FSX Is there a truly tropical landclass?

[lordofwings]

I think the ACES team never really travelled to the tropics. I have been looking at all the available landclasses and there is none that seems suitable for tropical islands where the vegetation is predominantly (and sometimes exclusively) palm trees.

What is my alternative? create grass polygons and manually place coconut plants?

 

[Timmo]

The alternative is to create your own ground textures to replace a default set and then place this replacement set (it needs to replace the full set to avoid memory leaks) in the texture folder of your scenery. A landclass file will need to call that texture set.

 

[lordofwings]

But the texture is just that, a texture of the ground. What I am looking for is that the 'really tropical' landclass displays mostly palm trees or other trees seen in these areas.

 

[LCSims]

But a texture can carry autogen and with the Autogen Annotator you can put whatever vegetation you want on the texture. Same with building types.

There's more to it, but it is possible to have a localized land class file and it's textures take priority over global features.

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Here's an example of a local Palm landclass.

Palms_LC.zip

It uses LC 21 (Conifer Boreal Forest) to place the palms. You could alter the textures if the ground is too dark for your tastes.

The local texture folder must contain all variations of the 022b2xxx.bmp files, as well as the 022b2xxx.agn files. These are the textures and autogen that landclass 21 will use locally.

The local scenery file needs to have the landclass bgl.

I included a FLT file... double-click on it and it should open FSX and take you to Savo Island. Add the scenery with the Scenery Library and you should have palms.

Dick

 

[LuisFelizTirado]

Well, I have so little time and can never visit this great forum and web site. But, today I did have a moment and came upon your very interesting problem.

In truth, there is a simple solution if you want a grove of palm trees. There is an orchard land class - 145 Deciduous Tree Crops.

It will display groves of different trees depending on the region:

- default = Olive Trees
- Africa Central (E) = Date Palms
- Asia Indian (W) = Date Palm
- Middle East (J) = Date Palm
- Tropics Asian (S) Date Palm
- Tropical Pacific (H) = Coconut Palm

So, the simple solution is to:

1. Make a land class file with the Deciduous Tree Crops (145) assigned where you want coconut groves.

2. Make a Regions file where the same areas have the Tropical Pacific value (7).

These 2 bgl files in conjunction will display coconut groves anywhere you want.


Best regards.
Luis

 

[lordofwings]

In my case I am trying to "redesign" certain tropical areas of Panama in Central America, in particular the caribbean part where at the beach and the small islands coconut palms are about the only type of tree and if not a certain mix of tropical trees.

If I remember correctly the area I am talking about is classified as Region R (Tropic / American) by FSX. The SBX help me says that when it is installed it makes a copy of the North American region for display in the class map selector. How would I go about replacing those for the Tropical ones?

Been rereading the SBX help and the tutorials, compiled some BGL from a "landclass project" I created for the scnery but I see no difference.

 

[LuisFelizTirado]

What is displayed in SBuilderX does not matter - that has no effect on the scenery that is created.

The ground textures and autogen that are displayed will depend solely on the land class assignment (which you make) and the region.

So, simply follow these instructions:

1. use SBuilderX if you like to make a land class file where you place 145 - Deciduous Tree Crops anywhere you will want coconut groves.

2. generate that bgl - this is your land class file.

3. SBuilderX will make a RAW image as a source for that bgl - you will find it in the Work folder usually.

4. I then load that RAW image in EZ-Landclass X by Russel Dirks. This tool works as an Excel spreadsheet, so it is easy to replace values with others.

4. Replace all the 145 values in that source with 7 which is the region value for the Tropical Pacific. Generate the bgl so as to save the changes to the RAW image, but discard this bgl.

5. Find the inf file that SBuilderX used (it too will be in the Work folder) and change:
- Layer from Landclass to Region (Layer = Region)
- make sure the source file has the same name as the RAW image saved in EZ-Landclass
- change the destination file name (DestBaseFileName) to something else, for example, Panamá_region_change, or whatever you want.

6. Manually compile this new inf (place the RAW image and the inf in the same folder as {BGLComp.exe} SORRY, THIS WAS WRONG (SENIOR MOMENT) USE RESAMPLE.EXE TO COMPILE THE BGL, drag the inf file onto it)

7. You will now have a regions bgl file that will change the region only for the places where you have assigned land class 145.

8. Place both the land class bgl and the regions bgl in any active scenery folder - coconut groves magically appear in Panamá!

Best regards.
Luis

 

[lordofwings]

Thanks for the very informative post. I looked in my Work directory and found there three RAW files, how do I know which one to use? the problem is I work in multiple projects at the same time and all their files get mixed up in Work BTW is it safe to "erase' the files in Work? or will I lose part of my project files?

For the sake of trying I loaded one of those RAW files in the Excel sheet of EZ-LandClass but all I got to see there were about 28 rows, some empty and those that where not empty had one or more cells filled with the same weird character resembling a long straight line with a small D in the middle. When I select the cell the formula windows shows the same, no 145 or anything numeric.

 

[GHD]

4. I then load that RAW image in EZ-Landclass X by Russel Dirks. This tool works as an Excel spreadsheet, so it is easy to replace values with others.

I think EZ-Landclass X went walkabout when Avsim had a problem with their library.

 

[lordofwings]

@GHD The EZ Landclass download is there at AVSIM but it doesn't appear to work as indicated here.

 

[LuisFelizTirado]

It doesn't matter what tool you use, the only thing that is important is to make an accompanying Regions file for the land class file.

You want coconut groves, and they do exist in FS X. They display when you assign land class 145 Deciduous Tree Crops. But, coconuts will only display in Region H - Tropical Pacific. In Panamá this land class will display olive trees.

So, you want to make a Regions file that will change the Region only where you have assigned land class 145.

Unfortunately, there is no tool for making Regions files, or Seasons files, or Population files, etc.

So, you must use a land class tool to create the source image (where the Regions value is assigned) and then compile manually.

The advantage of EZ-Landclass X is that you can easily replace one value with another. But, if you don't know how to use it, then simply use SBuilderX to make the Regions source image.

First, make the land class file as indicated below and compile it. Place the compiled bgl file somewhere safe so that you don't overwrite it with the next operations.

Then, in SBuilderX, everywhere you have placed land class 145, change the value to 7 (don't worry that this is land class Tall Grasses and Shrubs, because it will not be used as a land class file.)

Once you have done that, compile this so that SBuilderX will generate a new source image with that value 7, but discard the bgl file (it is land class and you already made the correct file previously.)

Now, you have a new source image. Simpy follow the instructions below on modifying the ini file and compiling manually to get a Regions file.

How do you know which RAW image source file to use? All these files in SBuilderX are named according to their Cell identifier, because land class is made in that grid. If you don't know the Cell you are working in, and you do not know where to look for it in the SBuilderX status bar, then use the date and time stamp of the file. In Windows Explorer, all files can display the date and time when they were created. Simply search the Work folder for the RAW image that corresponds most closely to the date and time when you created that file. Normally, that is the RAW image source file that you want.

Best regards.
Luis

 

[lordofwings]

Now I get the gist of the whole thing, thanks for the excellent explanation, I was always surprised to see the olive trees here in the tropics.

Just one last question though.... I have my RAW & INF files in a separate directory but when I try to use the FSX BGLComp with the INF files I get an internal error. Apparently (and for what I see in the SDK docs) it expects an XML file rather than an INF file. Edit IGNORE this paragraph, as it turns out I needed to use the Resample.exe tool in the Terrain SDK and not BGLComp.exe

And... would these region change BGLs reside in the same scenery folder? or Must I put them in the World\Global\scenery folder?

BTW While looking for how to compile them the links I find point me to your site (ptsim.com) but Google has marked all ptsim.com forum entries as "This site may harm your computer", either the forum is or was infected. If it is no longer infected you need to use Google's Webmaster Tools to request them to unlist your site as harmful once the problem has been corrected.

 

[lordofwings]

I have noticed that when I deploy the two BGLs generated for the region change, then part of the mainclass is semiflooded, that is it renders land with water on it so you see trees emerging from the water and even a layer of water over the mountains. Very weird.

 

[LuisFelizTirado]

Then, in SBuilderX, everywhere you have placed land class 145, change the value to 7 (don't worry that this is land class Tall Grasses and Shrubs, because it will not be used as a land class file.)

Once you have done that, compile this so that SBuilderX will generate a new source image with that value 7, but discard the bgl file (it is land class and you already made the correct file previously.)

 

[roger-wilco-66]

Interesting discussion, I'll have to try that.
For the palm groves, I think the main problem is that these are usually man made mono cultures and have a distinctive pattern: they are planted in lines.

I also miss real mangrove forests. The default mangrove LC is far off from reality. I've been to the tropics myself many times and can say that these are very dense, low ceiling forests, that grow right into the sea. Now that, unfortunatly, can't be depicted in FSX. But with above descriptions it should be possible to adopt a default tile for that.

Thanks for the input,
Mark

 

[lordofwings]

Quite true Mark. In the caribbean tropics islands are full of coconut trees and generally have white sand beaches, yet in FSX this area usually has some very weird vegetation that is out of place.

Likewise, most if not all of Panama (my area of interest) displays in default FSX as some semi-desertic landscape with some vegetation that does not nearly approximate to the very dense forests and jungles we have here. Even with my settings maxed out I find myself in the necessity of manually planting trees to make it more dense.

 

[LuisFelizTirado]

Unlike Macadamia trees or orange groves or apple orchards, coconuts grow wherever the nut falls, so most often they are not planted in regular rows. There is not much of a market for coconuts anymore either, so cultivation is more or less haphazard in most of the world. Oil Palms are a different matter.

Best regards.
Luis