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Need help modifing a coastline

R

ronezra

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42
Country
unitedstates
I'm trying to modify a Catalina Island coastline from the Aerosoft Los Angeles X scenery package.

The first photo shows the pier I would like to delete so I can add a 3D Object. This use to be done in FS9 by just editing the right BGL file.

I have managed to remove the water with FSX KML using the tutorial, and add some back (just a test), but it did not remove the pier (photo 2).

I'm I on the right track or can this not be done on a commercial scenery?

Thanks,

:<Ron>
 

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Pier removal

Hi Ron, yes it can be done but not in the way you are trying to do it (as far as I am aware anyway). I don't have this product but...

I assume that the pier is part of a photo-scenery tile forming part of the scenery. As such you will be unable to change it by making adjustments to the vector watermask. My understanding is that it is not possible to edit imagery in photo-scenery bgl's, so I think you'll have to cheat a little!

I have done something similar when creating motorway bridges and have wanted to edit out the bridge image from photo-scenery to show an unbroken motorway underneath the extrusion.

The method I used was to take a screenshot of the area you want to edit from a source of aerial photography. What you use will depend on what the source quality of what you want to edit is, and what the quality of imagery available to you is! When you have your base image, edit it in Photoshop or similar to get it looking how you want. Then use SBuilderX to place this image as photo-scenery in sim (in a scenery layer higher than the product you want to 'edit').

You may be lucky and find that the image used exactly matches up colour and detail wise, but for best results you will need to apply a transparency and blend mask to the edges of your image to make sure the edit looks seamless.

If you've never used SBX don't worry all the answers as to how to do it are either in the manual or available on the SBX forum or here.

Cheers & happy new year!
K
 
Hi Kevin,

Thanks for the help. After spending all day yesterday trying to use FSX KML to do what I wanted, finding out I was on the wrong track is very helpful!

Yes, I'm trying to change the photo-scenery. It sounds like exactly the same thing you were doing with the bridges. I have used SBuilderX; not sure I really understood what I was doing :) but I followed the tutorial and managed to get the photo textures down, so I'll try that route.

I've already done the 3D pier, but having the photo-texture under it just doesn't look right!

Thanks again,

:<Ron>
 
Pier removal

No problem Ron, you don't need to use the downloaded tiles from SBuilderX to remove your pier. Rather, you want to take a picture and georeference it using SBX so that it is placed correctly.

When you do a transparency you'll need to use an alpha channel in the image. I can't remember off the top of my head which way round it is but either 100% white or black background allows the base image to show through.

I can't remember the exact steps I went through now but I do recall I got it sorted in well under a day :). I think you will need another file as well which will control te blendmask, which I recall will need to be a specific type of tif file, graduated in shades of grey. If I'm wrong I'm sure someone else will correct me but if you get stuck feel free to PM me and I'll work it out again with you :)

K
 
Thanks Kevin,

After a day of trial and error (and help from a tutorial by Luis Féliz-Tirado) I managed to remove the photo-texture pier, replace with water effects and blend it into the existing water. It turned out great!

However, after feeling really good about the results, I noticed that all the autogen objects near the area are gone! What a disappointment! :)

So now I'll go looking for a command I missed that does not delete the autogen.

:<Ron>
 

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ronezra said:
So now I'll go looking for a command I missed that does not delete the autogen.
Click to expand...

I'm taking a guess here that you made a new, small photo area to overlay what was there? Within your small area you have a blendmask file to let the shoreline match and leave other stuff out? If so, your photo file does not have autogen applied via the Autogen Annotator?

Your work overrides what was there, including the autogen for the size of your work area. At least that's what I think is going on. You might try copying the autogen files from the addon over to a \texture folder where your \scenery folder holds your BGL file. Copy, not a cut and paste.
 
Coping the autogen files from the addon to my scenery texture folder did the trick!

Seems obvious once it is pointed out to you.

Thanks for all the help.

:<Ron>
 
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