Tutorial - Coast-Line-Maker V1.1 (1st release)
© Iain Murray, 2003
Please refer to the Coast-Line-Maker Instructions
before working through this tutorial. For basic troubleshooting information for Coast-Line-Maker,
please see README.TXT.
The first commercial scenery to utilise Coast-Line-Maker is ScotFlight's
"Scotland Scenery V1.0", which includes the scenery areas shown in
this tutorial - for more information on this scenery, visit the ScotFlight
main page.
Making a sample coastline with Coast-Line-Maker V1.1
The best way to use Coast-Line-Maker is as follows; we will follow
the procedure through with an example to correct the position of the existing
coast around a new airport. The following screen shot shows the new airport
(which is correctly positioned) but it is partly in the sea as the default coast
is in the wrong place:

- find the cell co-ordinates of your "target region":
- looking at the region in FS2002 (use Shift-Z to
see your position), the centre of the new airport is at
approximately N 56:24:8 W 3:11:5; exit FS2002
- within Coast-Line-Maker, open the Cell Calculator (menu Help/Cell
calculator), enter these
target co-ordinates and calculate the LOD8 cell - this is gives [ 377,
95 ]

- use the CellGrid files (included as part of this package) to generate a
visible grid BGL for this LOD8 cell (edit the name and content of the given
192_127_grid.txt to reflect the required LOD8 cell co-ordinates, then
drag-and-drop this file onto BGLC.EXE
to compile the scenery BGL); copy the BGL to an active FS2002 scenery
folder (remember to copy the grid texture LOD8define.bmp
to the corresponding texture folder too)
- re-run FS2002, and return to your target region - there should now
be a red/blue cell grid over the area
- create a background map showing your "target region":
- go into map view, and zoom out until you see the whole of the area
required; rotate if necessary so that the LOD13 grid lines are parallel
to the screen edges
- capture the screen (press Alt-Prt Sc) and paste the
image into your graphics program (MSpaint, Paint Shop Pro,
etc.)
- crop the image so that it includes a whole number of LOD13
cells (and ensure again that these are parallel to the image edges)
- if you wish, overlay the image with the position of the new coastline
that you wish to add
- if you wish, reduce the number of colours in the image (to decrease
image file size)
- save the image (in BMP, GIF or JPG format)

- within Coast-Line-Maker, load the background image and set its
properties:
- load the image saved above as the Coast-Line-Maker background
image (menu Background / Load background image)
- in the Background Properties dialog, enter the relevant cell
co-ordinates - this is how Coast-Line-Maker scales your image to
fit the FS grid
- resize the Coast-Line-Maker window as required, and move the
status panel window into a suitable position on the screen (it can be
moved at any time if it is obscuring part of the background that you
wish to work on; it can also be removed from the screen (click Hide
Status Panel) and brought back (menu Help / Show Status
Panel ). N.B. if the status panel is moved over the background
image, it will delete any line graphics shown on the image - after
moving, always click Refresh Graphics to reshow the
lines.
- set your output preferences (menu Output / Preferences) as
required
- save your Coast-Line-Maker project (menu File / Save Project
As ... ) with an appropriate name

- within Coast-Line-Maker, add coastal segments as required:
- select the type of segment from the Draw Mode
combo box on the status panel
- Land/Water mask polygons will fill in around the coast, so even if no
visible coastline is required, you must enter a plain segment to act as
the edge of the LWM polygons
- the ends of your coast segments should be :
- in the same place as current coast positions (so that your new
segments will join up with existing FS segments)
- at the edge of an LOD13 cell (i.e. with a co-ordinate of 0 or 255)
- remember that any LOD13 cell which has new coast added
into it will automatically have any existing coast deleted
- save your project

- within Coast-Line-Maker, add land and water polygons around the new
coastline:
- in this example, we have only existing water that needs to be made
land, so we only need to add land polygons - but remember to cover all
areas where existing water has to be excluded, including small corners!
- save your project

- within Coast-Line-Maker, add any cell exclusions
- there are three cells in the example where coast exists at present,
but which will have no coast after modification - we thus need to
specifically exclude the coast in these areas
- save your project

- within Coast-Line-Maker, add any other segments (rivers, roads
etc.) if required:
- none needed for this project
- save your project
- save the VTP and LWM data as assembler files, assemble them with BGLC
and copy the new scenery files to FS2002 (Coast-Line-Maker can
do this automatically for you)
- run FS2002 to see the new coastline, which should now be as desired:

Another Example
Here is a more complex example of Coast-Line-Maker in action ... here
is the River Tay near Perth, Scotland:

However, the "lake" in the foreground should join to
the river estuary (middle distance), and also have an island in the middle of
it! Also, the road crossing the river in the centre of the picture incorrectly
goes up the cliff and along the ridge! Below is the Coast-Line-Maker
screen for this area, showing all the changes made. Note the red and blue lines,
which are the correct coast / road positions (these were drawn onto the
background map manually). At right, the road deviates in order to meet up with
the existing road segment off to the east. A small number of land polygons have
been used to cover the existing river where it is wrongly placed, and a series
of water polygons trace out the new course of the river. The black crosses show
where existing road has been cleared, and the blue crosses where a stream
segment has been cleared.

And here is what the area should look like in FS; the
river is corrected, island added, and the roads now skirt round the hill (river
coastline segments have been used, rather than beach with waves):

Acknowledgements and Legal Notice
Thanks to many subscribers to the AVSIM scenery design forum (especially
Richard Ludowise) for helpful comments made in the forum, or to me directly.
Without these comments, writing Coast-Line-Maker would not have been possible.
Thanks also to
Richard Ludowise for permission to use his include files (which are in the
public domain) within
the Coast-Line-Maker package.
The Coast-Line-Maker program is distributed as Freeware but remains ©
Iain Murray, 2003, all rights reserved; it may not be distributed commercially
by any means without the express written permission of the author. Any sceneries
created using Coast-Line-Maker are the copyright and property of the
scenery author, but where such scenery is published (either commercially or as
Shareware or as Freeware), the scenery author should acknowledge the use of Coast-Line-Maker
in its creation; as a courtesy, the scenery author should also inform the Coast-Line-Maker
author of publication.
Coast-Line-Maker should not harm your computer or any data stored on it
but, if you imagine that it has, the author accepts no liability.
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Iain Murray