How to disable all autogen when using photoreal scenery?

[mgeiss]

I am starting to generate photoreal scenery for the Pilotedge service area using G2XPL. However, while it's common practice to combine photoreal with autogen, I want to achieve the opposite. I'd like to completely get rid of all objects, roads and trees within the photoreal tiles without losing any objects in custom airports.

Because of this, I can't just set objets to none in the rendering options, as this also affects airport objects. I could set roads and trees to none and re-enable them when flying over "normal" scenery, but of course it would be nice If this could be autmatted.

Is there an easy way to tell X-Plane that it shouldn't show any objects, roads and trees for a given tile wthout affecting airports? Or - if that's more simple - can I temporarily disable X-Planes autogen system alltogether, and put it back to live for stock/HD scenery?

 

Edited June 7, 2016 by mgeiss

[AeroPictor]

I am not an expert, but as far as I know the solution would be to place exclusion zones on the sceneries you generate. It would be multiple exclusions zones, objects, facades, forests, roads. I think that can be achieved in Overlay Editor or in WED. Placing your airports higher in the sceneries hierarchy in the scenery_packs.ini would ensure that the airport show all their glory. This would limit the exclusions of auto-generated objects to only your photo-sceneries.

I hope this can be a lead for more informations on the websites of Laminar, WED or Marginal …          

[mgeiss]

Thanks, kickremi! I think exclusion zones would work (I don't have any experience with WED or Overlay Editor). I was hoping  there would be an easier or at least semi-automatic way to achieve this.

[crisk73]

The optimal solution would be to create a standalone scenery made only of exclusions layers (for objects, facades, trees, roads and powelines) covering the photoscenery tiles of interest. This way you can easily enable/disable the scenery (say exclusions) in the scenery_packs.ini. As for hierarchy, the scenery has to be placed after the custom airports and prior to the generated photoscenery.

[mgeiss]

Thanks crisk73!
I'm afraid I have to use exclusion zones, but putting them in a seperate scenery pack seems to be a neat solution!

I read about creating seceneries for a while yesterday, and for a large number of tiles it seems to be a good option to make text files with a little script and to use a text-to-dsf tool to create the finished scenery tiles.

[crisk73]

Yes you can use the text-to-dsf method. I normally use Overlay Editor by Marginal which is an easy go to drag your big exclusion window over large areas. If you switch on the terrain view option you can see your photoscenery below. Then it takes care of selecting the proper .dsf file to be created. But it's up to you... also WED is an option.

Good work! [emoji4]

[mgeiss]

Thanks again! As far as i understood, an exclusion zone should to cover the entire tile but it should not be larger. Is there a simple option in WED or Overlay Editor quickly select a whole 1x1 Tile (like Ctrl+A in an Editor) as the area for the exclusion zone, or do I need to draw the rectangle and position it exactly over the tile boundaries?

Edited June 8, 2016 by mgeiss

[mgeiss]

So i wrote a lillte bash script to generate 1x1 deg exclusion zones for objects, forests, roads and facades. It's not perfect jet, but text2dsf does output a working dsf which can be imported into WED without a problem.
 I still need to test if it serves it's purpose...

If you are interested in the (not yet pretty, I do that once a year maybe) code, you can take this as a basis

#!/bin/sh
#area
lat_start=32
long_start=-124
lat_end=38
long_end=-114
#variables 
lat=$lat_start
long=$long_start
lat_prefix=""
long_prefix=""
lat_n_prefix=""
long_e_prefix=""
#output
while [ $lat -le $lat_end ]
do
  while [ $long -le $long_end ]
  do
    if [ $lat -ge 0 -a $lat -lt 10 ]
      then lat_prefix="+0"
      elif [ $lat -ge 10 ]
        then lat_prefix="+"
    fi
    if [ $long -ge 0 -a $long -lt 10 ]
        then long_prefix="+00"
      elif [ $long -ge 10 -a $long -lt 100 ]
        then long_prefix="+0"
      elif [ $long -ge 100 ]
        then long_prefix="+"
    fi
    if [ $(( lat + 1 )) -ge 0 -a $(( lat + 1 )) -lt 10 ]
      then lat_n_prefix="+0"
      elif [ $(( lat + 1 )) -ge 10 ]
        then lat_n_prefix="+"
    fi
    if [ $(( long + 1 )) -ge 0 -a $(( long + 1 )) -lt 10 ]
      then long_e_prefix="+00"
      elif [ $(( long + 1 )) -ge 10 -a $(( long + 1 )) -lt 100 ]
        then long_e_prefix="+0"
      elif [ $(( long + 1 )) -ge 100 ]
        then long_e_prefix="+"
    fi
    echo "A" > ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "800" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "DSF2TEXT" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "# file: $lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY sim/west $long_prefix$long" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY sim/east $long_e_prefix$(( long + 1 ))" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY sim/north $lat_n_prefix$(( lat + 1 ))" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY sim/south $lat_prefix$lat" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY sim/planet earth" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY sim/creation_agent WorldEditor1.4.1r1" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY laminar/internal_revision 0" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY sim/overlay 1" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY sim/exclude_net $long/$lat/$(( long + 1 ))/$(( lat + 1 ))" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY sim/exclude_obj $long/$lat/$(( long + 1 ))/$(( lat + 1 ))" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY sim/exclude_fac $long/$lat/$(( long + 1 ))/$(( lat + 1 ))" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "PROPERTY sim/exclude_for $long/$lat/$(( long + 1 ))/$(( lat + 1 ))" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    echo "# Result code: 0" >> ./Daten/$lat_prefix$lat$long_prefix$long.dsf.txt
    long=$(( long + 1 ))
  done
  lat=$(( lat + 1 ))
  long=$long_start
done

 

Edited June 8, 2016 by mgeiss