Posts by Spit40

Rodeo and drhotwing1 (IPACS) and everyone, I think I have a nice solution to avoid the need for installing and running inf2tfwconverter.exe

The problem is that inf files start AreaFSInfo_ and bmp files start Area_ and Geoconvert's auto TFW conversion only works if they are the same

So just modify the .BAT file to rename them before it runs. I'm now using these files:

1) config-geoconvert.tmc (I update this using my http://ndgrad.co.uk/fs2/fset2tmc/ page)

2) geoconvert.bat as follows

I had trouble with the co-ords. If they're back to front you can spend an hour watching a geoconvert and get no files. I also found the conversion to decimal a faff. That's why I made this (NB: not all steps explained. It's mainly about making the TMC file)

http://ndgrad.co.uk/fs2/fset2tmc/

I got that. You need to do the convert of inf to tfw. Ignore the line saying its done automatically. Doesn't work in practice.

Quote from Rodeo

Phil,

your TMC code is a great supplement and facilitation!!!

We will add how to get the PartialFSEarthTiles.ini by pressing the E button. This is probably only known by people having some experience with FSET.
Many thanks for this idea.

Pure luck Rodeo ! I clicked various buttons not knowing that one of them generated the partial ini. Thanks for telling me which.

I see 4 areas to streamline more, at least for a first go:

1) Auto convert the inf to tfw using one of the 3 methods i proposed

2) Don't worry about coordinates at all. Select the area you want using the mouse/zoom in FSET, then the partial.ini holds the coord data which my converter can make into a TMC

3) Don't bother making different tmc/bat files for geoconvert processing. Just have one called geoconvert.tmc and geoconvert.bat. Just edit the TMC then and you're ready to go

4) i'm going to explore whether imagemagick can autoidentify default water tiles and replace them with transparency, ideally with a feathered smoothed border to avoid it looking to square-edgy

Screenshots of the Lake District to follow...

Just flew over my house in the Lake District. Couple of niggles to deal with first, but i got there.

I made this thing to simplify a few steps in the future

Http://ndgrad.co.uk/fs2/fset2tmc/

Quote from Rodeo

The description may be not precise enough, I'm sorry for that.

There are actually 2 ways to get the coordinate information for geoconvert.

First, run inf2tfw to create the TFW files. In this case, the original name AreaFSInfo_...INF is required.

Second, geoconvert may do this automatically. In this case the tool expects the same name as the image Area_...INF

Using this way, you have to rename the INF files to match your image file names.

Rodeo

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Hi Rodeo - I think it would be good to bottom out the issue of geoconvert auto converting .INF to TFW. It would be so much easier if it did. You said that as long as the .INF matched the .BMP all would be fine but I see that they come out slightly different, as below. Perhaps there are FSET options that avoid this? The inf2tfw tool requires java 8, which I didn't have, and then you get warning messages about windows 10 that might put people off.

AreaFSInfo_Lp1_SnapOff_N054335107_N054271400_W003412603_W003283083.inf

Area_Lp1_SnapOff_N054335107_N054271400_W003412603_W003283083.bmp

If there's no way to avoid it I'm thinking:

1) I might see if I can do the inf2tfw with a .BAT script, avoiding installs (and it could be part of the SDK then)

2) I guess it easier to have a .BAT that harmonises INF/BMP filenames

3) ...or get Geoconvert to match the filenames with a wildcard between "Area_" and the first co-ordinate?

I'm a big fan of automation. For example I didn't like the idea of retyping those co-ordinates for decimal co-ords, so I've made this page:

http://ndgrad.co.uk/fs2/fset2tmc/

Quote from admin

Sorry, our beta testers are a little picky, so we delayed it until next week.

Just wondering how picky the beta testers are this week? Bit more relaxed hopefully.

Just wondering if this new suite of VR dev tools will bring sharper graphics or more realistic rendering to FS2. Are you using it now or do you plan to, like they just did with Eve Valkyrie?

https://www.roadtovr.com/eve-valkyrie-g…nvidia-vrworks/

I see it needs 1070+ but as luck would have it my TI upgrade is here in its box ready to be dropped in.

Quote from J van E

Concerning starting up Aerofly in VR straight from the desktop: I have been doing this for months already and I only had to add -othervr to the load options in Steam and that was it. No need for all those batches and what not: whenever I click the desktop icon of AFS2 (which was created when I installed the sim) I am in VR without any problems.

..and if you occasionally want to run in desktop mode, what do you do?

I've never had sound auto-switch to Rift when running FS2. I need to do it manually from the taskbar or run SteamVR. I went to the trouble of doing the oculus home thing with bat2exe in the hope that Home's auto-switch to Rift would kick in. It didn't.

I used the -othervr for a while then took it out as occasionally I want to run in desktop mode and being locked into oculus mode was more trouble than it was worth - I'd forget where in settings I needed to remove it. It would be good if it could work as a shortcut suffix so I could have different desktop shortcuts.

+1

I used to be able to launch FS2 from the taskbar steam icon and it would first ask what mode to play in: desktop,oculus,steam. A recent steam update stopped this working, so now I too launch the steam library, go to Fs2, right click on "Play" and choose play in oculus mode. A bit tedious.

As for sound, I first launch SteamVR (even though I have rift) just to get the sound switched over to Rift, though it also has the benefit of enabling audio mirror to my bass shakers. It would be nice to skip this step as Oculus Home now also has auto-audio-mirror as well as auto-audio-switch-to-Rift, but FS2 doesn't act on it.

..and proper hands with haptic feedback. Shame gloveone has gone awol

Might be something here for UK. I haven't found it yet though:

https://data.gov.uk/dataset/satell…k-world-digital

Quote from admin

Sorry, our beta testers are a little picky, so we delayed it until next week.

That response is fine with me. Nice and definitive.

Another weekend coming up.... perhaps today for geoconvert? Even if a tweaked one comes out in a few weeks.

Surely even if you think you've nailed every possible complication Jeff, it will still be too complicated for some people and other people would cope anyway. Also when people start using it ideas and workarounds will be suggested which you hadn't thought of. Plus you'll probably have helpful people creating their own videos showing how to use it and basically doing a lot of the work for you.

To extract pixel counts use imagemagick

It looks like imagemagick knows jp2 as well. A .bat file could easily convert all jp2 files in a folder to tiff or whatever.

https://www.imagemagick.org/script/jp2.php

Edit: i see irfanview also runs in batch mode. That's probably easier. Imagemagick is a great tool though. Like commandline photoshop.

Many thanks Rodeo. Looks good. Did I pick too big an area in my test below? Footprints aren't joined up. Also I downloaded .JP files. Is that right?

Yes I get the same. Also I think sounds are mono rather than stereo so overall the contribution that sound makes to immersion is not great. It's an area I'd love to see improved. I don't play DCS much but I'm sure I remember sound being a real strength with that.

Quote from Jet-Pack

I'm afraid due to copyright issues of the satellite images it won't be possible to share the scenery legally, at least not outside of the US.

It may be ok for personal usage only, I'm not really sure.

Regards,

Jan

This is going to have to be done independently of Steam or Ipacs. Ideas anyone. Big dropbox account?