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How to create photoreal scenery for FSX


Tiberius K.

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PART X - Adding Object to your scenery with ADE

 

 

There are different methods of filling your scenery with objects. If your scenery is rather small like our Nauru project,

then a free, fast and easy way to add objects is using ADE.

 

 

 

1) Start ADE and open your Nauru airport file:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129669[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

2) Zoom in and you will see that our yellow flatten polygon is blocking our sight. So we will delete it and add a new one later when we are finished adding objects. The only problem is that we will have a floating runway again after our flatten poly has been deleted. So go to your Nauru/Scenery folder and rename your flatten polygon (ANYN_ADEX_ADE_CVX.bgl) to "ANYN_ADEX_ADE_CVX1.bgl". That way we can still preserve our original flatten polygon even if we deleted it in ADE, so we don't have the floating runway problem when testing our objects. After renaming, double-click one of the flatten polygon lines, then right-click and select "delete object" and our background image will be visible again.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129670[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

3) Now we will add a tower. But first we will adjust the height of our tower camera, it's usually too low so that you see antennas and lights and such when you choose tower view in FSX later. Double-click on the tower spot, a properties window will open, set altitude to 100 ft and then click "OK"

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129671[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129672[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

4) Right-click on your airport spot and select "Add Library Object"

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129673[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

5) In the Add Library Object window select "Airport objects" under category.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129674[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

6) Select "small tower2", you will see an image of your selected object on the right.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129675[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

7) Now you can adjust the quality of your objects under "Image Complexity". Keep in mind that if you should set your

complexity level to "extremely dense" you will have to set your autogen settings in FSX display settings to "extremely

dense" as well or your objects won't show up.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129676[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

8) Now click "add" and you will see a little orange square with a little dot above. If you click on that you can rotate your object. So bring your tower into position and then we will add a few more objects.

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129677[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129678[/ATTACH]

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PART X - Adding Object to your scenery with ADE (continued)

 

 

 

 

9) Now we will add a terminal building. Right-click again on your airport and select "Add Generic Building" and click "Add".

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129687[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

10) Save your project (CTRL+S), compile your airport bgl (CTRL+C) and have a look at our objects in FSX.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129689[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129691[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129692[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129693[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

11) Ok, looks good. Even tower view is ok. Now you know how to litter your island with objects. You can also add vehicles, taxi signs, and all kinds of stuff, even boats. You have to play around with it a bit. You will notice that for some objects you won't see an image in ADE (maybe scruffyduck can fix that!). Fortunately there is a catalog of all FSX objects, you can find it here

 

12) One last thing we have to do is to re-do our flatten polygon. So do your flatten polygon again, delete the "ANYN_ADEX_ADE_CVX1.bgl" file, save your project, compile your aiport and then:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129694[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]129695[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

Happy Flying!

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  • 1 month later...

man 1st thanks for the fantastik totorial... 2nd in the step that you put the senery on the fsx ... i go to add area... then to my folder.. and then ok.. and nothink is hapening.. (i press also right click cose thats the why to do it..) plz tell me how to do iit..

gridings...

manos.

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There is or was a program out for taking images and compiling them for FS9. The ground textures for FS9 are very different from FSX, so no, you can't use FSX ground textures in FS9. FSX ground textures can be a large image in a BGL file. FS9 ground textures have a BGL file and lots of 256 x 256 bitmaps. FS9 ground textures are something like 4.8m/pixel and FSX textures can be high resolution.

 

edit: Photo Scenery Maker is the one I was thinking of for FS9.

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  • 2 weeks later...
man 1st thanks for the fantastik totorial... 2nd in the step that you put the senery on the fsx ... i go to add area... then to my folder.. and then ok.. and nothink is hapening.. (i press also right click cose thats the why to do it..) plz tell me how to do iit..

gridings...

manos.

 

I think I know what you mean. Try this:

 

1) Add your folder

2) now you will see "scenery" and "texture" subfolder

3) left-click somewhere into the white space below these subfolders

4) now left-click ok

 

Now your scenery should be added to the scenery library.

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  • 1 month later...
I think I know what you mean. Try this:

 

1) Add your folder

2) now you will see "scenery" and "texture" subfolder

3) left-click somewhere into the white space below these subfolders

4) now left-click ok

 

Now your scenery should be added to the scenery library.

 

This sounds similar to a known Windows 7 issue, where you have to right-click instead of left-click on the blank area of the window in step 2 (where you see the Scenery folder), and I think you do this AFTER left-clicking the OK button. If done correctly it instantly whisks you back to the FSX Scenery list, where you will see your newly added scenery at the top of the list.

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WOW!!! Just plain WOW! I am speechless. This is such an awesome tutorial set it could keep me busy for months!

 

I set out to find a way to correct a shoreline issue for Lake Erie in Northern Ohio, where the photo-realistic scenery I have, based on Google Earth imagery, is seriously screwed up. If you zoom into that area in Google Earth you can see what they did there. The worst part about it is that it is not only very ugly, but FSX treats the error as LAND, even though it is supposed to be part of the water in the lake. So you can't land there 'on the water' with a float plane, and no AI watercraft can exist on it.

 

I believe the techniques taught in this tutorial may just be exactly what I need to work on that scenery area and try to fix it. THANK YOU!!!

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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?

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  • 1 month later...

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.

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Hi

I am new to creating photoscenery and have started following this tutorial.

 

I've got the initial watermask created but am not clear on the blendmask. Looking at it seems to be almost identical to the watermask in that it blacks out all the rest of the tile except the island itself. Or am I misunderstanding this?

The only difference I see is that it uses a non solid shade (50 or 75%). If I understand what I have read you can fade out the blendmask to blur the edges where it joins default water class. Do you do this by gradually lowering the % from 75 to 0% as you work out to the edge of the tile?

And if it is similar to the watermask could I just copy the watermask layer and alter it to fade out the edges to zero, after all the most time-consuming part for me was the initial "cutting-in" round the edge of the coastline.

Thanks for any help/advice.

 

Regards

 

Den

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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. :)

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Zoandar

Thank you very much for your explanation. I had not noticed that the blendmask and watermask started at different points, but now you point it out it is obvious!

I like your gradual fade-off between the shallow and deep water shown in picture 2 and that is precisely the efeect I want to achieve around the edges of the island rather than the sharp line in picture 1. That is why I wondered if it was achieved by changing the % of the blendmask.

I would be very grateful if you would explain how you achieve it.

 

Regards

 

Den

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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. :)
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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.

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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.

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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]

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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.

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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.

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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!!

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