FS Earth Tiles Tutorial - Area Masks

[@stevegrayson4124]

You can SPEED UP the download process by reopening the Program 4 TIMES!!. Simply process your AREA in 4 sections and you can download all 4 sections at the same time and cut your download time to 1/4 the time. Just remember to say "NO" to the question, "Do you want to clear out the cache".

[@Soarflyconcepts]

Hold up, are you just commenting the same thing on ALL my FSET videos?

[@Soarflyconcepts]

I will start deleting the comments if you are...

[@stevegrayson4124]

@@Soarflyconcepts did not notice who the channel was. I am posting this tip on FS Earth vids as nobody else seems to know this tip.

[@stevegrayson4124]

@@Soarflyconcepts what ever floats you boat man. have a great day.

[@Soarflyconcepts]

@@stevegrayson4124 well I certainly didn't no haha. It's okay man, no worries :)

[@vincenttwisker9656]

Thanks again for your help. I have one more question that you might be able to answer. In the FSEarthMask.ini I have found and set the following lines: SpareOutWaterForSeasonsGeneration = Yes If set to yes then the water in the texture will not be altered through the season routines. NoSnowInWaterForWinterAndHardWinter = Yes If set to yes then no snow will be created on the water parts in Winter and HardWinter. I am trying to prevent my HardWinter BMP to be built with snow/ice on the water. The command lines however don't seem to have any effect as I get lots of it ("random") in the water regardless of what I set. When I build the scenery BGL, I use an AreaMask.BMP with a yellow and green watermask for coastal and deep water. I guess this AreaMask.BMP is ignored by the FSEarthMasks.exe? I am not using AreaKML.kml because it is something I don't understand. I have read that it requires Google Earth, which I can't get to download Tiles with FSET, and I don't have Inkscape.

[@Soarflyconcepts]

You can edit your imagery, for your HW texture you can darken the original image, add a snow overlay and simply erase the areas you don't want/need then save that with the HW name, replacing your HW image with your custom one

[@vincenttwisker9656]

@@Soarflyconcepts thanks, I was however hoping to have it done automatically by using the FSearthMask.exe which works fine, except for the HW water areas. As I did come across the respective command lines in the FSEarthMask, I figured the it should be possible. But sure I can always "photoshop" the water on the HW BMP. I am working however on a very large area consisting of many tiles that all containe many islands which will require a lot of manual editing. On the other hand, with the AreaMask.BMPs already made, it is not the end of the world. Thanks for your quick reply!

[@francis-bravoairspace2895]

Soarfly, by any chance, did you find a way to blend better from [water creation] to [transition] mask?

[@muzikman183]

great stuff!!!! You, sir, are the man!! So what technique works for fs9?

[@Soarflyconcepts]

Unfortunately for fs9 this method does not work at all. You can still make imagery but there is absolutely no mask support for fs2004

[@vincenttwisker9656]

Thanks for the tutorial. Would you happen to know if it is possible to photoshop clouds from the Areasnap and then afterwards compile the seasons with FSET. I compile after making the Watermask but all the season variations have already been built with the clouds from the original FSET download. If I compile after removing the clouds with photoshop from the Summer Area BMP, the clouds obviously do appear in the other seasons.

[@Soarflyconcepts]

Hello, yes if you edit the original image and then (don't alter size or anything like that) drag it over fsearthmasks.exe it will make all images for you. Be sure to delete the original variations first :)

[@vincenttwisker9656]

@@Soarflyconcepts if this works, you have given me a fantastic Christmas present! Thanks you so much for your response. Update: It works great, however I have to drag the AreaEarthInfo file over the fsearthmasks.exe, not the edited Area_SnapOff.bmp. Great stuff, cheers!

[@karimeltantawi3738]

Thank you for the video. Just a question, is Photoshop required or we can do the drawing using Paint?

[@Soarflyconcepts]

You can use paint if you like but I would recommend using something like GIMP for the soft brushes

[@karimeltantawi3738]

Soarfly Concepts Scenery thanks!

[@GAFFER7773]

can you please do one for the nightmap

[@TheAviationChannel.]

well most of my autogen buildings disappear after the photoreal tiles are added. any way i can make that not happen

[@martianbuilder5945]

That's SUPPOSED to happen. However, you can get 3D buildings data from OSM- there is a program called ScenProc which will convert it to FSX autogen which goes above the photoreal tile.

[@TheAviationChannel.]

Robertium G. B. thnks that shud solve me problemo🤘🏻🤘🏻

[@emmanueljesus8053]

hello :) Great tutorial, i've subscribed and seen the others video of like how to make an scenary for fsx. however, i would like how to know to make houses, and figures like towers , swimning pool, cars. can you made another tutorial showing that. thank you, and see you.

[@abranpuko]

great work and a very funny way to explain! thank you!:) you made it easy to understand:)

[@jimtalltheislandbrothers6639]

Just tried this but looks like the links in the .ini files are no longer working.

[@Soarflyconcepts]

I have just downloaded the dropbox link I put up and the ini file is working for me, or is it google you need?

[@jimtalltheislandbrothers6639]

@@Soarflyconcepts I persisted and it qoked in the end. Thanks.

[@oscarbavi7886]

hi soarffly can you write all services here available? please

[@Soarflyconcepts]

No i can't write them in such a public place. Have a look on fsdeveloper forum and you can find more than the few I have

[@oscarbavi7886]

@@Soarflyconcepts hi again soarfly in fsdeveloper only you have one service www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/fsearthtiles-google-maps-service.445516/ but i would like to have a bing service? PD sorry my english..i don not english

[@MrTiagu1nho]

Hi, it's possible send to me your links of the servers ??? My links don't work and i'm i don't can make photoreal sceneries

[@Soarflyconcepts]

Mi ini is included in the description download link

[@playlikeagirlsupermario.2697]

Hello few days ago my FS earth tiles was working very good with Google Earth but i don't know why every time that i use it is blank and i can't download any tiles .,please help ! ; )

[@Soarflyconcepts]

You will need to edit the cfg and add the latest service number for the earth service, right at the end should be the service number. I go into more detail here kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWqQfopsbM2IiLs

[@StephanLE111]

Hi :) Hey :) Nice tutorials, thx.. :) If you still have those "cutted-off" wateredges when mapping Photo-Reals, there is a way to blend.. but it works the other way around.. Water-Edges have no grayscale or sth, they cannot blend, it's a black or white decission. water can only cut it's edge.>> BUT You can blend the "photo-Water" into the "real-SIM-Water". I've used resample with black or grey masks (or Nightmap), so for this you will need a photo-BMP, a greyscale or basically a b/w-bmp for the watermask and a greyscale-Tiff for the Blendmask. - You paint your water as you did - but black (if you use grayscale, the edge of the water will be somewhere in the middle of gray - you never know exaclty where the edge is :)) - Save only this water-mask to a new file (BMP) - Paint your Blend Mask with grayscale to transparent (not sure if white will work or only transparent with TIFF, not alpha). Black is the "SIM-Content" - the sim-water or the landclass - (might not work with white - maybe white is the 100%-blending of one side.. -> Save, again, only the black/gray- Blend-Layer to TIFF (on Photoshop-TIFF, resample will throw errors, but you can ignore..). >>>> IF you have a blend-layer created like this, the transparency will cause the water to be on top of your photoscenery and the water to get a real good underwater- transparency.. I'm not sure if this will work on FSX but at least, it's working very good in Prepar3D.. Hope it helps :)

[@Soarflyconcepts]

Thanks very much for the info! If it works for p3d I don't see why it shouldn't work for fsx. Same game engine and such. I'll give it a try and let you know :)

[@vincenttwisker9656]

Are you basically saying: 1. Change the photoreal AreaMap.BMP in order for the water to blend to black outward from the coast and save it as the new BMP. 2. Apply only the yellow mask colour when you compile. This yellow mask will allow the underlying photoreal water to show through the (transparant) water near the coast and appears to blend into the black deepsea. I am not sure what you do with your TIFF unless you just use it for step 1.

[@StephanLE111]

@@vincenttwisker9656 Oh, its long time ago when i wrote this but luckily i've found a scenery-work-folder and did a quick explain, from what i remember :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/lYa7pHqjoq99n6c ... (wait at least 25minutes from this comment time, upload is ongoing...)

[@vincenttwisker9656]

@@StephanLE111 Thank you for your reply I will have a look at the video after 25 minutes. Maybe you could also answer another question that I have regarding FSET. Can I photoshop clouds from the AreaSnap.BMP and compile the seasons after that? At the moment I see no other option than to photoshop each individual season BMP.

[@fajarkuncoro7430]

sir ,can for fs9???

[@Soarflyconcepts]

You can use FSET for fs9 however the masking process is very different.

[@RichardGroy]

Tankiu man!!

[@pauldonohue4255]

I'd of taken a sledge hammer to my pc if not for this video. Such a shame we cant import googles terrain.

[@Soarflyconcepts]

Glad I could help you out :) And yeah the terrain import would be a very nice option

[@pauldonohue4255]

Soarfly Concepts Scenery Google earth vr is stunning, that combined with a VR cockpit and the ability to use touch controllers would be amazing. Microsoft flight sim using oculus is amazing.