Author Topic: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement  (Read 11706 times)

ualani

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #15 on: May 12, 2015, 08:12:53 AM »
RobdeVries,

Google "FSX Blend Mask".
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RobdeVries

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #16 on: May 12, 2015, 01:39:36 PM »
Thanks J :)

But High Ground? Are you sure you have the right person in mind  ???
« Last Edit: May 15, 2015, 08:37:27 AM by RobdeVries »

jsapair

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #17 on: May 12, 2015, 08:04:02 PM »
High Ground being Jon, AKA Throckmorton Throttelbottom. Sorry about the confusion.
Jsapair

RobdeVries

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #18 on: May 13, 2015, 01:54:06 PM »
RobdeVries,

Google "FSX Blend Mask".

Thanks ualani, but from what I understand is that a blend mask is meant to blend an custom (photo real) polygon into the existing scenery. In the pics above it shows vector elements (FTX SAK dirt road) which blends nicely into the FTX SAK existing scenery  versus my vector poly which has hard edges and doesn't blend well.

stiletto2

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #19 on: May 18, 2015, 05:04:41 PM »
Hi Rob,

There is no integrated, easy blend function for vector polys.  Steve mentions photoreal because it can be used to create blended polys.   Just because it is called photoreal doesn't mean that the bit map image produced has to be a "photo" of the GE image.  Keep in mind that once it is a .bmp file (with accompanying location information)  a developer can repaint the image to look like anything the developer wants it to look like.   You definitely will need to be familiar with layers etc. using a paint program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro x5 or better.  The key is that the add map function of SBX lets you grab the photo from GE (a bounded poly with a photorealistic texture) and, most importantly, the location coordinates to place the photo.       

In other words, that very same GE background that you created a vector poly on, can be grabbed as a map with the location coordinates using SBX and then the resulting .bmp file can be used as a canvas to create a custom textured image that can be blended using channel masks as input to the SDK Resampler.   The result could be a re-textured photo .bgl that looks just like your poly, except now the edges are blended.

It is complex, but can be learned.  The key is learning to do photoreal first.  And, along with photoreal comes autogen annotation since photoreal .bgls suppress all autogen.  Ed Wells (Falcon409) created a good set of tutorials on how to do photoreal.   They can be found at:

www.sim-outhouse.com

Look under:  Warbirds Library tab and then down to FSX Utilities section.  Look through the entries in the FSX utilities section for SBX Tutorials...first one starts on page 2 in the FSX Utilities Section.   There are 10 tutorials plus the final one. 

You will have to register to be able to download.

Rod


Holger Sandmann

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #20 on: May 19, 2015, 01:18:05 PM »
Hi guys,

Rod's solution is a feasible approach. Another one that I'm using is to soften the hard poly edges with a vector overlay. You can actually see that overlay vector in Rob's screenshot just to the right of the yellow circle; the vector texture stands out a bit next to the grass polygon to the left because its resolution is 7cm/px while the poly's ground texture is limited to 1m/px. Vectors can have Alpha channel blending and thus the edges are soft; in this case the airstrip's grass polygon is bounded by a grass vector with the same seasonal hues.

The main drawback of this approach is that these custom vectors require custom entries into terrain.cfg, which requires a reliable installer tool to achieve this on a user's PC. However, if this isn't an option perhaps one of the existing default road or shoreline vector is sufficiently similar to the polygon's texture to do the job.

FYI, in SBuilderX one can create a border vector for any polygon simply by right-clicking on the poly's edge and then selecting "Add Line".

Cheers, Holger

ualani

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #21 on: May 19, 2015, 01:23:08 PM »
Thanks for the input Holger!
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stiletto2

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #22 on: May 19, 2015, 02:46:03 PM »
Hey Holger.

Thanks for mentioning the concept of using a shoreline or road vector if it happens to be a close match to the poly.   I have done that in the past.  However, I stay away from custom vectors because of the terrain.cfg problem.   It is too bad FSX/P3D was not designed to allow multiple terrain configs at the same time.

Though I may have misunderstood, I think Holger meant "Make Line" as opposed to "add line".

Rod
« Last Edit: May 19, 2015, 02:52:27 PM by stiletto2 »

RobdeVries

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #23 on: October 04, 2015, 10:51:01 AM »
Hi there,

A few pics of Rudy's strip (East Alsek River West) in the Dry Bay area.








RobdeVries

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #24 on: October 05, 2015, 06:17:33 AM »
And a cold februari winter dusk at Rudy's...


FSRobert

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #25 on: October 05, 2015, 10:03:15 AM »
I am smelling a new video coming...
Keep The FSFaith People



                      https://vimeo.com/channels/mistymooringvideography

Doug

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #26 on: October 05, 2015, 10:09:27 AM »
That early morning shot is really great ... you can feel the cold.

D

RobdeVries

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #27 on: October 05, 2015, 05:04:16 PM »
Two more late morning February, light snow.




Bradallen43

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #28 on: October 06, 2015, 12:02:57 AM »
I can't wait. Loving these teaser images.

Brad

Tenpin

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Re: Westwood Inn Alsek Announcement
« Reply #29 on: October 08, 2015, 04:27:37 PM »
The  talent around Misty Moorings is beyond belief. Thank you for your dedication. That first winter scene is now on my desktop.  Can't wait to load this one on my PC