• 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.

FS2004 SBuilder - VTP or HighRes Photo?

Horst18519

Horst18519

Moderator
Resource contributor
Messages
2,385
Country
germany
Once again I'm stuck because I have to do something I never did before: an aerial image with alpha in FS9.
I found out resample won't do the trick so I tried it with SBuilder. It works more or less, but I have several questions about it after a lot of "trial" even more "error":

- What's the difference between VTP photo and HighRes Photo in SBuilder?
- Does the alpha only work with HighRes Photos and not with VTP? It seems so.
- Why is the VTP visible above the mesh while the Photo only blends through now and then (obviously being rendered at 0 MSL)?
- What extra (LWM) stuff is needed in order for this to work?
 
Hi Thorsten,

VTP polygons should work, they show transparency. The high resolution photo is not lead down with terrain technique, but with SCASM polygons that follow the DEM. To be placed correctly you must also import the DEM in SBuilder.
 
Note that the photos that get created for the VTP method had names like created in resample, but they have to be located in scenery\world\texture or they won't be shown.

The Hi Res method works, but you can have problems with the edges showing between tiles.

scott s.
.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately I get those ugly edges even with the VTP tiles. And I just can'T seem to get the alpha to work.
If I compile, the bitmap does not get an alpha channel. I still import it into fs9/scenery/world/texture and rework them to include an alpha channel (DXT1) - but I still see the black parts of the image. It seems like the VTP bgl does not include the alpha layer call.
 
As you can see I get the ugly edges as well as rather bad resolution (mipmaps?), but most of all I don't get any alpha layer even though I edited the DXT1 bitmaps to add the layer.
If I do this (adding the alpha) I get some weird silver surfaces instead of the expected transparency.
 

Attachments

  • VTP1.jpg
    VTP1.jpg
    91.9 KB · Views: 554
Ok, now I tried to use another format (8-bit) - and the alpha layer worked. :eek:
But only for a few bitmaps. As soon as I converted more than half a dozen of them FS9 crashes on load. Looks like there's some sort of limitation. Anyway, DXT1 does not work with alpha layers, 8bit or DXT3 give me a crash - I think I'll abandon this method... :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top