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Water and Blend Mask Help

W

wallydog69

Messages
58
I just started using SBuilderX and making good progress on my first scenery. I created Tiff Files for both my Blend and Water Mask and they are working the way they should in FSX but when I add each of these files into my sbuilderx project they appear much larger than my original bmp photoscenery.

Why are my tiffs so much larger? Is this correct or am i doing something wrong with the Tiffs.

Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
wallydog69 said:
Why are my tiffs so much larger? Is this correct or am i doing something wrong with the Tiffs.
Click to expand...

Any decent image editing program will tell you the size in pixels of the loaded image. I use Paint.Net. Check your .BMP file, then see what the size for the TIFFs are. They should be the same size in pixels, wide and high.

You are converting the TIFF files to grayscale, 8bpp format? With some programs it seems like you are, but they aren't really giving you what the Resample compiler wants. The TIFF files should be 1/3 the size of the BMP file. If they are not, then you have an improper TIFF file. I like using IrfanView to convert a 24bit TIFF file down to grayscale and 8 bits.
 
LCSims said:
Any decent image editing program will tell you the size in pixels of the loaded image. I use Paint.Net. Check your .BMP file, then see what the size for the TIFFs are. They should be the same size in pixels, wide and high.

You are converting the TIFF files to grayscale, 8bpp format? With some programs it seems like you are, but they aren't really giving you what the Resample compiler wants. The TIFF files should be 1/3 the size of the BMP file. If they are not, then you have an improper TIFF file. I like using IrfanView to convert a 24bit TIFF file down to grayscale and 8 bits.
Click to expand...

It seems that I needed to calibrate my TIFF maps in order for them to show up as the right size in Sbuilderx. It seems however that this made no change in how FSX compiled the maps as blend and water masks were working fine before the calibration... not sure why that is. I'm used Gimp to save my BMP to tiff format.
 
Color me a little confused? Calibrate the TIFFs? Why?

If for example, your BMP file is 4,000 pixels wide and 3,000 pixels high so should be the TIFF files. If you BMP file is named MyAirport.BMP, then if you name your TIFF files as MyAirport_b.Tif and MyAirport_w.Tif SBuilderX will automatically recognize them and include them in the compiling process. There's no reason that I can recall where you would need to calibrate the TIFF files. If they aren't the same size as the BMP file, then all bets are off.

And why did you change the BMP to a TIFF? Or are you referring to the masking files? Again, they should be 1/3 the size of the primary source file. Whether Gimp does that or not I can't say, as I don't really use Gimp.
 
LCSims said:
Color me a little confused? Calibrate the TIFFs? Why?

If for example, your BMP file is 4,000 pixels wide and 3,000 pixels high so should be the TIFF files. If you BMP file is named MyAirport.BMP, then if you name your TIFF files as MyAirport_b.Tif and MyAirport_w.Tif SBuilderX will automatically recognize them and include them in the compiling process. There's no reason that I can recall where you would need to calibrate the TIFF files. If they aren't the same size as the BMP file, then all bets are off.

And why did you change the BMP to a TIFF? Or are you referring to the masking files? Again, they should be 1/3 the size of the primary source file. Whether Gimp does that or not I can't say, as I don't really use Gimp.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. My Tiff files are the same dimensions as my BMP and I have them properly named. I created my TIFF masks from my BMP. The greyscale file was approx 1/3 the size of the BMP but the masks are quite smaller since they are mostly just Black and white. I did notice that they have a 32 bit depth when I check their properties so this may be why they show up quite a bit larger in SBuilderX but when I add my masks as maps they end up appearing much larger even though they are the same pixel dimensions. When I add them SBuilder X tells me that the map may need to be calibrated...regardless of whether I calibrate or not calibrate the size of these masks in SbuilderX..they work so not sure what may be causing the abnormal size in Sbuilder X unless it's the bit depth.
 
Last edited:
Sorry, still confused! :confused:

You say;

My Tiff files are the same dimensions as my BMP...

The greyscale file was approx 1/3 the size of the BMP but the masks are quite smaller...


Aren't the TIFF files the masks? Aren't the TIFFs in 8bit, grayscale format?

You say the files are named properly, as per what I posted before, where the source file would be MyFile.BMP, your blendmask would be MyFile_b.TIF and your watermask would be MyFile_w.TIF.

If the files are named in the above format, there is no need to add either of the TIFF files to SBuilderX. As long as the correctly named mask files are in the same folder as the BMP file SBuilderX will automatically recognize them and include them in the compiling process. No need to add, no need to calibrate, nothing. It's how SBX is setup to operate.

If you can zip the BMP file and it's matching TXT file, along with the TIFFs to a file sharing site, such as Megaupload, I or someone else can take a look and see what's gone haywire. There should also be an .INF file that SBX is using when running the compile process. Include that, also.
 
LCSims said:
Sorry, still confused! :confused:

You say;

My Tiff files are the same dimensions as my BMP...

The greyscale file was approx 1/3 the size of the BMP but the masks are quite smaller...


Aren't the TIFF files the masks? Aren't the TIFFs in 8bit, grayscale format?

You say the files are named properly, as per what I posted before, where the source file would be MyFile.BMP, your blendmask would be MyFile_b.TIF and your watermask would be MyFile_w.TIF.

If the files are named in the above format, there is no need to add either of the TIFF files to SBuilderX. As long as the correctly named mask files are in the same folder as the BMP file SBuilderX will automatically recognize them and include them in the compiling process. No need to add, no need to calibrate, nothing. It's how SBX is setup to operate.

If you can zip the BMP file and it's matching TXT file, along with the TIFFs to a file sharing site, such as Megaupload, I or someone else can take a look and see what's gone haywire. There should also be an .INF file that SBX is using when running the compile process. Include that, also.
Click to expand...

LCSIMS,

Thanks for all the help...I think I'm sorted now... I 'Add Map' the mask files (myfile_b.tiff, myfile_w.tiff) to my SBuilderX project and did not know that I didn't need to do that. All is working fine...I've posted my new scenery to Simviation.com. (Flushing Meadows Queens NYC) If you get a chance I'd love to know what you think of it...my first scenery
 
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