• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Ocean Shorelines without wave action

jparnold

jparnold

Messages
311
Country
australia
I have created some islands which have 'ocean' shorelines (vector lines) which show wave action and have placed these on the ocean side of the islands ie vector line type Shorelines Generic Ocean.

I would like to add shorelines on the 'leeward' side of the islands (the shorelines close to the mainland which would not normally have wave action).

Is there a method in how to choose matching shorelines which don't have wave action apart from trial and error?

Thanks
 
Thanks Gary

Lots to read and absorb and I learn something new.

I am a little reluctant to rely on having the modified Terrain.CFG installed as if I ever 'publish' my scenery (as freeware of course) some of the 'audience' may not have it installed.
I guess I could include instructions in my readme/installation description.
 
Last edited:
If working in SBuilderX, take a close look at the shoreline list in the Line menu. Some of the shorelines have wave action and some do not.

The Modified Terrain.cfg issue is is a good question. That said, its been around for about 10 years now. Most "serious" simmers have installed it (and have forgotten about it). Your idea of a note in the readme is probably the best approach.
 
Hi John.

Will is right. The original terrain.cfg has lots of types with no wave effects. Look for those.
 
Indeed, there are alternative choices in the SBuilderX "Lines" pick-list which I did not mention., because I have not had time to check and see how many shoreline types actually still appear by default in the SBuilderX "Lines" pick-list even if the end user has NOT (yet) installed the Richard Ludowise / Luis Feliz-Tirado "Modified Terrain.Cfg" at the prompt during installation / configuration of SBuilderrX.

Some pertinent additional threads on this particular topic which may also merit review: :idea:

http://www.ptsim.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3278

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/using-custom-shoreline-textures-sbuilderx.130092/

[EDITED]

http://www.ptsim.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7276

[END_EDIT]


For those not inclined to initially allocate time to reading all available info, and who may instead wish to "press ahead" :banghead: :p, direct testing via "trial-and-error" is certainly another way to find out what will- and will not- work in ones current milieu of default and add-on scenery elements, and the configuration changes that they entail ! :)

And of course if one releases a scenery to the public, one should, IMHO, ensure that any- and all- end users may also have the option- and a SDK-compliant means- to "exclude-and-replace" any individual scenery elements and FS-infrastructure custom configuration changes that one has implemented via one's add-on. ;)

GaryGB
 
Last edited:
Thanks everyone for your input and advice.
I temporarily changed one of my single shorelines into one of 6 different short shorelines giving each one a different 'texture' from the list in SBX to see the effect.
I found that some have wave action and some don't although the width shown in FSX differs. Also some of those which have a wave action have well defined waves and others much less.
I ended up using RIVER WHITE SAND NO SURF and although it shows in FSX much wider than what I was using for the shorelines WITH waves/surf, it looks ok.
My initial reason for creating this thread was basically laziness - wanted to know if there was an easy way to do it rather than the trial and error method. At that stage I had not noticed the textures with NO SURF only PERENNIAL and NON PERENNIAL types.

I assume that all the different 'line' textures available to select in SBX exist in FSX as it comes 'out of the box' (I have never found on that doesn't) and wonder why such choices aren't available in ADE considering it always seems to be updated (later versions). I have created 'scenery' for my airport using BOTH SBX and ADE - ADE to create runways, taxipaths etc etc, SBX to create CVX scenery.


sechelt islands.jpg


BTW I came across a presumably (haven't had a chance to try it yet) better wave action texture file which is supposed to have more natural waves - 2004/FSX WAVES.ZIP by David Cotton.
 
Thanks again Gary

I now see that GENERIC OCEAN SHORELINE (what I used on my islands for shoreline with waves) has a width half of that for RIVER WHITE SAND NO SURF (what I used for the shorelines where I didn't want surf). I have learned something new again :)

Not wanting to modify TERRAIN.CFG maybe I will now change them to OCEAN WHITE SAND SURF and NO SURF (or something else).

Don't know how I missed those textures marked SURF and NO SURF maybe because the list is so extensive.

Wanting to make my scenery as realistic to the real world as possible I just looked at the islands with Google Earth and found very little of the coastline has any 'beach' area mostly just a rocky shoreline. I have now decided to just change the texture lines to WAVE EFFECT NO TEXTURE and no texture line along the shoreline on the 'leeward side of the islands.
I then considered trying to add a rocky shoreline. I tried creating a narrow polygon around the edge of the island but did not like the effect using a few diffeernt 'rocky' textures. Maybe adding satellite imagery might do it but it isn't worth the effort especially as it wouldn't be very noticable from the air.
Worth the 'education' I received trying though.
 
Last edited:
Hi John:

Glad to see you're able to explore the numerous options for these types of CVX vector poly-lines and polygons.


BTW: If you have your FS Texture resolution slider set at 7cm or smaller, you will be able to better see the full detail of mapped textures on these types of terrain objects.

There are additional tweaks that end users can implement without making edits to FSX.Cfg, such as the Level of Detail (aka "LOD") Radius slider, which might extend the distance at which the shorelines (and other details) may be visible, but beyond a Medium to Large setting, there may be a scenery rendering performance penalty.

GaryGB
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top