Best workflow for creating adjacent sceneries where there is coastline

  • If i set the mask flag to false to ensure adjacent sceneries tile in a tidy way, then i get no coastline converted because the coastline has its own alpha layer mask. If i then redo coastline with mask true how do i neatly line up the non coastal edge with the internal FS2 tile system?

    As i'm in the UK there is a lot of coast to deal with.

    Any advice?

    While i'm on the subject, any tips to get FSET coastline to blend with FS2 high level imagery would be appreciated. Its a very pixelly/blocky transition at the moment. My only idea is to try and draw a smooth blended border around the coast in the same colour as the default FS2 water colour.. whatever that is.

  • Hi,

    this is the suggested workflow:

    Set the mask flag to true to get the coastline.

    Use GeoconvertHelper and set the snap Level 9 function on.

    You can scroll the coordinates to see the aerofly tile system and adjust it for the desired area.

    This will create seamlessly adjacent areas when doing subsequent geoconversions.

    Just make sure, the selected coordinate settings are covered by your imagery.

    Rodeo

  • Thanks. I follow that and will give it a go.

  • Kloot - Some feedback on alpha masking coastlines and the pixelly edge problem. See these two pieces of screenshot taken while flying. The first is the problem we've been having. In the second I did a very quick paint with a sea colour along the edge of the coast. Its a wavy inexact line but looks a bit better. Unfortunately a single block of sea colour still creates an obvious transition when up against the background multi-shaded sea.

  • Kloot - Some feedback on alpha masking coastlines and the pixelly edge problem. See these two pieces of screenshot taken while flying. The first is the problem we've been having. In the second I did a very quick paint with a sea colour along the edge of the coast. Its a wavy inexact line but looks a bit better. Unfortunately a single block of sea colour still creates an obvious transition when up against the background multi-shaded sea.

    Thanks Phil, I will give the image a quick paint along the edge :)

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  • Aren't there blur or blend brushes you can use to smooth the transition? Experimenting with brush opacity, width, etc?

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  • Aren't there blur or blend brushes you can use to smooth the transition? Experimenting with brush opacity, width, etc?

    There are, but as FS2 doesn't handle semi transparent alpha layers, the boundary between the new scenery and the background is always whole pixel and when flying very low that whole pixel gets zoomed in on producing this surprisingly blocky edge. If the new scenery is edged in exactly the same colour as the high level background then you get away with it, but if you mask your new scenery all the way up to sand or water that is very different coloured then you get the effect shown in the images above.

  • here are, but as FS2 doesn't handle semi transparent alpha layers, the boundary between the new scenery and the background is always whole pixel and when flying very low that whole pixel gets zoomed in on producing this surprisingly blocky edge. If the new scenery is edged in exactly the same colour as the high level background then you get away with it, but if you mask your new scenery all the way up to sand or water that is very different coloured then you get the effect shown in the images above.

    Ouch. Didn't know about the Semi transparent alpha layer thing. I wonder If that will be added, some day. Maybe there's a reason why its not.

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  • Here's a technique that has made geoconverting a lot easier for me when there's coast. The problem I had was that I'd FSET a load of scenery and some of it needed alpha masking for coast... but which BMPs needed it? Do I open/edit every one and look and try to remember which obscure code it was? One option is to view the folder in large icons mode. That's OK, but turning 500mb images into large icon thumbnails is very intensive and Windows doesn't cache them so moving between folders causes large icon generation every single time which takes many minutes each time the folder is opened. It would be easier if the large icons weren't recreated every time I visit the folder. Now mine aren't since I found this:

    https://www.pcworld.com/article/309660…d-try-this.html

  • I'm currently working on scenery in SE England and so far - being a novice - I've been avoiding the sea altogether. However, as the OP rightly says, if you're in the UK at some point you have to take the plunge (in my case into the freezing cold waters of the English Channel).

    Admittedly I haven't actually tried this yet, so I may be talking nonsense - but I thought I'd just put it out there as an alternative way of dealing with the coast. (I will be trying it shortly, once I've grabbed the images I need.) What I'm thinking is that I could leave the FSET sea image alone on the .bmp file as far out to sea as it goes and, if there's an ugly white patch, simply copy the colour of the FSET sea near the coast into into the offending patch. I might even be able to copy the texture as well - I haven't played enough with Gimp to be sure of that. In fact why not fill the whole sea right across to France with the same colour/texture? I'm thinking if I grabbed a big area in the middle of the Channel (or wherever) from FSET it might be all white - or black - I'm not sure, I haven't tried it. But anyway, I could fill it with the FSET sea colour/texture that I had near the coast and then geoconvert it. All this could be done at low res.

    Like the OP I reject all masked tiles, so this would deal with the problem of masked tiles on land being indistinguishable from those produced by the alpha process applied the coastal .bmp files. (That was my understanding of the problem. Correct me if I'm wrong.) It also kicks the problem out to sea, so to speak. Any kind of abrupt transition would be less objectionable out at sea than near the coast where it's potentially spoiling the natural coastal scenery. Maybe I should have waited until I'd actually tried this before talking about it, but I just wanted to get my thoughts down on "paper" before I forget them - and maybe others can see potential snags before I waste my time.

    Edited once, last by Ian C (November 28, 2017 at 2:21 AM).

  • Yes, i get the idea - push the ugly transition out to sea. You'd need to paint over the white squares with a cloned texture rather than single colour. That sounds worth a go.

    Going down the other tack, and having spent some time recently with UK ordnance survey data, i now have vector data on tidal limits throughout the uk. If only that data could be used to clip the FSET bitmap data, ideally with a nice alpha fade of course.

  • Spit40 Reading the thread again I realise that what I'm suggesting isn't radically different from what you were suggesting, except that I was proposing using the FSET .bmp sea colour near the coast to paint in the white areas - rather than using the default FS2 sea colour. The default FS2 sea colour could also be determined (if desired) by taking a snapshot in Aerofly and maybe one could try to transition between the two sea colours several miles from the coast. Anyway I'm in the process of trying it now and will report back later.

    The idea of using the tidal data sounds great, especially if you're a bit of purist about the real images as I am.

    Edited once, last by Ian C (November 28, 2017 at 1:10 PM).

  • Spit40 Reading the thread again I realise that what I'm suggesting isn't radically different from what you were suggesting, except that I was proposing using the FSET .bmp sea colour near the coast to paint in the white areas - rather than using the default FS2 sea colour. The default FS2 sea colour could also be determined (if desired) by taking a snapshot in Aerofly and maybe one could try to transition between the two sea colours several miles from the coast. Anyway I'm in the process of trying it now and will report back later.

    The idea of using the tidal data sounds great, especially if you're a bit of purist about the real images as I am.

    I wonder if IPACS would be interested in creating (dev) subforums for UK, US etc, so people interested in those countries could co-operate better and share knowledge of scenery/data sources? Have you seen my cultivation thread on OS data? Its about the easiest scenery development work I've done and really adds a lot. I have a few more ideas to improve it more, but it won't be worth it really until we have more cultivation objects.

  • Spit40 Yes It would be interesting to have a place to discuss specifically UK related matters. On Goodle Earth some of the most scenic parts of the country (eg the Lake District, Scotland, etc) have rather washed out images. I haven't checked Virtual Earth/Bing, but I imagine it's the same there. And yes - I did see your post on the use of OS data and cultivation. That's something I'll probably turn my attention to once I've fully mastered the basic geoconvert thing. (I thought I understood it, but I still find that areas of scenery sometimes don't show up - and I can't discover any rational explanation!)

  • I wonder if IPACS would be interested in creating (dev) subforums for UK, US etc, so people interested in those countries could co-operate better and share knowledge of scenery/data sources? Have you seen my cultivation thread on OS data? Its about the easiest scenery development work I've done and really adds a lot. I have a few more ideas to improve it more, but it won't be worth it really until we have more cultivation objects.

    Sorry but no interest in doing this. We provide everyone with a fair, open discussion platform so that anyone can participate in all conversations; even from other countries. Creating more sub-forums would 1) be difficult to manage on our end, and 2) will promote segmentation which some might find as offensive.

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    Jeff

  • Spit40 Yes It would be interesting to have a place to discuss specifically UK related matters. On Goodle Earth some of the most scenic parts of the country (eg the Lake District, Scotland, etc) have rather washed out images. I haven't checked Virtual Earth/Bing, but I imagine it's the same there. And yes - I did see your post on the use of OS data and cultivation. That's something I'll probably turn my attention to once I've fully mastered the basic geoconvert thing. (I thought I understood it, but I still find that areas of scenery sometimes don't show up - and I can't discover any rational explanation!)

    Everybody Cultivate !!

    Ian C , I urge you. Wait not a moment longer. Make do with your interim geoconversions and start cultivating. There is nothing like it. I just went for a night/dusk flight through the Lake District in the Peruvian plane. I was living the dream. I see military jets fly in the Lakes fairly often and the realism in FS2 with cultivation is amazing. The streetlights and twinkles from clusters of houses is so convincing especially at night. It totally changes the scenery to have these buildings responding to ambient light or generating their own in a realistic way. Use my scenproc file and you won't need to inspect the OS Data, just do the reference system conversion in QGIS.

    My geoconversion is still crude. I missed a few white patches at sea and I should really do it again at 0 or -1 (I processed at +1) but it makes much less difference once you cultivate.

  • Everybody Cultivate !!

    Ian C , I urge you. Wait not a moment longer. Make do with your interim geoconversions and start cultivating. There is nothing like it. I just went for a night/dusk flight through the Lake District in the Peruvian plane. I was living the dream. I see military jets fly in the Lakes fairly often and the realism in FS2 with cultivation is amazing. The streetlights and twinkles from clusters of houses is so convincing especially at night. It totally changes the scenery to have these buildings responding to ambient light or generating their own in a realistic way. Use my scenproc file and you won't need to inspect the OS Data, just do the reference system conversion in QGIS.

    My geoconversion is still crude. I missed a few white patches at sea and I should really do it again at 0 or -1 (I processed at +1) but it makes much less difference once you cultivate.

    OK thanks Phil - you've convinced me! I think I can probably move on once I'm happy with the way I deal with coast - which hopefully will be fairly soon :)