Photo Story - adding scenery & cultivation to an airport in 7 layers

  • Chrispy, I think your multiple toc files was the result of you adding a SPLITGRID operation without the matching MERGEGRID operation (see example below). SPLITGRID isn't needed for FS2 (was required for FSX) but if you always want 1 toc file, add the MERGEGRID or remove the SPLITGRID.

  • This is very odd. No buildings should be transparent. My only assumption is that you are using custom buildings and not our default cultivation files.

    Let me check back with Torsten on this but I don't think anything changed on our end.

    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

  • Jeff, you may be on to something. Rodeo's Video Tutorial for Cultivation (made easy) says to use his building textures folder from his Airport Design tutorial - that folder has ~75 files in it. I'm using that folder in place of the smaller default building textures folder. Maybe those files have the transparency layer enabled.

    I'll run a test tonight with the default building textures folder and let you know how it goes.

  • My only assumption is that you are using custom buildings and not our default cultivation files

    Actually, as I posted, in December I created a standard cultivation toc with a single definition similar to:

    <[building][element][0]

    <[vector3_float64][position][lon lat 0.000000]>

    <[float32][direction][0]>

    <[float32][length][120]>

    <[float32][width][120]>

    <[int32][floors][32]>

    <[string8][roof][flat]>

    <[string8][usage][industrial]>

    >

    I was unable to see this building until it 'ghosted' in as I approached. Again I was not 'attaching this to an existing airport, but rather to a 'dummy' airport with it's own tsc. Experimenting with the 'size' parameter had no effect on the distance. At the time I just assumed that was the way it worked. I will say that I have not experienced (or at least noticed) the ghosting effect with any other 'cultivation' I have created. And all of those are also not tied to an existing 'airport'.

    -- Rich

  • Jeff, you may be on to something. Rodeo's Video Tutorial for Cultivation (made easy) says to use his building textures folder from his Airport Design tutorial - that folder has ~75 files in it. I'm using that folder in place of the smaller default building textures folder. Maybe those files have the transparency layer enabled.

    I'll run a test tonight with the default building textures folder and let you know how it goes.

    This is very possible and a good place to start checking.

    Yes, test this by going through the video tutorial for cultivation in our wiki

    One other note here, you mentioned km in your example but size=meters not size=kilometers.

    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

  • Jeff, I did the video tutorial awhile ago and have been using Rodeo's Building Textures folder ever since then. I'll remove them and go back to the default FS2 textures to see if the transparency problem goes away (pun intended).

  • I forgot to mention that I did experiment with some very tall trees (140m) last night and they had the same vanishing behavior as the tall buildings, maybe at a slightly greater distance so I'm not too optimistic about the building textures folder experiment.

  • I don't think IPACS toc cultivation strategy was intended for tall buildings.

    It's not. We only intended to pull basic OMS data for houses, centerline point lights, and trees. All of our city buildings are hand made models placed differently than what you are trying to do here.

    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

  • 6km viewing radius? Not sure what you are referring to. There is no radius used for cultivation, only our cloud system.

    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

  • Chrispy, I think your multiple toc files was the result of you adding a SPLITGRID operation without the matching MERGEGRID operation (see example below). SPLITGRID isn't needed for FS2 (was required for FSX) but if you always want 1 toc file, add the MERGEGRID or remove the SPLITGRID.

    Thanks Ken. I tried removing just the SPLITGRID line but scenProc seemed to hang. I'll try the adding MERGEGRID instead. Is it important where this is located? Is it just anywhere after the SPLITGRID line or should it be placed after the CreateAF2Building lines?

    Thanks, Chris

    Win 10 64-bit, 24GB RAM, i5-9400F @ 3.9, 6GB Nvidia RTX-2060

  • MERGEGRID would be added at the end before the EXPORT command that creates the toc file. I think using SPLIT & MERGE will result in quicker processing but still output 1 toc file.

    - import osm file

    - split it into several/many smaller grids

    - create cultivation for the smaller grids

    - merge all those cultivation groups back into 1 group

    - export that cultivation to a single toc file

  • MERGEGRID would be added at the end before the EXPORT command that creates the toc file. I think using SPLIT & MERGE will result in quicker processing but still output 1 toc file.

    Thanks Ken. I tried it as you suggested and got 1 output file and no running time penalty, great!

    Running times for level 10 sized area with city and suburban environment

    . no SplitGrid or MergeGrid - 1 file - 13mins

    . SplitGrid only - 6 files - 2mins.

    . both SplitGrid and MergeGrid - 1 file - 2¼ mins

    Thanks, Chris

    Win 10 64-bit, 24GB RAM, i5-9400F @ 3.9, 6GB Nvidia RTX-2060

  • This stuff is really encouraging and will probably be the “next big thing” in flight Simulation.

    If someone would like to try their hand at building a city center cultivation file for the masses I purpose New Orleans, Louisiana with the original Superdome, now Mercedes Superdome.

    The primary flight path to Louis Armstrong International airport is directly over the central business district.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • If someone would like to try their hand at building a city center cultivation file for the masses I purpose New Orleans, Louisiana with the original Superdome, now Mercedes Superdome.

    Some cultivation for the area, no ground textures though. Superdome is rendered as a square building in the middle, Loews New Orleans Hotel on the right, convention centre bottom right, and the airport lighting faintly visible in the background top left.

    Thanks, Chris

    Win 10 64-bit, 24GB RAM, i5-9400F @ 3.9, 6GB Nvidia RTX-2060

  • Some cultivation for the area, no ground textures though. Superdome is rendered as a square building in the middle, Loews New Orleans Hotel on the right, convention centre bottom right, and the airport lighting faintly visible in the background top left.

    yep. Hardly recognizable as the Big Easy. Thanks for the special look.

    Regards,

    Ray

  • yep. Hardly recognizable as the Big Easy. Thanks for the special look.

    Yes, the Superdome was a little disappointing. Cultivation has its limitations and I don't think any mass scenery creation tool will ever handle unique buildings like the Superdome. But, this process did allow me to create 99,000 buildings, 180,000 plants and night lighting over a 320 sq mile area of New Orleans and view the result in FS2 in under 10 minutes. That's a pretty impressive result, and all thanks to the designer of scenProc Arno Gerretsen. I am not familiar with New Orleans to know how close it came, but a similar process on my home town was pretty accurate, unique buildings aside, when combined with photo realistic ground textures. There were some areas with no building cultivation, but that is a limitation of the information available in OpenStreetMap sources.

    Same shot from higher up at night, Superdome at middle right, Convention centre at bottom right

    Thanks, Chris

    Win 10 64-bit, 24GB RAM, i5-9400F @ 3.9, 6GB Nvidia RTX-2060

  • Hi,

    I think, unique buildings can hardly be covered by an automated process.

    But many objects exist already as 3D sketchup models and can be added to our sceneries.

    Fortunately afs2 allows 'mixing' of cultivation and 3D objects.