[014] Adding Custom Aerial Imagery - Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 SDK Tutorials
This (longer) tutorial covers how to replace the existing Bing maps aerial imagery with custom imagery. The images used in this tutorial are from Google Maps and should only be used for reference and personal use and should not be used as part of a commercial product.
The programs used in this tutorial are:
* Notepad++: notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/
* Google Earth Pro: support.google.com/earth/answ...
* Image Composite Editor: www.microsoft.com/en-us/resea...
* Adobe Photoshop: www.adobe.com/uk/products/pho...
(You could also use The Gimp for free: www.gimp.org/downloads/)
* QGIS: qgis.org/en/site/forusers/dow...
* Tiles2Bing: winthers.net/files/tiles2bing.zip
If you have errors with missing DLLs with tiles2bing then download and install: dotnet.microsoft.com/download...
Text used in the video:
* Bing Aerial Map Link for QGIS (remove the space between http and ://): http ://ecn.t3.tiles.virtualearth.net/tiles/a{q}.jpeg?g=1
* Tiles2Bing command: tiles2bing "your input directory" /o "your output directory" /y google
Here is another good tutorial on how to do this but using Ortho4XP:
www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/thr...
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(Drinking game: take a shot every time you hear the word "so")
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"I hope this has been helpful" - bruh, Understatement of the decade.
Please note that when using later versions of QGIS the georeferencer tool can be found under the LAYER menu not the raster menu.
Please be aware that this video is VERY old and that it should be updated. The Georeferencer in QGIS is no longer where it is shown in this video, but is now under the LAYERS menu. Microsaoft ICE is also no longer available, but can still be downloaded under OLD versions.
THANK YOU!
This guy is a genius. Asobo should hire him as their scenery corrections guy
Bing and Google is a legal battle. Bing can't charge people to use Google map content. That would be illegal lol, even then, uploaded Google map sceneries are illegal to share also based on Google Maps ToS.
@@Mrazgoodaz it should be free, the American people paid for the Keyhole satellite project which is where all of this information comes from, In-Q-Tel, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the whole lot of them are tax payer funded and also considered not-for-profit organizations so there really should not be a fight over who can use this imagery, it should all be public domain. There are some satellite services which will provide global imaging in real time but we don't really require our data to be that fresh and neither Google or Bing supply that data anyway. But your very right they want to fight over it.
@@Vintage_USA_Tech If you are saying MSFS should be free, then you are crazy. If not, I didn't understand your comment correctly.
@@simply-dash No absolutely not. Im not a communist. Im happy to buy my MFSF2020.
These tutorials are 𝔼𝕡𝕚𝕔. The processes are a bit involved and tricky but each step is fully explained and the results are great! Top man!!
Been doing flight sim off and on for 20 years, have tried editing scenery and the like before. You've been the best help I've had to finally being able to get scenery into a map that I've edited. Keep up the great work. I'm currently using your tutorials to add a whole airport in that FS is missing, and it's working. Thanks for the Video.
I LOVE YOU MAN, life saver, it was a headache to get it all done correctly the first try but finally did it, thank you so much!
Absolutely fantastic! I really appreciate the work you've put into this!
Thank you! This is exactly what I needed to fix some ugly roads in my town. I watched the whole video but unfortunately I will only have time in a few days to try it out and develop my workflow with it. :)
BLESS THIS MAN
Very in-depth. Thanks for the additional tools cited in this reference, very useful!
What a fantastic tutorial. Man you are a true guru. Thanks for your time and knowledge. Much appreciated.
Thanks so much for this great tutorial and all the other ones you have made too! I have learned so much about the SDK already in just a day thanks to this giving me good base knowledge. A tutorial about how to make airports would be fantastic, because I'm working on an airport scenery and there's still some things I can't figure out.
Hello flying theston, what a fantastic tutorial, i'm about the revamp my first scenery with all your advices. Thanks for all !
Perfect! Thanks so much for this amazingly helpful series.
Brilliant! You just earned a sub! Thank you!
Wow you certainly know your stuff, you make it look so easy
I can´t understand how you have sniffed all this up! Great Jobb!
Just a single point of error 4:15 The "r" key adjusts rotation about the compass points (i.e. aligns North to North). It's the "u" key that fixes the tilt added when you zoom in so that you get a true "top-down" view.
Yes and no. it seems that R both aligns the compass and changes the view, whereas U just changes the view.
Finally, I can put my ultra hi-res LSZH textures to good use, thx man!
Hopefully this helps someone who's been smashing their head against the wall like I was: If you're able to see your new aerial on the World Map view, but only some (or none) of it shows up in game, try turning off photogrammetry in your data options. If your aerial suddenly now works, then try this next step. Create a huge polygon and exclude TIN (the others don't matter) - this will hopefully work for you as it finally did for me. Photogrammetry currently overwrites custom aerials, so you need to get rid of the TIN data (which can originate far outside of the aerial data you're laying down). Other tips - Importing a TIFF seems to modify better after Georeferencing as it converts to a TIFF anyways - 16 and 32 bit image imports don't work will with transparency in QGIS - keep it at 8 bit - During Generate XYZ tiles (Directory) towards the end in QGIS, your min max zoom should be 20 I believe (according to the SDK) which is higher resolution
nice channel man! deserves more attention
Again a thousand thanks for your help
Wow! This video makes me appreciate how much effort I’m saving in SketchUp when I use its geolocate tool to basically pull in a 3d screen grab of my architectural site from Google Earth Pro. Takes all of about 20-30 seconds to import. Of course, both apps were owned by Google for many years.
非常感谢阁下提供的详细视屏介绍,学到了很多知识!
Gong Chen c
Thank you for sharing your genius with everyone
Very intuitive, thank you
Best tutorial series so far!! Could you do a tutorial for creating an sloped runway?
i've not looked into airports much yet but i'll get round to it hopefully soon!
Flying Theston Awesome! I'm trying to make an entire airport from scratch and I need help 😂😂
15:26 dude the part when you use Cmd tiles2bing is not very clear, especially if you know nothing about cmd like me.
look in the ortho4x tutorial in the description, the part on tiles2bing is detailed step by step.
I just realised you made VRTK! I knew your voice. Thanks for these videos!
They've found me, I don't know how but they've found me! Run for it Marty!!
You can use QGIS to add google sat imagry. Then you can grab it in high res directly and already georeferenced.
jeez, how the hell did you work this out? Brilliant work
You are a genius my man! WOW!! How did you learn all this stuff?? WOW!
just bumbling through the docs and messing about with the SDK :)
Georeferencer has been moved to the "Layer" tab.
Thanks
very nice-are there any ways to put in custom LUTS? I'd like to see more tropical looking waters and sun when flying in the tropics
You are amazing!! Can I use my custom aerial as a part of whole new airport scenery i'm creating ? If so, how to connect it in one project?
FYI you can use QGIS to export google maps image which will save time on stitching. can google "qgis google maps" to get the URL to add google maps same way which you added the bing map to the XYZ tile
QGIS CLARIFICATION: 👀 If you dont see the "Georeferencer" option from Raster menu, you need to addit from the plugins, so go to same upper menu and click on "Plugins" and search "Georeferencer" and tick ✔ the checkbox, and close. After that you can go to Raster again and you will find the Georeferencer. Cheers!!
Love your tutorials! does this mean you are working on an Hawaii/Oahu map?? I'd love to see that!
unfortunately not yet, maybe in the future though!
Lord BLESS THIS MAN!
ICE it's not available to download anymore! 😔
BTW, you need not to type into command prompt in the Tiles2Bing - there is Tiles2Bing.bat int the folder - edit that one with your Notepad ++ or text editor. Once you are finished editing, just run that bat.
Great but is there a way to find and download Tiles2Bing? Or is there another method using other tools?
Great tutorial. Thanks! Do you know if FS will use the custom satellite to populate autogen buildings as well?
No it doesn't. I believe the autogen stuff doesn't happen in real-time. It is a process that the devs run on the state of the game and is then just loaded in.
Amazing! Most of my town is covered in clouds, and I doubt that Microsoft will fix it any time soon.
It appears that Tiles2Bing is no longer available via that link, does anyone know where I can find a copy? Or is there an alternate method to rename the tiles? Fantastic video!!
+1 Flying Theston - Another excellent tutorial and for a much needed function. Thanks again!!! Yep, this is definitely going to get a workout since Bing maps are so freakin' outdated. When Ortho4XP-izing my sceneries a couple of years ago I used to have to manually edit out clouds. OUCH what a pain! This technique is invaluable. OK... sorry... I got a quick newbie question... I want to not only edit/correct taxiways at a small airport but also add MIA taxiway/runway side lights, markers, tarmac taxi stripes, etc. I also want to remove AI placed GA aircraft (live traffic) in this rarely used Thai army base runway VTUR. I also want to remove some redundant airport objects as well as animated ground crews, especially the infernal GA aircraft pushback tug thingee that always gets in the way of taxiing out of the parking spot. Sadly, exclusion polygons/rectangles have no affect on airport stuff, unless I'm doing something wrong. Will I have to delete the airport and recreate a new one in its place or is there an editing method? If so, how to do it? Thanks again for posting these wonderful tutorials and answering questions! As always... Cheers from Thailand young fella!
Really appreciate your tutorials! However, can you check the link for Tiles2Bing? When I try to open it, it does not appear to be working for me.
Hi @Flying Theston, in 1:59 dont you have also to rename the line1 where it says: "Name=SceneryProject" by "Name=PHNL" ???
For reference, excellent ultra-high resolution satellite imagery is available from the USGS.
Can you download the screenshots tho?
How can I make a folder so I can paste it into community folders
Hi @Flying_Theston I followed your directions exactly but when I load the project nothing seems to show up. I heard of an issue with the new free German airport interfering with custom scenery. I uninstalled that and still get nothing at my location. Any ideas why this is?
Thank you.
Thanks for the video, it worked perfectly!! One question. After I enable it (build package), is there a way to disable it, like it was AddonScenery in FSX? And also what is the directory location, so if i want to send it to someone, where do i need to look for files?
watch my video on how to install scenery
Thank you so much. Is there anyway you adapt to a large airport? When I do Manchester tiles2bing creates 14,000 files 😳 Is there a trick to large areas?
Curious, my aerials are all projected and georeferenced correctly (I'm a professional Cartographer, so I know the process well). My package builds just great, however my aerials do not show up when zoomed into the "apron", they show up when I am zoomed way out (like I am about at 60,000 MSL..LOL. I used both min-max 19 and a min-max 20.....both results were the same. First I thought I was using too high resolution images (3" res vs games 6" to 1ft). I resampled the aerials to 6 inch resolution and still only show up when I am way out.....any idea?
thanks to you and your videos I was able to create an airport. My question is this. Do you know how to place the signs on the ground for example (RWY AHEAD) or simply the numbers that indicate the pisteggio? If you know, would you make a video of it?
I've not looked into runways much yet, when I do I'll do a tutorial on what I know
@@FlyingTheston thank you :)
WoW.. so this should work then for Malaga airport in Spain?
Hi! According to your tutorial, in version 1.8.7 I was able to compile a aerial image file on my territory. But in version 1.9.3, I can't do it using the same method. Do you have any information about the reason for this?
Awesomeness
Magnificent tutorial as always, the game crashes when making the pakage, I installed the latest version of sdk as they say below in comments but it still happens in the same way, I need this image to be able to finish my project of a military airport that does not appear drawn in mfs, with this template I could finish it and that had its measurements and real colors of land, any idea of how to solve this?
After I build the scenery I can see the change by looking at the edges however the old taxiways and markers are still showing. Is this the wrong video to do burn out the old taxiways?
Wow that was quite a power trip :-). Thank you for all this information. The video was available to me in 360p only. Is that the real maximum resolution?
no, the max resolution of the video is 2k
I think the best results will be achieved by using a combination of Bing and Google and other sources too. People shouldn't just write off Bing entirely - in some areas Google has very blurry coverage and vice versa. Bing seems great for areas outside of large Western cities (Africa, Middle East etc), which is particularly relevant for VFR bush flying. But Google is often better for developed areas. Also, I think some of the in-game terrain is not yet using the best resolution shown in Bing maps. In some cases the lowest level zoom terrain imagery is outdated and blurry but the next level up (as seen in browser) is very high quality, but the game obviously isn't selecting the better one.
Yeah use what's best for the output
OMG I love your "tutols" but I`m having problems with your accent LOL since I´m in the US and it´s a huge difference in how one sounds! Also in some of the videos,those too many open windos are not well explained when kinda youre doing the step by step instructions! Thank you for the good work!
could you show how to import geo ref ortho4xp files into MSFS?
Great videos. I have an issue. I have managed to add a custom Ariel image. And built the package. Move to community folder. I manage to build the runway and taxiways etc. Add buildings and get it roughly how I want. Save it. But when I restart the sim. All the objects etc are still there but my custom image disappears. Any help would be great. This is my first time trying as I live local to EGBK and the airport in the sim is a let down
Thanks a lot for all the tutorials can you hsow us how to edit the autogn in msfs2020
Can someone suggest another program to substitute ICE?
QGIS exports so many files for a large airport. 14k png for Manchester Airport. Anyway to reduce the number of tiles? My MS2020 crashes when I build package. I’m guessing this is the reason lol .. 👍🏻
Hello there. nothing in the result display. What should I do?
please optimalisation tutorial!
My head just exploded. I need to baby step.
Hi, in the rater tab there is no Georeferencer suboption..I noticed this is 2 years old and the app might have changed. I found within it a Freehand raster georeferencer as complement, I would say it should fo the trick but the following steps are quite different. Is there anyway. Is there any possible way to reach you trhough a private message? Pls It doesn't open an extra window it pastes the saved image over the map
Hello captains! When I export the image and open in the sim, the editions that I made doesn't apear. The image just come square, like I never edited it before. Could you help? I follow all the steps. 😔
When would you choose to do this method vs adding custom materials in your scenery projects?
Neil - do you have a link to a tutorial as to how to add a PNG like this as a custom material to cover existing aerial imagery? I'm also curious how this is different, and how to do it in another way if need be.
Nice tutorial! But does this work with 3D builidngs too?
no, there's another tutorial covering 3d buildings
Oh okay, thanks for your tip! :D
What would the process be to include the coral reefs?
I'm not sure how to do that
quick question, can you add brand new textures? just id like to recreate meigs field from fs98. its all grass now. google maps is obviously recent so its now a park or whatever.
yeah you can add whatever you want
@@FlyingTheston ah sound thanks, I assumed you'd have to add whatever is there on the other map, but that makes sense... hold my beer!
It's funny, the one I saw on the flight simulator forums did a terrible job of explaining the last step in the simulator. If I'd known I could just edit the project file provided in the sample I could have saved a lot of frustration and heartache.
Hi goes this only with airfields? or cities? will the houses and all build? or is it only for "flat" areas?
only for flat areas
@@FlyingTheston ok thx.. sad to here...;)
Thank you very much for the tutorial. However, every time I click build package, flight sim itself freezes. any idea? the music still plays but consol does not show up but it freezes...errrr
The sim will freeze while its building, the console window will pop up eventually when its finished. The larger the project means the longer it will take to build and the longer it will be froze for.
Any idea why this wouldn't work in South Beach Miami? I could get my custom map to show at a random area in Europe but can't change Miami beach for some reason
no, but I also noticed the SDK sample aerial photo stuff wasn't working, I think it's something to do with the cache not updating
Tiles2Bing is unavailiable :(
Bro how do you know all this stuff thanks man
Nice work
When i select the project in fs2020 it crashes to desktop, why this can be issue?
hi nice video👍👍 everything worked but I don't know how to use tiles 2 Bing... can you help me pls how to install?
the video shows how to use it, you dont' install it you just extract the zip file and tiles2bing.exe is the program to run
@@FlyingTheston thanks but which path did you wrote in 15:49? I searched for this path in my pc but I couldn't find it...
I wanna import larger area with high res is there any program that can do instead me taking thousands of pics and merge them
I was wondering the same. I would like to make it for a entire city.
Can you delete all the black tiles to make a smaller package?
yeah should be able to
I wonder if possible to bring in custom models into a simple airport scenery, instead just using the default models they supply. Bit of a pain
yes you can do that ofc he made a tutorial on it i think
Hello. I have been on this for a couple days now and just can't seem to figure it out. I have followed your tutorial several times, tried other peoples methods and also my own. Even I follow these instructions the sim just doesn't load the imagery in. When I build my package it looks like it doesn't build the CGL file at all and only thing that fails is the thumbnail. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. thanks!
maybe the thumbnail fail doesn't allow the project to be completely built, try to solve it first then try to build again
Where can I find the ,MSFS SDK, folder?
You have to install it
you actually can use sas planet software to make stitching and importing image easily to qgis without geo referencing. if you export and do it correctly. ps.
"useful for large scenery"
I discovered this tutorial yesterdat but it seems I just faced a problem... I can't have multiple "custom aerial imagery packages" in my community folder, the game works fine but only one custom imagery will work in game, the others will not change the area I changed... do u have an idea ?
I've not tried multiple scenery packages as of yet. I wonder if the SDK only allows for a single folder for custom aerial imagery? That would be annoying but believable with the current state of the SDK
@@FlyingTheston I just ran into this problem as well. Would definitely like to know if there is a work around
We can’t just use GeoTIFFs?
getting an error when trying to generate tiles with tiles2bing: "A fatal error occurred. The required library hostfxr.dll could not be found." any idea ?
try installing this first: dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core/thank-you/sdk-3.1.401-windows-x64-installer
@@FlyingTheston thanks a lot that was the missing piece, thanks for all your video by the way.
@@FlyingTheston fantastic mate! appreciate it!
Hello, I have problems, when I starting build package my game is crashing. Why I need to do? Can you help me please. I need EYKA airport aerial image. Because bing maps are older, than Google maps.
Try running your build through the windows command line instead of the game, that way you can see what the error is that's causing it to crash. I think I show this method in another one of my videos.
How do I export this to the game? like to the community folder
watch the other videos on my channel for info about other aspects of the sdk
i find that it is much easier to use sas planet software to download and combine the imagery