How to create photoreal scenery for FSX

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

 

Jim, after seeing how advanced you, Zoandar, Tiberius are, it feels kinda stupid to bother you guys with this basic problems. Having said that, I would like to learn from you all.

My problem is that just to check I have now followed the initial instructions by Tiberius by creating the folder Nauru, getting the exact same coordinates, following the steps meticulously, but even then, after the "show background" step, the zoom level only goes till 11, while his goes to 13, in mine after zoom 12 the image disappears, there is a total blank, and even at zoom 11, the image is all blurry. So, if I am following the initial instructions to a T, what have I done wrong??

I have the SbuilderX313 folder in "C", then In the GoogleServer folder v122, there is a googleserver DLL, that goes in the Tiles folder, but there is a code folder as well, where is that going? I have it also under tiles, is that OK?

Just put googleserver.dll into the tiles folder bare, let it overwrite the on that's already there from the Sbuilder install. That's probably your problem I think. I don't think there's any difference between the .dlls in the .zip but I used the one outside of the "code" folder.

 

Jim

Jim, only one more question for tonight because it is getting frustrating, I just did Virtual Earth as you suggested, did an area on SbuilderX, went to add Map from Background and clicked OK, I could see that the tiles are supposedly downloading, get the message saying X amount of tiles are downloading, clicked OK, then click OK on the Add map from background, Then I get an error message, "COULD NOT MAKE AN IMAGE".

Do you know why that could be happening?

Has to do with size, got it.

Yep, exceeded memory capacity. You can do it with multiple maps and if you still want a single photo .bgl you can multi-source the .infs together outside of Sbuilder, see this thread:

 

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?256346-How-to-merge-multiple-photo-sceneries

 

Jim

Hi Jim,

I noticed that Yahoo has a much crisper version on Jorge Chavez Int., and I tried downloading the tiles, but could not even though the image was there. I also noticed Tiberius posted the same question back on October 10 here at Flightsim.

Do you know why it is that I cannot download the Yahoo tiles?

I just tried that and was able to make a map at zoom=16, apparently there is no higher resolution than that. Were you trying to add a map at a zoom level above 16?

 

Jim

I just tried that and was able to make a map at zoom=16, apparently there is no higher resolution than that. Were you trying to add a map at a zoom level above 16?

 

Jim

 

Not sure, let me try again.

Yes Jim, I was trying at zoom level 17. I was able to save tiles at zoom 16.

A question, When you first get a map, right after you show background, does it make any difference in final texture resolution how close you zoom in, I am zooming in to 16 rather than 13, and then when I get map from background I zoom to 16 again, that seems to give me much better ground resolution.

Thanks.

It doesn't make any difference what zoom level you are at on the screen, but on the "add map from background" dialog you'll see radio buttons where you can specify which zoom level for your map. Sometimes you have to be zoomed to a certain level on screen to make a specific zoom level available, I presume that is due to the number of tiles it would take to fill the screen and the "cannot make map" memory limitation you ran into earlier.

 

Each zoom level appears to be twice the resolution of the previous, i.e. if a given area makes a map that's 2000px wide and 2000px tall at zoom level 12, the same area will generate a map that's 4000 x 4000px at zoom level 13, 8000 x 8000px at zoom level 14, etc. The maps you make are stored in the "D:\MSFS\SBuilderX313\Tools\Work" folder BTW, with filenames like "L18X149844X149848Y279782Y279785.BMP" etc, along with a .txt file of the same name bearing the coordinates of the map.

 

Jim

Hi Jim, just wanted to show you a bit of my progress doing Lima Photoreal. Of course I now have to figure the coastlines, and later i want to know if there is a way to put some autogen greenery.

I have Latin VFR SPIM, which comes with photoreal around the airport, but their photoreal colors are way to bright, so if you have any ideas as to how to blend them let me knwo.

Thanks for all your help.

I have Latin VFR SPIM, which comes with photoreal around the airport, but their photoreal colors are way to bright, so if you have any ideas as to how to blend them let me knwo.

Thanks for all your help.

 

Probably just go into the Latin VFR scenery folder and disable the photo .bgl so you're only using the new one you made with SBuilder. You can of course use the annotator to add autogen to your photoreal, Tiberius has covered that process at some point in his tutorial, check back a few pages for that.

 

If Latin VFR has autogen try copying the .agn files from their texture folder into your own (or put your photoreal .bgl into Latin VFR's scenery folder), there's a good chance it will align just fine on your new photoreal, that would save you a lot of work.

 

Jim

OK, got that about LatinVFr, and can substitute my photoreal instead of theirs, thanks.

 

I have now encountered two new issues, this is on CUZCO, first, sometimes there is no map available at the resolution I want, so I have to switch from Yahoo maps to Google maps, which has a different texture color shades, as the example below explains. Is there a way for me to blend both map areas so that the difference in colors is not that noticeable?

 

Also, is there a way to get a higher quality map to import into sbuilderX, and where would I get that from?

Thanks once again.:)

The only thing you can do with the color mismatch is get the sources into PhotoShop and try to make them match better. That's not so easy unfortunately, especially with the hard line delineating the two sources. You might be able to use larger sources so that they overlap, get them to match as well as you can in PS, and then do feathered blend masks on each to hide the line somewhat. I've never done that so I'm not sure how well it would work. You could also put the two overlapping sources together in PS, match & blend as necessary, and then re-write/re-calculate the .inf so you could resample the composite of the two sources as a single source. That may give you the best result but it'll be a little more involved.

 

Don't know of a way to obtain any better imagery, SBX has access (actually google, virtual earth, and yahoo have access) to commercial imagery in most cases so my guess is you won't find anything better than what's available on those servers. You could try googling around for something better, try "South America GIS" for example.

 

Jim

sorry to come on again with another issue, but I am getting this file error, which I can't figure out why, has anyone experienced this?

Can't really tell what you're trying to do Annber, open the photo .bgl in TMFViewer? Is it the TMFViewer located in "SDK\Environment Kit\Terrain SDK"? (I mean you're not trying to open it with the FS9 version of TMFViewer, right?)

 

Jim

No Jim, don't believe it is the FS9 version since I don't have FS9 installed here, plus I just downloaded the SDK from the FSX disk. I was able to sort that out, apparently it has to do with the texture resolution not being available, even though you did download tiles and create a bgl file. Once I tried a lower resolution it worked fine. I hope what I just said made sense.

Hello everyone, my name is Chris

i wanted to take the time in my first post

to first thank Tiberius K. and all active supporting members

i found this thread very useful and been lurking through it often for help

 

im having a small issue atm i could use some help with

i have a piece of shoreline peeking from underneath my Coast line polygon (see image)

 

i tried using "Legacy_LandWaterMask_Water_NoFlatten" Poly which worked partially

it basically shows the photoreal's excluded water above the the abrasive shoreline i excluded

that makes the excluded section stand out un-blended to the water around it

is there a better way to get the abrasive shoreline out; or a different poly?

 

http://s24.postimage.org/rh4aht90x/water_blend1.jpg

I wouldn't use "Legacy" anything for FSX, those are FS9 style polys I believe. I suppose they'd work, I've never tried them. Why would you want to use a non-flattening poly BTW?

 

Basically you'll need 2 excludes, one for shorelines (Exclude_All_Shorelines) and another for hydro polys (Exclude_All_Water_Polygons). Those need to encompass an entire QMID11 cell, it's best if you just turn on QMID11 grids in SBX and right click, "Fill to QMID11" for each of the excludes.

 

Then you need to re-draw all water polys within that excluded QMID11 cell to match your imagery and tag them with "Hydro_(something)" and set an elevation for each poly if any are other than sea level. You don't really need shorelines under your photoreal, but chances are you'll see areas outside the photoreal coverage area where water meets land abruptly if you don't add those too. That's easy though, just select your new hydro poly, right click, and choose "make line", then tag the line with "Shorelines_(something)" and you're done.

 

Jim

sorry to come on again with another issue, but I am getting this file error, which I can't figure out why, has anyone experienced this?

 

Maybe it's just a folder name / file name issue.

TYVM Jim

the reason im using Legacy Poly was simply "ignorance" on my part

im fairly new to FSX photoreal design and tools :pilot:

i cant remember the page i read that on

this is the only tag i was able to find that worked

 

unfortunately i didn't save an image with the legacy ploy applied

(deleted and restarted production)

 

i will try and follow your recommendation and report back with results

Hi Jim, I ran into this issue late last night, so I returned to it this AM thinking a fresh mind was better than a tired mind.:o, Well I guess I must always have a tired mind.

 

I have been trying to start experimenting with coast lines, watermask & blendmask. I thought I followed the steps, although I am not 100% certain I did it correctly. For one, when looking at the watermask thru GIMP, there is a checkerboard pattern which I don not see in the instructions pictures, is that something i am doing wrong?

I am enclosing a screenshot of the resample once I drag the INF file to it.

I don't know Annber, it looks like resample choked on the main imagery .bmp rather than the water or blend mask. Did you work with that one in Gimp, save it, etc? My guess is a format problem but I'm Gimp illiterate so I don't know what to tell you to do differently.

 

One unrelated thing I would suggest is to go into "Control Panel > Folder options", click on the "View" tab and tick "Show hidden files, folders" and also untick "Hide extensions for known file types". That'll let the file extensions show in the explorer window which should eliminate some confusion. I'm wondering if "OLBIA.bmp" doesn't actually exist, i.e. did you save it as "OLBIA.xcf" instead (which appears to be Gimp's native format)?

 

Also if you're just starting out in Gimp I would switch to PhotoShop instead. (they call it "Gimp" because it's lame :) ) . Adobe recently made CS2 available to the public but I've been using it for years. I can tell you what to do in PS but I'm afraid I'm lost with Gimp. Get the one 2nd from the bottom on this page:

 

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html

 

There's a keycode next to the download link to unlock it with.

 

Jim

Thanks a million for the Photoshop link Jim, I like Photoshop:).

 

I just got started with it and doing the watermask & blendmask. I followed the same instructions as with GIMP, but when I got to Exporting the blendmask, the options given on Photoshop were confusing to me and I am hesitant to continue for fear I screw something up and have to start all over again. Thanks for your help!!

I meant to include this image with the previous entry.