Creating one global tile with TerraScene.

On this page I will show how to import day textures for one global tile.

First figure out which global tile in Fly! covers the area you want to render.
The easiest way to do this is to use "goto" in the editor and enter either an airport or the latitude and longitude inside the area you are interested in.
Look at the ground information box for the Globe (x, z) location.  Here the tile is 202, 158 (after using Goto for KPHL):

Write down the global tile x, z and the latitude, longitude from the Ground Information box.

Start up Terrascene and find the global tile using the latitude, longitude.
Draw a box around the white lines that border this latitude and longitude like this:

Use the global tile as the output file name:

Load the USGS data files:

Render the scenery as usual, after you've done this for several global tiles your output folder will look something like this:

I move the .txt files to where I have the Fly! editor installed, you don't have to do this if you don't want to, I do it so I don't have to type in the path in the editor.

Now start up the editor and use Goto to move to the global tile like you did before.
Use "Globe" "Create satillite/DEM Scenery Area" to start the import process.
Enter the name of the text file, and check the "single globe tile" button like this (I've switched to a different global tile here):

Click OK to start the import process:

While this is working you can go ahead and make the .scn file for making the epd.
Right click in the folder where you have the Fly! editor installed and choose "new" "text document".
Change the name to match the global tile, with .scn as the extension.
Open it in notepad and enter just the data directory for the global tile (make sure you press enter after the line to add a carriage return):

Once the editor is finished processing the tga and DEM files:

Use "Editors" "File Manager" to make the epd file.
Use option 2, then enter the name of the scn file, in this example I would use 202157.scn
Then enter the name of the epd file, in this example I would use 202157.epd
Then enter a volume name that is unique, Fly! will not load the epd if another epd has the same volume name, here I would use 202157MS.

 

Make a folder inside Fly!\scenery called 202157, move the 202157 (.scf) file from the output folder and the 202157.epd file to this folder.

 

Move the data\Dxxxzzz files to a temp directory somewhere, startup Fly! and check to see if your scenery is there, if it is working you can delete the files you just moved. Or move them back, add the night time textures and make the epd again the same way (only with editor 1.05 can you do this).

You can also add the night textures before making the epd, you do everything the same except you repeat the "Create satillite/DEM Scenery Area" for the night scenery with the following changes:

To add the night textures with editor 1.05 and up, render the night scenery in TerraScene along with the day and DEM (if you saved your project you can go back and render the night image later). When you import the night image with the editor you enter the text file for the night scenery (the one with the "n" added to it), uncheck the "Elevation points" box, and check the "Create textures as night textures box".
 

Some answers to FAQs:

You need to make the box in TerraScene larger than the global tile so the editor will generate textures all the way to the edge of the tile.  If you try to make it too close to the edge and go under by a few pixels the editor will not make textures for that row of normal tiles and you will end up with a row of generic scenery at the edge of your global tile.(the editor will only make textures for tiles that are compleatly covered by the .tga image)  When you make the scenery as show above the editor just ignores the small amount of the tga file that is outside the global tile, so it really doesn't matter how much bigger it is, just as long as the tga image is a little bit larger than the global tile.

If you put your night scenery in a separate epd and add it to the .scf file make sure you use a tab in front of the text in each line and not spaces, Fly! will not load the epd if spaces are used.  Also remember to copy the <file> line, so if you made a night epd for the example above and called it 202157n.epd your .scf file would look like:

<bgno> ==== BEGIN SCENERY FILE ====
     <name> ---- scenery set name ----
     202157 TerraScene Scenery version x.x
     <call> ---- coverage area lower left ----
     38 00 00.0 N
     75 57 00.0 W
     <caur> ---- coverage area upper right ----
     38 58 12.0 N
     74 31 12.0 W
     <ldll> ---- load lower left ----
     37 40 00.0 N
     76 17 00.0 W
     <ldur> ---- load upper right ----
     39 18 12.0 N
     74 11 12.0 W
     <file> ---- pod file ----
     202157.epd
     <file> ---- pod file ----
     202157n.epd
<endo> ==== END SCENERY FILE ====

Also make sure if you make a separate night epd to use a volume name different than your day, remember all epds need to have a unique volume name.

When doing coastal areas you can save disk space by using the "create world tiles" option under "tile" in the editor.  This will bring up a dialog box where you put in the range of normal tiles you want to convert back to generic tiles.  The values go from 0 to 63 in x left to right, and 0 to 63 in z bottom to top.  if you scroll around the image in the editor you can figure out what range to use.  When you do this the textures generated from the tga file are deleted so be careful.  If you get a few blocks of generic land where there should be ocean put the white box over each tile and use "make normal tile" under "tile" and use the text file from TS, this will regenerate the TS texture for that normal tile.

Marty Schultz
April 18, 2000
schultz@pop1.science.widener.edu

Last update June 2, 2000