A scenery design beginner with some Qs

[karsten77]

Hello Arno, hello community!

My Name is Karsten, i come from Germany, Rheine (EDXE).

The last days i spend the days studying, reading and learning about scenery design. My goal is to create a photo realistic undergrund for my Hometown around EDXE. After that i want to add autogen with the SDK on the .bmp files.

Meanwhile i know how the fs2004 terrain SDK work, i know what Lod13 means, i know where the cells are who i want to place my undergrund. How to create the .inf file (oh my god! All the parameters... ). And other programs i tryed and made experiments:

SBuilder205, SceneGenX, LWMViewer2, dxtbmp ...
The photos i copy "pix and coord exactly" from Google earth, convert them with my favorite Programs.

I read a lot of forum topics, different problems from other peoples, and tutorials.

Ok im a beginner. Its very hard for me to understand all the programs and the "rules". So i have some questions and want to ask here for help:

1. How can i work, which Programs should i use to make a relistic backgrund in a better quality than 4,75 meter?

1b: When i want a better quality, is the only solution to work with polygons on the ground? But how can i adapt a poligon to the ground? A polygon is flat, but my terriain is not flat (i use fsgenesis mesh in this area).

2. Why is CellXdimensionDeg, CellydimensionDeg important for the compiler, when all corner locations are known? I have ever big Problems to the right values here, and sometimes my experiment work, sometimes not. And so i can´t make a scenery, because i have everytime big Problems here. E.g. I know the coords of NW Corner, and i know that my image is 1000m x 1000m. How can i compute the other corners? At the moment i measure it with google earth and note it, but this is a little bit pedantically, when i try to make a area from 10x10 km. And sometimes ... problems, problems, problems.

3. The other Problem are the "water" borders, yes i know why is it so (lod13 cover are), but is there no other way, to made e.G. only the area around a stadium? Just a area from 100x150 meter? Yes, made a polygon. And add a texture. But which program is the best and easy? And how solve the problem that the polygon did not sink under sightline at the one side, or "fly" 1meter over the ground on the other side.

4. Coords: There are three (!!!) different ways to show coords? The 1. Program use decimal (52.327833°), the other in deg, min, sec ( 52°19'40.20"N) and other i don know what it means (N52*19.67'). Hello? Somewhere @home ? What a mess ! All three examples define only one point on earth. Exist there somewhere a calculator to "translate" the values? Don´t understand why not everybody use decimal, this is the one and only value, all other sucks.

Big thx for every help, tips and tricks.

 

[arno]

Hi Karsten,

1. How can i work, which Programs should i use to make a relistic backgrund in a better quality than 4,75 meter?

This would mean that you can not use the mesh/terrain techniques, as they are limited to 4.8 meter per pixels. If your area is not flat I think SBuilder is the best option to make higher resolution terrain. If the area is flat, you could also use GMax to create a grid of images.

1b: When i want a better quality, is the only solution to work with polygons on the ground? But how can i adapt a poligon to the ground? A polygon is flat, but my terriain is not flat (i use fsgenesis mesh in this area).

In that case the polygons would have to follow the altitude of the mesh exactly. This can be very tricky and I think SBuilder will allow you to do this (if you load altitude data into it as well). But in general this is a difficult process, so it might be better to stick with the mesh techniques.

2. Why is CellXdimensionDeg, CellydimensionDeg important for the compiler, when all corner locations are known?

If I remember correct, these values are for the input image, the resolution of that image is not fixed. So the compiler needs to know, to be able to generate the correct 4.8 meter output.

3. The other Problem are the "water" borders, yes i know why is it so (lod13 cover are), but is there no other way, to made e.G. only the area around a stadium? Just a area from 100x150 meter?

Using a VTP polygon would be easier in that case I think. They can be placed as single polygons (so around 1.2x1.2 km) and you can use the alpha channel for transparancy instead of water.

4. Coords: There are three (!!!) different ways to show coords?

Why do some people give a distance in meters, or in centimeters or in feet? That is about the same question. The conversion is really simple. Let's assume you have the format of: HH:MMD.ddddd.

Converting this to the HH:MM.mmmm format means that you have to divide the DD.dddd by 60 and add it to MM (thus giving MM.mmmm). The final step to the HH.hhhh format is about the same. Dividing DD.dddd by 60 and adding it to HH (to give HH.hhhh).

 

[karsten77]

This would mean that you can not use the mesh/terrain techniques, as they are limited to 4.8 meter per pixels. If your area is not flat I think SBuilder is the best option to make higher resolution terrain

I tryed Sbuilder and read a tutorial. The biggest problem is, that i miss the "textures" tab in the properties of the polygon, in the tutorial is this tab, i can see it in the screenshot in the pdf file.

 

[arno]

Hi Karsten,

I think this depends on the type of polygon you are making. You can select the type on the first tab.