for an island in the ocean. But not for these inland areas.

Did you meant to say I should fill to QMID 11 on the EXCLUDES? If so, I do not have a default hydro poly exclusion here. Is that how you fixed the river?

 

Yes I meant the excludes, you should always exclude the default water before you make new hydro polys. Since water polys and shorelines are clipped at QMID 11 boundaries you should technically always exclude and rebuild an entire QMID 11 cell. The reason for that is in the event you release your project to the masses you know that whatever they have installed below it in the scenery library will be excluded and replaced by your own. Doesn't matter if they have UTX, ORBX, or default, whatever it is it has to be clipped at QMID 11 by design so there's no way anything they have can interfere with your modifications.

 

 

I could sure use some dialog on exactly what kinds of steps you took, and how you arranged the platforms, and whether or not they can be resized... ...Also could you tell me which scenery library provided your platforms?

 

The platform is not a library object or anything like that. I added them myself in gmax. It went something like this:

 

1. Extract the jpn_ohmishima bridge from bridges.bgl using ModelConverterX, export to .3ds (3D Studio max file)

2. Import the .3ds file into gmax, re-assign the textures

3. Clone the roadway surface polygons and attach a platform (which means you turn the cloned polygons into an invisible hard surface)

4. Export to a new model with a new GUID, completely independent of the original model still in bridges.bgl

5. compile that .mdl into an object library for placement with IS2

 

The library containing the new bridge is included in the .zip file I linked at the bottom of my post above, you can add that to your scenery folder and place the platformed bridges with IS2 if you want.

 

 

I did not create a shoreline exclusion here, because I wasn't seeing any remnant shoreline "lines" in the scenery. Had you done that?

 

Yes, I exclude all shorelines for the entire QMID 11 cell and rebuilt them. That is blissfully simple BTW, just right click your hydro poly and choose "make line", then tag the line with "Shoreline_generic_lake". You'll probably need to delete a point here and there otherwise you'll have a shoreline running across the middle of the lake where the north edge of the hydro poly ends.

 

There was a problem with elevation on the north and east edges of the hydro poly, the elevation nearly everywhere was 175m except the two easternmost points where the default water was 172.5m. I sliced the hydro poly at QMID 12 and set the 2 eastern most points to 172.5m. SBX has a neat feature, if you set different elevations for two points and then insert points in between them it will interpolate an average elevation for the new point based on it's position between the points. I inserted points all the way along the south shoreline letting SBX calculate the elevations, this resulted in a gradual slope in the poly that blends into the default water on the east edge without any steps or cliffs.

 

The Sbuilder file is also included in the .zip file, you can have a look at what I did. I did a quick and sloppy job of laying out the hydro poly, you might want to refine that somewhat. Also you can put the .bgls into a temporary scenery folder and add it to the scenery library if you want to see the whole thing in the sim. Uncheck your scenery in the scenery library while you do this so yours doesn't interfere with mine. The bridge placements and the freeway traffic lines are obviously tied together otherwise the cars might not cross the bridge correctly. Use the whole package or parts of it in your own scenery if you want, whatever you want to do. The .bgl filenames should be pretty self-explanitory.

 

BTW, you can land the cub on the bridge if you don't mind sharing your runway with the freeway traffic :) .

 

Jim

My friend, you are so far over my head on this I can't see your shoelaces. :)

 

Those 5 steps you listed are all things I have barely ever heard of, much less that I have not used them. I did try out GMax once, trying to make a flashing beacon for the top of a tower. But the learning curve was so steep I gave up on it. Thanks for sharing the files. I just spent an hour trying to figure out how to place individual platforms at the correct elevations and slope to turn the jpn_ohmishima bridge into a solid surface, and was barely making any progress at all. I decided to check to see if you had answered my post, because I was digging a deeper and deeper hole trying to wrap my head around this.

 

Instant Scenery 2 is a nifty utility, but it can be a nightmare to try to navigate the aircraft as a vantage point, or cursor tool "aircraft", if one uses it, AND move objects into position in 3D space, as the controls moving back and forth between aircraft and scenery don't transition very well. And I never cared for the fact that once a scenery object is selected it 'sticks' to the cursor and you drag it around while you are trying to manipulate the object you have already placed. Instances where intuition tells me to press ESC to stop doing something in IS2 simply offers to close FSX. But I have managed to use IS2 to place a lot of objects. I have never tried anything like making a working bridge surface, though.

 

Thanks for including your very beautifully done bridge as a library object. I'm guessing it is the one with "LIB" in the name, since it is larger than the one with "PLC"? What is the one with "PLC" in the name? I am guessing PLC means "place"?

 

Landing on your bridge would be cool. I would be more inclined to try with a helicopter. Actually, I once visited a place in some retail scenery of California, at which the runway for the small airport was somehow mis-positioned onto a freeway. As I came to a stop in my plane I was greeted head on by a moving semi truck suddenly rounding a bend! Freaky.

 

Have you ever noticed (presuming you use the shortcuts to reload the FSX scenery I had mentioned way up above) that sometimes, just before you use the Scenery Library uncheck/check item step to get changes made in your scenery files to load that FSX will sometimes begin to adopt 'part' of the changes you made? I placed your bridges, changed my exclusion rectangle from "all" to "extrusion bridges" and then as I went back to FSX to update the changes I saw a car running over your bridge! :) Some of the traffic was still running across the water, as the change had not yet been made permanent. However, once I did upload the changes to FSX, I then of course saw I had to add some traffic routing.

 

I've got things almost working correctly. I had to add an exclusion poly tagged exclude_all_freeway_traffic and then add lines tagged freeway_traffic across the bridges. But on the east end of the north bridge I have an issue. If the approaching vehicle stays in the left lane, it uses the bridge. If it is in the right lane, it drives THROUGH the bridge approach ramp, along the ground, then sharply flies upward near the support arch, and emerges on the bridge deck.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]142153[/ATTACH]

 

I have tried moving and even rotating the bridge end for end and it doesn't matter. So I don't think it is an issue with the bridge's platforms. It must be something left over from the default traffic path. But it won't 'exclude' with my exclusion polygon. I even tried making the traffic exclusion poly a lot wider in this area to make sure it is covering things, but it didn't matter. Wow! I just fixed it!! :)

 

I was thinking about things and decided to try compiling just the exclusion, without my freeway traffic lines, to make sure the default traffic got excluded, and it did. That meant that the problem, whatever it was, HAD to be due to my own freeway traffic line. So I started closely examining its placement. As you know, lines by default in SBX are very thick. The center points for where the lines entered that end of the bridge were just a little off center away from the bridges. I moved them tiny bit south, more centered on the FSX image of the bridge approach, then recompiled both exclude and traffic lines together once again. Now the traffic uses the bridges very nicely! It was only off by the tiniest little bit. I'll have to remember that! The strange thing, though, is that even trying to move the end of the bridge sideways, I was never able to 'scoop up' that rogue traffic being caused by the slight misalignment. I don't understand why moving the line would not be the same as moving the bridge, but moving the bridge didn't fix it. Only moving the line fixed it.

 

Thanks again for the cool bridge! I'll have to consider looking into all those other utilities you used to make it.

Instant Scenery 2 is a nifty utility, but it can be a nightmare to try to navigate the aircraft as a vantage point, or cursor tool "aircraft", if one uses it, AND move objects into position in 3D space, as the controls moving back and forth between aircraft and scenery don't transition very well.

 

I know what you mean, and I have this twitchy freakin' joystick (is there any other kind?) that creeps and jerks while I'm trying to place something... It's especially hard when working with an object the size of the bridge - you need to be at FL250 to see what you're doing, then you're so far away from the ground you can't see what you're doing if that makes any sense. ...Then there's the flickering and objects jumping back & forth... I guess it's better than trying to place things outside the sim with an external app, but sometimes I wonder how much.

 

 

I'm guessing it is the one with "LIB" in the name, since it is larger than the one with "PLC"? What is the one with "PLC" in the name? I am guessing PLC means "place"?

 

Yes and yes.

 

 

Have you ever noticed (presuming you use the shortcuts to reload the FSX scenery I had mentioned way up above) that sometimes, just before you use the Scenery Library uncheck/check item step to get changes made in your scenery files to load that FSX will sometimes begin to adopt 'part' of the changes you made?

 

I tried that a couple times when I first started messing with FSX and reached the same conclusion you did. On this new system with the SSDs FSX closes and restarts almost as fast as exiting the flight, fiddling with the scenery library, and reloading the flight so I gave up on that. What I do though that saves some time is save a flight near the spot I'm working, that makes an ".FSSAVE" file in the documents\Flight Sim X folder. I've found that by double clikcing the .FSSAVE the sim will load straight to the airplane, bypassing the free flight screen and all that BS. I make a shortcut to the .FSSAVE and put the shortcut in my main project folder or on the desktop, then I just double click the shortcut whenever I want to start the sim to check my work. Saves a couple seconds anyway.

 

 

...on the east end of the north bridge I have an issue. If the approaching vehicle stays in the left lane, it uses the bridge. If it is in the right lane, it drives THROUGH the bridge approach ramp, along the ground, then sharply flies upward near the support arch, and emerges on the bridge deck.

 

I have tried moving and even rotating the bridge end for end and it doesn't matter. So I don't think it is an issue with the bridge's platforms. It must be something left over from the default traffic path. But it won't 'exclude' with my exclusion polygon.

 

What I did is place the bridges first, the cars were all over the place with the default traffic, up and down the sides of the bridge, across the water, etc. I then excluded the default traffic and positioned my new traffic line by slewing in the sim. In SBX you can do "View > Show Aircraft" and your position will show up as a red X in the Sbuilder screen. I just slewed to the center of one bridge ramp on the west end and moved the nearest point for the traffic line to the red X. Then I slewed to the center of the bridge on the east end and did the same thing. Traffic line is now a perfectly straight line running right down the center of the bridge.

 

Don't know if you have any fancy scenery building "aircraft" or not but you should give this contraption a try:

 

http://www.cat-tamer.com/flightsim/downloads/Crosshairs_Plus.zip

 

It's a sort of crosshair affair that you can slew around to position all sorts of things. Press Shift+2 for a gauge that reads out your coordinates and elevation. The "aircraft" has zero height (no landing gear) so the elevation readout is exactly the elevation you need for things like setting the elevation of a hydro poly or a flatten. There are 4 different "aircraft" available, I prefer the "chplus2.5m" and use it exclusively. It has modified helicopter flight dynamics so it's a lot of fun to fly too. No VC so if you fly in VC mode you get an absolutely unobstructed view of everything. Great for videos too. Delete the sound.cfg, the sound will drive you crazy.

 

Jim

I tried that a couple times when I first started messing with FSX and reached the same conclusion you did. On this new system with the SSDs FSX closes and restarts almost as fast as exiting the flight, fiddling with the scenery library, and reloading the flight so I gave up on that.

 

I don't think we are on the same page here. I do not shut down FSX or even unload the flight in order to update changes to a BGL file. In fact, I 'technically' don't unload the flight to REMOVE a BGL file (but the timing can get tricky, because FSX really doesn't like it when you do that).

 

I learned from some forum post somewhere a long time back that all one has to do after adding a file into a Scenery folder is open the Scenery Library, as if you were going to add or remove scenery. Click on ANY ONE of the listings (the very first one works just fine - it does not have to be the actual area to which you added or modified the BGL file). When you click it once, the check-mark goes away. Then click it again, and the check-mark returns. Then, click OK. It causes FSX to reload all the terrain and scenery files. I do this dozens of times during one "session" of running FSX without exiting a flight or shutting it down.

 

Now, to REMOVE a file, I learned this trick on my own. Normally, if you delete a BGL file FSX is using it will immediately assail you with a literal stack of error messages that you can barely close before the next barrage comes at you. So to avoid that, Click Flights/End Flight (or just press ESC) but do NOT click anything further. Leave the "End Flight" dialog on the screen, while you remove your BGL file. Then, click Continue Flying, and be quick about opening the World/Scenery Library again so you can do the above 2-click procedure before FSX wakes up and realizes a file is missing. FSX will reload the files and you are still flying. If you don't waste any time doing so, it will always work.

 

Yes, FSX loads fairly quickly using an SSD, but it still takes longer to do so than this method, so the only time I close FSX is either if I am done using it, or when it decides to "stop responding" which in Win7 seems to happen at least once a day, even WITH the recommended "crash to desktop fix" in place. Quite often it does happen while accessing one of the menus, such as selecting an aircraft. The DLL file changed in that fix must be more stable, but still not perfect, as I read it has to do with the display of the menus.

 

My final speed trick is to reduce the setting of the LOD in FSX.cfg to 1.5 when I am working on scenery, as it significantly speeds up the reloading of the files. It presents clipping issues sometimes but if I want to go flying for pleasure I will crank the LOD back up and reload FSX. I the clipping bugs you, 2.5 works fairly well and gets rid of the clipping, it just loads more slowly.

 

I had something happen just now that has me puzzled. Since you provided the nice bridge to use, I felt the least I could do is re-edit the imagery and lose the original image of the bridges on the ground, as well as the very prominent pair of shadows they had cast in the satellite image. So I did some editing of the base image and realized the pair of layers I had above it for fixing the horridly varying brightness and contrast here (gotta love Canadian satellite imagery) and my "green filter" to try to balance the coloration both were based on the original image, so they still had the things I just had removed from the base layer. So I deleted those 2 layers and re-created them in GIMP, and then exported the bitmap and compiled the BGL anew and updated it in FSX. As I was deciding I had too much green, I noticed the AI traffic exiting the south bridge was disappearing and reappearing about 200 feet later. I went back into GIMP and eased up on the green and exported/recompiled, and updated FSX again. But now the traffic was fixed?? I did not change anything having to do with the files created in SBX. All I did was work with the image bitmaps. Strange. But its working now, so I'm not going to dwell on it.

 

Thanks again for the help and the nifty bridge! it really makes this area look nice!

Crosshairs plus appears to be another version of a tool I use that is just called CROSSHAIR. I don't have a readme file for it. For some reason this forum won't accept my ZIP file as a "valid format". So I can't post it. And when I search for it online, I only find the one you just linked. I'll give yours a try.

 

BTW, I saw mention of your name on another forum having to do with making this compatible for FSX. Thanks.

 

Edit - Jetpack mode is fun! But I wish it had an altimeter built in. This looks much more attractive than the one I am used to using. it is pretty much "2D". Oh. I see it does have a Tim Allen special :) GPS unit when in 2D mode. Is there any way to get that to display when looking DOWN?? That would really make this tool very useful. Aha! if I use a Locked Spot added view window, I can see the X on the ground, while still seeing it in the 2D view. Nice! Undock that view, move it to a side monitor, and I've got the best of both worlds. :)

 

Here's something interesting. Although I can land on one of your Blue Water bridges with an aircraft, the Crosshairs + tool falls right through it.

I don't think we are on the same page here. I do not shut down FSX or even unload the flight in order to update changes to a BGL file. In fact, I 'technically' don't unload the flight to REMOVE a BGL file (but the timing can get tricky, because FSX really doesn't like it when you do that).

 

Right you are, to be honest I'd never found the "scenery library" menu item with a flight loaded. I'd looked too. I ran FSX deluxe with SP2 for several months before I got Acceleration, I wonder if that menu item is something that was added with the Accel pack? I swear it was nowhere to be found when I first went looking for it, I always thought you had to close down the flight and go into settings to access the scenery library. Anyway that's great to know, thanks for those tips and pointing that out. I'll try that for sure.

 

 

BTW, I saw mention of your name on another forum having to do with making this compatible for FSX. Thanks.

 

I made the "Binford" scenery gauge, and the "2.5m" model which actually has textures as opposed to just "gmax colors". That was (we thought at the time) the needed modification for use in FSX and I wasn't expecting the other 3 models to be FSX compatible, oddly enough just adding the texture folder seems to be all that was needed, after adding the textured model (and texture folder I presume) the other 3 untextured models became FSX compatible as well. Strange how that worked, FSX was just released when I did that, so maybe it was actually one of the service packs that made them compatible, I don't know.

 

Shift+2 opens the scenery gauge in any view I believe, BTW.

 

The crosshairs tool seems to fall right through platforms unless you land very gently on them and always keep the throttle (collective) just a bit above idle. If you go all the way to idle it will fall through every time. I think it has to do with the zero height contact point arrangement, I'm not sure and I never bothered trying to fix it for fear I would make elevation readings innacurate. It doesn't seem to be a problem in slew mode though which is what matters most when you need the elevation of the platform for example.

 

Not sure what's up with the traffic and the green tint, I guess those Ontario folks just don't like green :) . Seriously freeway traffic is a bit strange, since traffic lines clip at QMID 15 boundaries, the traffic will spawn and disappear at the edges of every QMID 15 cell no matter what you do. In this case there is a QMID 15 boundary on or very near the west end of the bridges so they will spawn and disappear there every time, there's nothing that can be done about that, I think it's an FSX thing we have to live with.

 

Jim

Right you are, to be honest I'd never found the "scenery library" menu item with a flight loaded. I'd looked too. I ran FSX deluxe with SP2 for several months before I got Acceleration, I wonder if that menu item is something that was added with the Accel pack? I swear it was nowhere to be found when I first went looking for it, I always thought you had to close down the flight and go into settings to access the scenery library. Anyway that's great to know, thanks for those tips and pointing that out. I'll try that for sure.

 

I have to think the Scenery Library was in the World menu back before Acceleration. The reason is that I was using it to install California scenery I was buying, before I had the Acceleration upgrade to FSX. About the same time I was first getting into placing scenery objects and then adding retail scenery upgrades I also found some helicopters I wanted to add. They required the EH1 helicopter model, released in the Acceleration pack. I only had FSX Deluxe Gold at the time. Being already long in the tooth, it turned out Amazon had the whole FSXA package for a lower price than just the Accel pack. So I bought it as a second copy, and re-installed everything with the upgrade. I continued accessing the Scenery Library in FSXA the same way.

 

My first major undertaking was the placement of over 4000 wind turbine towers near Livermore, CA on the huge Alta Mont wind farm. Only after placing them all onto the 2D imagery of each tower did I find an animated tower, which I wish I had used instead. Those were placed with Rwy12 Object Placer, and have XML files to go with all the BGLs. Someone told me I could edit the XML files and swap in the animated object file name/location and convert them. But by then I had moved on to other locations adding custom scenery and I have never gotten back to trying that. I would need some help figuring out what to change. XML isn't in my skill set. :) Rwy12 limits groups of placed objects to 999 items, so I had to use multiple files to store all the placements. The towers are lit at night. Looks really nifty flying around them. Would be super if they were also animated.

Maybe so, I'm blind in one eye and can't see out of the other so it's likely I missed it. I rarely need to see the result of my edits that quickly though, I usually close down the sim and work on something for a couple hours or more before I look at it in the sim. There are times though, so I will definitely try it out. Sounds like my story exactly with FSX Deluxe/FSX Gold - I have 2 sets of disks as well - very similar scenario. Glad I upgraded to Accel now, the Augusta heli is one of my favorites.

 

The XML edit for the wind turbines would be a 15 second job per XML if you're just swapping 4000 placements of one object for another object, you'd just need to replace every occurrence of the existing GUID with the one needed for the animated wind turbine. Notepad would walk through that in a blink. The only potential problem would be if the reference point or heading of the two models were different, in that case the positioning of the new objects could possibly shift a few feet one direction or another or the new turbines may end up facing the wrong way. Not terribly difficult to fix that either though. I can show you what to do easily enough, I'd need the XMLs and the new wind turbine library to get the GUID.

 

Jim

Thanks, Jim! I'll gather the files together and send you a PM. But since the forum won't recognize my zip files to allow me to upload one, I guess we may need to do this by email. I'll send you my email address.

 

Edit - Would you need the Altamont BGL files too, or just the XML files for the placed towers?

Jim, I just emailed you the whole file set for the Altamont Wind Tower project and also the animated tower I had downloaded later. Good luck!

Jim- I might have missed this butg when doing bridges in SBX a friend of mine went to the sbx ini (config) file and change the extraextrusionaltitude=-20m to -1m.Maybe this helps? dunno. seems to work well. Bob

Hi thanks for this really helpful article, I have one query the vector file for the region I work for covers large region and when I replace it with new cv*.bgl I lost all other region, anybody has clue how can I merge my new hydro polygon in to existing bgl?

 

thanks

Start here:

 

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?250762-How-to-create-photoreal-scenery-for-FSX&p=1736660#post1736660

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

 

Sorry for being so ignorant, just now finally started with SbuilderX after installing the SDK. I am afraid I did something wrong. I followed part II, but no map showed up, could it be that I installed the latest tile server plugin incorrectly??

What I did was copied and pasted the GoogleServer_v115 directly into C, is that where it should be or should it be inside SbuilderX?

Thanks!!

Needs to go in "SBuilderX313\Tiles" Annber.

 

EDIT: Also there's a v122 available: http://www.ptsim.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7516#p7516

 

 

Jim

Thanks Jim, finally figured it out just now. I am running into another problem though, I am trying to make a photoreal scenery for the area around Jorge Chavez Int in Lima, Peru. First it was a pain to get the proper coordinates I wanted, got that done finally. Then I noticed that using Google maps the zoom was quite blurry at 11,12, or 13, so I went with Yahoo maps which allowed a much crisper zoom at 13, but when I got to part II (getting your background image), i got all the way to step 13, the tiles seemed to be loading and the map disappeared and had small signs instead telling me the image was unavailable. That is my frustrated progress so far.

Tried Hide and show background with both Yahoo maps and Google maps and still not able to generate a map. Any thoughts Jim?

Also, why is Google maps soo blurry at zoom 12, it wont even go to zoom 13?

It's probably just the best resolution available for the area. When you see the "no data available" tiles it means you've already seen the best there is for the area. Try the virtual earth server, I usually have better luck with that one (in the US anyway). Try a sample in the UK if you want to see some good imagery.

 

Jim