Drawing coastlines

[UncleTgt]

I'm trying Jean Bombers approach to drawing coastlines for cfs2 & learning as I go.

I decided a quiet part of the Indain Ocean - The Andaman Islands, as ny first try.

The attached bmps show the Coco Islands

The DEM geotiff
The tiff as a separate image - notice the difference in shape.

The tiff is closer to the ahape showing on satellite images & maps, so I used that as a template for my coastlines.
Am I correct in assuming the DEM outline isn't the coastline?

G2K screen - This is in 256 colour & if I zoom in close the island shapes bounce around a bit, making perfect position pretty much trial & error.

Lastly, 2 images from cfs2.

In general, this is the effect I'm seeing, with the coastlines a little way offshore, but if I try the DEM geotiff, the shape & size of the islands are too small, & not like the watermasks that Rhumba has already provided for cfs2.

So, before I go too much further, is this the correct approach?
Does this mean providing fresh landmasks to match the coastlines as drawn, or should I be trying to match rhumbas watermasks more closely?

[Jean Bomber]

Hi Uncle

You are on the good way .

In the case of an Island ,you can have the land masks with the coastlines:
(look as example the Sylt island in the SDC's tuto)
Keep your coastlines already drawed and instead of tick "line/lakeshore" in the dialog box tick "poly with shore" ,you will keep your lines and tick also "land" as LWM .
To make that the island show up you must draw all around ,in the water,a new "poly without shore" ,tick for "water" as LWM. the water poly must close up the island to make it as water then the land with coast will show up with your previous "land poly with shore".
I hope that my explanations are clear

"Am I correct in assuming the DEM outline isn't the coastline?"
The Dem outline are not exactly the coastlines so it's good to download the shapefile "swdb" you need the TatukGIS Viewer to open them and edit a jpg or png .It's the same size and projection but the swdb concern the water areas.
You can with the swdb and the DEM make a two layer psp file and edit a background bmp for G2K.
here the link for the swdb
ftp://xftp.jrc.it/pub/srtmV4/SRTM_Water_2D/

for Tatuk viewer searching on google you will find it easely.



JP

[UncleTgt]

Thanks for the help Jean. I was worried I might be putting a lot of work in that I'd only have to redo later on ...

It was your hard work on Truk & the Med that made me take a look at "helping out" - there's such a lot of coast to get through!

I'll stay in the quiet of the Indian Ocean & practice some more ...

Off to get tatukgis viewer ...:salute:

[UncleTgt]

Small update ...

takes some getting used to, & I always want to draw too large an area, then G2K hangs on bgl creation ...:angryfir:

here's a look at my first small attempt, Barren Island in the Andamans ...

Rhumbas mesh & watermasks

Before & After

New LWM poly, coastlines, landclass & waterclass ..

[Jean Bomber]

Small update ...

takes some getting used to, & I always want to draw too large an area, then G2K hangs on bgl creation ...:angryfir:

here's a look at my first small attempt, Barren Island in the Andamans ...

Rhumbas mesh & watermasks

Before & After

New LWM poly, coastlines, landclass & waterclass ..

Hi Uncle

Nice Job The g2k tool needs to be dompted but with the rule of :"draw lines ,generate and save often " if a issue happens generating a bgl it's possible to go back at the previous save and the project by this way can progress

Before & After............

An advice to generate the bgls more faster from a big project like a GeoTIFF sized it's better in this case of several islands to make several subprojects from the main saving it as and renaiming the bgl for each island subproject( file/save as "COCO.LWM" ,for ex,close the main.LWM open the COCO project delete all that you don't need ,go to files parameter rename the bgl COCO.bgl you have now a COCO subproject for a smaller area) ,with the common background bmp you can generate the bgls faster for each subproject than a big one that need 20/30 mn to generate a big bgl ,It's better to go walk the dogs during the processor is crying for its mother-board .............
That' s something I've learnt making the desert coastlines scenery ....the corrections are more faster and easy on several small subprojects than a big one to load a bgl .It's also safety to don't keep the eggs in the same basket.



JP

[UncleTgt]

That' s something I've learnt making the desert coastlines scenery ....the corrections are more faster and easy on several small subprojects than a big one to load a bgl .It's also safety to don't keep the eggs in the same basket.

I hear you loud and clear on that one JP...

A small update ...

Preparis Islands, with a rather fanciful interpretation of the reefs ... all I have is a google earth satellite photo, plus several hand drawn indications of the islands having a reef system to the West, south, & East.

The reef bmps are retinted JBTruk bmps, renumbered (...b...) & tinted to blend with the MS "rest of the world" sea. The sand is a recoloured 137b2su1, lightened to represent a whiter sand, & the vshoresu bmp has been reworked by blending JB's waveshore bmp & the beach. I discovered I could make nearly everything apart from the whitecaps transparent using bmp2000 - it means you have to be even more accurate placing the shorelines, but it allows you to use the same shoreline on the sandbars as well - I'm sure that ability within bmp2000 to adjust transparency will have even more uses with the other coastline & riverbank bmps ...

[UncleTgt]

Coco Islands ... unfortunately CFS2 won't reproduce variations of water textures like it does land textures , only ...2SU1 bmps show. So the reefs need a bit of work to make them look less uniform.

[Jean Bomber]

....
The reef bmps are retinted JBTruk bmps, renumbered (...b...) & tinted to blend with the MS "rest of the world" sea. The sand is a recoloured 137b2su1, lightened to represent a whiter sand, & the vshoresu bmp has been reworked by blending JB's waveshore bmp & the beach. I discovered I could make nearly everything apart from the whitecaps transparent using bmp2000 - it means you have to be even more accurate placing the shorelines, but it allows you to use the same shoreline on the sandbars as well - I'm sure that ability within bmp2000 to adjust transparency will have even more uses with the other coastline & riverbank bmps ...

You know what..............before your post I've never noticied that the bmp that I've used for Truk was ...h... series ,the nose on the project ,making the water classes the textures showed up normally in cfs2 I didn't search no more.....
I don't known what are the rules about the b or h texture series ,why the h work with Truk and in other place of the world that's the b ...,?
I like the color of your sand ,with the vtp1 poly or line it's possible to add our own ,with the 137b2su1 I would like to make a new dunes,with vegetation texture for use with the beaches the default is too yellow .
You can also use and retinted the coral lines I've made for Truk ,JBvrocksu and any others ,if you want use them for your project in g2k you have to add them in the own lines txt in the main g2k folder,you can look at this thread ,if you don't ever do it :

How adding personal line.
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...ad.php?t=12995

here also a grid I use in psp that help to paint new lines ,for a better junction between each segment you can also check with it some existing lines and that can give some surprises ,as I've had with the first railway texture.


JP

[UncleTgt]

G2K takes some handling:isadizzy:, but I'm making some progress ...

Various views of North Andaman Island.

I'm using some of the new "darker jungle" textures uploaded recently, suitably renumbered for the "b" textures used everywhere other than the Pacific.

[Jean Bomber]

"G2K takes some handling:isadizzy:, but I'm making some progress ..."
....and you see the immediate results that give satifactions and some new pleasant places to fly .....and for the minimum better than a cfs2 stock landmask scenery

JP

[UncleTgt]

Some more screenies ...

200 Sqdn RAF Liberator GRV takes a peek over North Andaman.

JP, you can see the default textures still showing on Middle Andaman in picture 1 to the left. I haven't overwritten the scendb/world/ textures. Although it doesn't follow the guidance, it seems to work OK so far...

This means I can use the default water untouched in the "plain" areas, & use different textures in the areas I want by calling up the landclass/ waterclass.

For instance, in the right hand picture there is a large shallow bay, & in the left hand picture the narrow strait/ river between north & middle andaman.

I took a bmp from the pactex river delta set & renumbered it 001b2wa1.bmp. When I call it up in the waterclass, it shows as shallow, silty water, & it blends just the same with the pre existing default waterclass.

Do you know of any potential problems with arranging things this way? I've not come across any issues so far, but I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time on something that most other people can't use & enjoy.

[Jean Bomber]

Hi Uncle

There so few water texture bmp in cfs2 that it's sometime good to make a imcomplete water class and keep some area with the default that will increase the variations of the colors in the landscape .
For Truk mainly a waterclass rework I have made two scenery one using the default water texture and one "Truk atoll" using custom atoll texture,"truk atoll" could be called "atoll" scenery and only display atoll texture every where in the world ,it's possible to create another scenery called "deep water" displayind only deep water texture ,another called lake delta river working only for these area and that for all around in the world the only limitation mixing the bmp it's that you can't joint two different 007b2wa1.bmp or 008... 009..etc from different set a 007.. from set A must be mixed with a 008 9,10 or 011 etc...from set B if not that give square in cfs2 .For Afnor II I think to do a "lake delta river" scenery folder to introduce these green dirty water for some large stream ,lake or delta that have these colors on some very closed areas,and some ports or harbor have often not clean clear waters .....
for information the 001b2wa1 is not flotable and if you shoot on it there is dust impact......

JP

[SdC Redux]

Good to see there's still people making cfs2 lwm/vtp scenery.
MAkes it even more worthwhile to rewrite the VTP1 creator tool. As you have found out, working with ground2k is very time consuming and awkward.
When I complete my tool, you can use SBuilder (not SBuilderX) for cfs2; that way you can import FS2002/2004/CFS2 BGL's directly, edit them in the SBuilder interface (which is much much better than ground2k) and export as CFS2.

[UncleTgt]

Hi Uncle

.....for information the 001b2wa1 is not flotable and if you shoot on it there is dust impact......

JP

Ahh, missed that (rather critical) difference. I may abandon the river/ shallow bay WC entries then. Pity, I really liked the visual result ...

Sdc - Welcome back! Feel free to help JP out in tutoring this scenery newbie ... I'm trying to keep all the exchanges where everyone can see them in the hope we can all learn as I go along ...

Who knows, it might get someone else fired up to lend a hand, it was Jean Bomber,s stunning work on Truk & his follow ups in the med that got me thinking if I could learn enough to lend a hand ... there is soooo much still to do ...

[UncleTgt]

Hi Uncle

... the only limitation mixing the bmp it's that you can't joint two different 007b2wa1.bmp or 008... 009..etc from different set a 007.. from set A must be mixed with a 008 9,10 or 011 etc...from set B if not that give square in cfs2 .For Afnor II I think to do a "lake delta river" scenery folder to introduce these green dirty water for some large stream ,lake or delta that have these colors on some very closed areas,and some ports or harbor have often not clean clear waters .....

JP

JP, so we are creating an incomplete waterclass for an area around a river delta, it would be very unusual for the default terrain to show any "deep water" bmps (012b2wa1.bmp). Perhaps we could use this bmp to show the muddy, silty water?

I will try it out with the North Andaman files, replacing 001 with 012 & report back.

Stay tuned, pictures at eleven ...

[Snuffy]

Don't mind my interruption. This has been pretty informative. Thanks guys!

:ernae:

[rhumbaflappy]

Here's what we know about waterclass:

As Jean points out, Value #1 ( represented by 001b2wa1.bmp, or 001h2wa1.bmp ) is very shallow. The b refers to the worldwide default, while the h refers to the tropical Pacific region.

Looking in TMFViewer, you can load worldwc.bgl and view all the world waterclass. 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are the values used... and correspond to the "wa" texture files. ( Except that 002h2wa1.bmp / 002b2wa1.bmp is oddly missing... this is a mistake by the Aces team ).

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We can make our own waterclass files.

They are usually made from 257x257 pixel 8-bit RAW data files, and cover one complete LOD5-sized area. In PaintShopPro, I can make a palette for the needed waterclasses, valued 1-12, and value 254 for transparent, and paint a waterclass... then export it as 8-bit .raw for use in an INF file for resample.

[Source]
   Type = WaterClassU8
   SourceDir = "."
   SourceFile = "CFS2Waterclass.raw"
   Lat = 11.25
   Lon = 138.75
   NumOfCellsPerLine = 257
   NumOfLines = 257
   CellXdimensionDeg = 0.0146484375
   CellYdimensionDeg = 0.010986328125

[Destination]
   DestDir = "."
   DestBaseFileName = "CFS2Waterclass_h"
   NorthLat = 11.25
   SouthLat = 8.4375
   EastLong = 142.5
   WestLong = 138.75
   UseSourceDimensions = 0

I believe ground2K and Sbuilder for FS9 can make waterclass files as well.

Waterclass and landclass assigned textures are Global in the sim.

If you make a waterclass BGL of an LOD5 area, and place it in a scenery folder, it will show the default water textures... but if you include a twin 'texture' folder containing your own textures, named as the default names, that area will then show your new water textures corresponding to the new waterclass... and where value 254 exists, it will transparently show the global ( original ) waterclass textures. This would be known as a local waterclass.

This new local waterclass should have all the textures used within the bgl placed in the local 'texture' folder... don't leave any out ( at least that's how it is in other flight sims ).

Additionally, you should be able to use all 12 numbers locally.. This gives you the default global waterclass 7 values, plus 12 local textures, for a total of 19 colors. Just remember that any value of 1, whether global or local, is shallow. I don't know if the blendmasks may be used with waterclass textures ( the "m" textures ).

You also can use VTP1 polys of layers 0-3 as floating water polys... with alpha transparency ( if I remember right )... giving a nearly unlimited amount of water texturing.

Dick

[Jean Bomber]

Hi S*nd*rs
in first : I'm really very happy of your come back ,one more !

Good to see there's still people making cfs2 lwm/vtp scenery.
.........

.

Yes we can ...to try when the events are favorable ,today and tonight I'm off I need to reinstall cfs2.....a shame I 've a plain afternoon for .......".. there is soooo much still to do ..."
I know .... G2k have some issues and for large area ,in "hand" mode is very time consuming ....sure it's not the best way to quickly change the world ...but today I've not find best tool to do it in cfs2 mainly concerning to draw the vtp1 lines . we can also make some news as needed ....
In fact to resume :
I started from the mesh side and in same time I wanted to built some blended MR's style airfields on them ,one day surfing on the net I found this old 30's picture (1) and I don't why .....I decided that will be The project... ..................
newbie as I was........at the begin my first attempt was using fssc with the placement of some montains objects ......the result was a kind of Rio's Poa do azucar ,no really good ...and I could fly through them... ,not really the result wanted (2003).....the web ...the mesh..... bla bla bla....hgts+Blackart + srtm to bgl 104 etc...the mesh ok ...one step (2004) a rock already existed summary with some water on it ...but it was here ....flatten around to fix it....ok ...first WOW! moment .....g2k + your Sylt tuto .....Land water mask + vtp1coastlines......second WOW! moment ....some artefacts...Malta......DDcrash all loose...... the event of the life etc...pause
(2006) reinstall of cfs2 ...and directly to the Rock.....obsession....rebuilt .....pause
(winter2007)...SOH forum ...your site ......,I've learn so many ,......(old method,"don't use it " ).... I've used it .....to draw on the g2k background bmp from swdb and srtm ......I think it's the only way to make that the mask match with the mesh ......vtp1fix ......artefact fixed.......
autocoast ...I've tried it with some swdb (p2) or made Black and white bmp from srtm the problem was for me the r2v tool (99$!!!) ,the shared version did not let me the time to have a favorable opinion because In the first tries I've did (surely because of the settings) i've spare so many time in the lines block corrections that I thought I could directly do it by hand for the only 1*x1* srtm area I wanted around the rock ...(again and always)...the most important is essentialy this first line drawed with g2k, with it you have the coastlines and also "saved as" in other subproject with it you get the land and the water mask bgls ...a good starting point... after it's like Mamie and its pullover it's question of time ,if the background image is accurate normally don't need to redo except for some corrections....
Today with autocoast I think it would be interesting to test it with the DEM Tiff 5*x5* sized I think you could quickly get some coastlines land and water masks .
For the road I 've choice to use the old US army's 1942 maps ,layered with the srtm or tiff in psp they give some modulable and accurate background bmps
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/
,the best historical source I think for our game but it's surely not the best to automatize the process ....
anyway that I prefer to work with g2k and fssc are the small area projects like islands ports or airfields mixing the g2k ezLC and Mr's process ,to feel ,like in the Sergio Leone 's movies ,the mood of the wind and the dust .....


JP

[UncleTgt]

This what I find works for me so far...

River deltas
Using 012b2wa1 (deep water) works OK, it's floatable & bullet strikes give sprays instead of dust. There's almost never any deep water close to land in the default watermask, so it blends just fine with the default.

Just for info - Renaming & calling up as 002 doesn't get recognised, even if I copy the same file into /TEXTURE & SECENDB/ WORLD/ TEXTURE folders.

Blending in with the default watermask.

I DON'T put a complete set of 001/ 007/008/009/010/011/012 water bmps. The only blending issue with the default watermask is when the incomplete watermask ends next to a tile that calls up the same number as used.

For example, I'm using 007/ 008 & 009 to depict the fringing reefs of the Andamans, but I don't need them everywhere. I've made a scenery set & texture folder with these bmps in it. (I also now have 012 used up for river delta water). This still leaves 001/ 010 & 011 tiles unallocated.

The only failures to blend are if a custom set 007/008/009 tile is next to an empty tile (in my waterclass file), that the deafult set also has as the same - the game doesn't recognise the need to blend, because both tiles are the same designation.

This is OK, because I can use 010/ 011 to frame my waterclass , & force the blending. The game just uses the default 010/ 011 to blend with, there doesn't need to be a copy in the custom texture folder.

BUT - I still think this means we are more limited than we think - in order to force the blended edges, there always has to be one of the water bmp set that remains the same as the default set.:isadizzy:

I've not tried custom vtp1 polys yet because I've read you can't blend the edges. If these vtp1 polys use the same format bmps, perhaps the transparency layer can be worked to help blend edges & make them less distinct?

Does anyone have any tips on how to get the best out of using vtp1 polys for smaller detail areas of terain?

[SdC Redux]

I've not tried custom vtp1 polys yet because I've read you can't blend the edges. If these vtp1 polys use the same format bmps, perhaps the transparency layer can be worked to help blend edges & make them less distinct?

Does anyone have any tips on how to get the best out of using vtp1 polys for smaller detail areas of terain?

Sure you can. The bitmap format is a bit peculiar (8bit with alpha) that can only be made with Imagetool.
I've used it to make some photoreal scenery in the past. It's very time consuming.

[Jean Bomber]

HI all

The vtp1 are good on small areas: (air)fields,lakes ,some cement, town parts ,usable for some
junctions ,etc....that stay flexible take care if you cross several polys to use the imbrication champ
( AA_10,AA_20 etc...)in the D box,if not you got a message ....
The vtp linked poly function allow also to use custom textures ,8bit with alpha channel (or not) sized
64 to 1024(256 is enough for cfs2) and you can place and adjust them exactly at the place you want ,by
this way it's possible to make a blended airfield without the use of a flatten area and that keep the
mesh in state with the imperfections of the ground,a nice effect for the summary airfields like
Lindsay is doing on the bush.
"We can make our own waterclass files
They are usually made from 257x257 pixel 8-bit RAW data files, and cover one complete LOD5-sized area.
In PaintShopPro, I can make a palette for the needed waterclasses, valued 1-12, and value 254 for
transparent, and paint a waterclass... then export it as 8-bit .raw for use in an INF file for
resample.
......Additionally, you should be able to use all 12 numbers locally.. This gives you the default
global waterclass 7 values, plus 12 local textures, for a total of 19 colors. Just remember that any
value of 1, whether global or local, is shallow. I don't know if the blendmasks may be used with
waterclass textures ( the "m" textures )."

12 local textures ,valued 1-12 ? that's very interesting...

here a Afnor WIP ,Pantelleria,a very small island where ,yesterday, I've mixed three water class from three scenery texture folders: Truk,Afnor_scen and Stream_Lake.
Immediatly around the coast I've used the truk texture 8,9,10 and 7 for the shallowed lake (I've copied and past and do the "a" set)
After around I have closed with the 7 from Egypt's med set to make the junction with the cfs2 default
,not very visible... but in a scenery less you see the joints better it's
And for the port I've make only two fs areas with a more dark "9" texture ,that from far away is visible

As backgound bmp in g2k I 've used a GGH screenshot taken from the luis Sa's site
http://www.ptsim.com/sbuilder/gmaps.htm
Using firefox with the fire shot tool you can get 3200 x 2400 bmp for specific places with very accurate coords.

JP

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi UncleTgt.

Your view of the waterclass in CFS2 is right... I was still stuck thinking about FS2004...

I did some testing yesterday...


001b = OK
002b = Becomes 011b
003b = Becomes 007b
004b = Becomes 012b
005b = Becomes 001b
006b = Becomes 007b
007b = OK
008b = OK
009b = OK
010b = OK
011b = OK
012b = OK

001h = OK
002h = Becomes 011h
003h = Becomes 007h
004h = Becomes 012h
005h = Becomes 001h
006h = Becomes 007h
007h = OK
008h = OK
009h = OK
010h = OK
011h = OK
012h = OK

I use the fs2004 resample to make the waterclass and landclass.

There is a header bug in the earlier resample versions that will cause display problems for western longitudes. I just Make sure I declare my destination bounds exactly to the LOD5 bounds.

Texture edges won't blend to an underlying texture of the same number, as you found.

012b won't edge-blend to 012b... also 004b also won't edge-blend to 012b.

I usually surround my area by a larger transparent ( value 254 ) area.

[Source]
    Type = MultiSource
    NumberOfSources = 2

[Source1]
   Type = WaterClassU8
   SourceDir = "."
   SourceFile = "CFS2Waterclass.raw"
   Lat = 11.25
   Lon = 138.75
   NumOfCellsPerLine = 257
   NumOfLines = 257
   CellXdimensionDeg = 0.0146484375
   CellYdimensionDeg = 0.010986328125

   [Source2]
   Type = WaterClassU8
   SourceDir = "."
   SourceFile = "WorldTransparent.raw"
   Lat = 90
   Lon = -180
   NumOfCellsPerLine = 360
   NumOfLines = 190
   CellXdimensionDeg = 1.0
   CellYdimensionDeg = 1.0
   
[Destination]
   DestDir = "."
   DestBaseFileName = "CFS2Waterclass_5_85_28"
   NorthLat = 14.0625
   SouthLat = 5.625
   EastLong = 146.25
   WestLong = 135
   UseSourceDimensions = 0

This ensures the edges will blend..if they can.

Otherwise, just use a 257x257 bitmap, and make sure the edge tiles match or are surrounded by the 254 value... or blending gets skewed.

You can use the alpha channel with VTP1 textures, but that gives us on/off transparency, as the textures need 8-bit plus alpha.

Here's my testing so far:

http://webpages.charter.net/ludowr/C...WaterClass.zip

Dick

[Jean Bomber]

Hi Dick
Happy to see you again :ernae:
Thanks for the palettes and the inf ,that needs some thought before how to cook them .

JP

[UncleTgt]

haven't given up yet ...


new landmask & coastlines, new landclass & new waterclass is done for:

outlying islands, including Preparis Island group
North Andaman Island & associated coastal islands
Middle Andaman island & associated coastal islands

land & watermask done for remaining South Andaman Islands & Little Andaman Island

just starting the coastlines, then onto completing the landclass & waterclass ...:isadizzy:

[Jean Bomber]

haven't given up yet ...


new landmask & coastlines, new landclass & new waterclass is done for:

outlying islands, including Preparis Island group
North Andaman Island & associated coastal islands
Middle Andaman island & associated coastal islands

land & watermask done for remaining South Andaman Islands & Little Andaman Island

just starting the coastlines, then onto completing the landclass & waterclass ...:isadizzy:

Hi Uncle
These islands are not the easiest to realize but these projects give to encounter all the kind of issues that the ground modelling from srtm data can offer it's a good practice stage to get some experience on the subject

"...
land & watermask done for remaining South Andaman Islands & Little Andaman Island

just starting the coastlines ..."
If you already have the Landmask for an island you can get the coastlines from its line and its points ,refer you to my first post of the thread...but
If you are drawing coastlines to make them various on a previous already drawed forget that I've said just before

JP