White areas over water

  • Sometimes when I make Geoconvert scenery I get areas of white tiles over bodies of water. Why is that happening, and how do I make it go away?

    My presumption is that despite the fact that water appears on the FSEarthTiles maps the program isn't really creating any scenery for Geoconvert to work with. Is that correct?

  • This is because there are no tiles for that portion of scenery. You will have to use an image editor (like GIMP), to edit those bmp's.

    I recommend you to follow the geoconvert guide here:

    https://www.aerofly.com/aerofly_fs_2/d…cenery_creation

    it explains quite clearly the process to use GIMP (go to aplha blending section).

    Good luck again. As you'll see, there is always a guide to follow ;(

    Cheers, Ed

  • One way round this is to take the large images that were created by FSET, and edit them in a photo-editing program before you use Geoconvert. Replace the white areas with a suitable blue, re-save them, and then run the geoconvert program.

    - Kenneth

    (EDIT... I see Ed already provided this answer even as I was typing mine!)

  • As others have said, use Gimp to edit the BMPs. There are 2 possible approaches: (1) Make the white areas transparent as described in the Wiki. This allows the default AF2 sea to show through. (2) Colour in the white areas with a suitable shade of blue, preferably using a "brush" with a fuzzy edge so as to produce a gradual transition. I use method (2) myself. The only disadvantage of it is that, if ever the default AF2 sea is improved (with waves etc?), I won't see it around my coast. I understand from those who have tried it that the disadvantage of (1) is that it produces a jagged transition between the land and the sea when viewed close up (unless somebody has found a way around that). Also I gather that any FSET tiles generated in the transparent area are classified as "masked". This wouldn't suit my method of working, since I set Geoconvert to reject all masked tiles and, when selecting my area to geoconvert, I allow a 0.01 degree overlap around the approximate (2 dp) positions of level 12 tiles in order to ensure that no level 15 tiles are missed.

    Edited once, last by Ian C (January 24, 2018 at 9:54 AM).

  • Does the method in the tutorial wherein you export the newly edited BMP's as TIF's work with Geoconverter Helper? I did that, but the result was that in the final product the tiles that had been edited were displayed as entirely transparent, so that the original scenery showed for the entire tile, and not just for for the erased white areas. I think that the Helper may only have sent the TIF's to the Converter?

    Confused, as Usual,

    Bill

  • Does the method in the tutorial wherein you export the newly edited BMP's as TIF's work with Geoconverter Helper? I did that, but the result was that in the final product the tiles that had been edited were displayed as entirely transparent, so that the original scenery showed for the entire tile, and not just for for the erased white areas. I think that the Helper may only have sent the TIF's to the Converter?

    Confused, as Usual,

    Bill

    That has nothing to do with the geoconverter helper. You should re-check what exactly you modified with GIMP.

    Cheers, Ed

  • I followed the directions a closely as I could. Used the alpha blending setting in GIMP, erased the offending white areas, exported the new file as a TIF with the color values box checked and no compression to the "Work" sub-folder. Guess I will try again from scratch.

    Thanks for your help. Obviously I screwed something up. I won't be any further bother, but I will let you know when I have achieved success.

  • I followed the directions a closely as I could. Used the alpha blending setting in GIMP, erased the offending white areas, exported the new file as a TIF with the color values box checked and no compression to the "Work" sub-folder. Guess I will try again from scratch.

    Thanks for your help. Obviously I screwed something up. I won't be any further bother, but I will let you know when I have achieved success.

    I'm glad to help, that's why we're here, apart from bothering IPACS asking for helicopters, or Aeroflys FS3 or FS4, or ORBX to make bigger sceneries :D

    Anyway, when you use alpha layers and cover your white areas, those areas will be transparent (and the default underlying Aerofly scenery will be shown) after you do the geoconversion. What's not normal is that your complete TIF become transparent, if I understood you well :rolleyes:

    Cheers, Ed

  • Don't forget our job to beg for ATC and weather too.

    But yes, that is exactly what happened. Both the BMP file and the new TIF file should still be present in the "work" sub-directory when I run the Helper, correct?

    When I ran the Helper it seemed to only be sending the Tif files to the Converter.

    I will try again this afternoon when I can clear some time. This time I will just do a small purpose chosen area to experiment on.

  • But yes, that is exactly what happened. Both the BMP file and the new TIF file should still be present in the "work" sub-directory when I run the Helper, correct?

    I don't use the Geoconvert Helper, even if it's quite a good idea, but it never worked well for me, so I always do the geoconvert processes manually, as written in the wiki section.

    You'll only need the TIF's inside your work sub-folder once you've modified your original BMP's. Make sure that *ALL* of your BMPs are written to TIF and you don't have a mix of BMP and TIF files in the same folder.

    Cheers, Ed

  • Also it's very important to export your TIFF with 'save color values from transparent pixels' checked otherwise it won't work properly.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Any tile that I use the eraser on to create a transparent area over water will be entirely transparent, not just transparent over the checkerboard area marked on the tile.

    I am using GIMP 2.8. It looks a little different from what I see in the tutorial. Could that be an issue? Could there be something else I need to "check" or "uncheck".

    Sorry to be such a nuisance.

  • I wrote the tutorial with Gimp 2.8.

    The easiest thing to do is open the photo in Gimp, add a transparency layer to it, use the 'free select tool' and carve out the area that you want eliminated (transparent), close the gap, and press the delete key.

    You will see the 'checkered' look in those areas.

    You then export with the exact name as the original photo tile to a TIFF. When you look at the TIFF it will show white where you deleted the sections.

    In-game it will make those areas transparent.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff