FS Scenery Programs

[archtx]

Hi....I'm new to this forum, so I thought I'd jump in and get my feet wet. I'm one of the ones that do things mostly for my on pleasure, because my sceneries do not always have the qualities of some of the ones on the major download sites. But everyone I do gets a little better. I also have a hard time learning the newer programs (d*mn, I'll miss EOD!)...and have not mastered GMAX. But I haven't seen anyone on here mention SBuilder, and I think it is one of the best programs out there. There is an island tutorial for it, and I guarantee if you do that tutorial, you will learn SBuilder. Once you use it, it is quite easy....and I have found out how to fix many "irritating" things in FS2004 that I haven't been able to fix with FSSC or AFCAD.

1. mesh
2. default airport polygons and flattens.
3. ugly little default rivers that look like a narrow blue string.
4. Shorelines
5. Relocating default roads and rivers that are in the wrong place, or run up the side of a hill instead of a river valley. (in conjunction with defarea to erase the old ones)
6. Landclass (although EZ-Landclass is easier)
7. Place objects
8. excludes

and more.

If you are having trouble in any of these areas, try it out. The help files are pretty good...but be sure and at least read the Island Tutorial.

[bm]

Thanks archtx - Sbuilder sounds similar to Ground2K4 with almost exactly the same functions. I think I have it somewhere but G2K4 fulfilled my needs so I didn't look any further. I seem to remember it being shareware with limited functionality, which always puts me off (forgive me if I am wrong!).  I'll have a go with Sbuilder though and see what happens!

G2K4 is also a little difficult to understand at first so this step-by-step tutorial is essential:
http://library.avsim.net/search.php?Sea ... &Go=Search

Can Sbuilder delete the default flattens easily? I'm having a nightmare with BiA_V4 (EGGD) - M$ really screwed up with the default flattens.......

Nice to have a new face on the scenery design forum! Welcome to SimV

Lurch - Perhaps you could try one of the above (G2K4 or Sbuilder) to create a VTP1 polygon with your map - might work. I believe a VTP1 as apposed to a VTP2 polygon allows you to manipulate the placement of the texture (I.e. your map within the polygon. Don't quote me on this though!

Thanks,
Birdy

[Tasmanet]

Hi

Finally got Scenery Builder up and running.

If you are haviving trouble with
"runtime error 339. Component TABCTL32.OCX or one of it dependecies is not correctly registered."
or similar try the following

"Hello,
The following may be important:

"Component TABCTL32.OCX or one of its dependencies is not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid."

- This error has been reported with all versions of Windows.
To fix this error...

- First download TABCTL32.OCX and copy it into the \Windows\System32 directory.

- Then, open the run dialog box using "Start | Run..." and enter "Regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\tabctl32.ocx" to register the DLL.

Regards, Luis"

* Please note that there is a SPACE after "regsvr32" and before the rest of the command.


More info on the 2 files I had trouble with.

http://www.ascentive.com/support/new/su ... MDLG32.OCX

http://www.ascentive.com/support/new/su ... BCTL32.OCX

[Lurch16th]

Still working on my little project.  Trying the Terrabuilder lite.

Anyone know where the "Altitude maps" can be found, which are refferred to in Terrabuilder?

It appears that they might be in MSFS, in one of the directories.

[Lurch16th]

ok, after weeks of diddling with Terra Builder Lite, Photoscenery Maker and MSFS SDK 04, I have only been able to place my aerial photo into MSFS with the blue"water" texture border around it or not at all.

The aerial photo looks good but can't get rid of the water border.  

The tutorial in Terra Builder says that if the photo does not completely fill a LOD terrain square, that it will be discarded.  Not so.  The portion of the photo shows up and the unfilled LOD square portion shows up as blue water.

I have enough photo to fill 2 full LOD squares, but can't get just those 2 to show up.


It ain't easy. yet!


I've tried everything i can think of and i'm sure it's something simple.  So next, i'll try the SBuilder.

[bm]

Well done for persisting - I wish you luck with your next attempt I guess if that doesn't work the only other way I can think of would be placing the picture as a background image in good old FSSC.

[neilperrin]

Hi

I'm new to FS9 scenery design and have been trying to get Sbuilder to work on my system. When I click on the "aircraft" icon all I get is "Run-Time Error 76" Path Not Found. There is no documentation that comes with this package and it provides no opportunity to set a path. I have installed SCASM.EXE in the same folder as SBuilder. I'm running WinXP on a P4 3.2 ghz machine. I don't have Win SP2 installed, and if that's what it takes to make SBuilder work then I'd rather not bother.

I guess the error message might be something to do with a VB file that I don't have in my Windows folder. I'd be very grateful to anyone who can give advice on how to resolve this problem so that I can at least get into Sbuilder.

[bm]

Being a payware/shareware program perhaps the author would be the best person to contact. He is bound to be able to give expert advice. Apparently these authors tend to respond very quickly.

[Lurch16th]

I don't think i'm going to mess with SBuilder, after some of the posts.  The problems i've had may have something to do with how i manipulated the aerial photos.

None of thebgl or bmp files, made in Terra builder lite works in msfs 04 at all.  But what i have done is used Terrabuilder to make the .INF file and then use the MSFS SDK's for 04 to do the rest.  I'll keep you posted.

Another thing i'm doing is switching to Terraser/MS for the images, which has a 4m/pixel res which is much closer to what the SDK's use and very good grid lat/lon feature.