This is a description of the most common controls used by most tools. The tool panel will normally show 2 menu options, the SIZE and the TEXTURE tabs.
OBJECT SIZE TAB MENU
Each object or tool has a panel where you can specify its size and type as required. Sizes must always be integer numbers and only the metric system is used.
Altitude over the ground: Used to enter the altitude above the ground of this specific object or part.
Shaded : You can use this option for different purposes:
Shaded objects have a brighter color when used.
Shaded objects can also be used to get a rounded or spherical effect on an object. It can make a cube look like a cylinder for example.
NOTE: "Shaded" is used here in the sense used in SCASM not in the sense of shadow.
Normal object Shaded object Camera options: The camera options will allow you to visualize in a wire frame mode each object or sequence in four views, top view, front view, side view and in 3D mode. In 3D mode you can use the arrow keys from your keyboard to rotate the object in all angles and views.
Plot macro: This is option gives you a fast access view to the entire macro.
This option will initially be in the first add-on scenery program of Nova but it will also be incorporated into the main Nova program when it is updated some time after the release of the add-on program.
This option, which is available from almost all tools and main panel, will help you by giving a very detailed position of each part on the general macro structure.
The camera can be placed on 4 different positions. You can use either the top, front and/or side view to adjust each part of the macro, these options are only available if you are working in a MSO macro type file. If your macro is a single macro type you will only be able to control the altitude of each part of the macro.
For MSO macro types you can change the (x,y) coordinates and it will also be possible to set up its rotation. This is the same rotation that will show up in the maximizer window for the sequence in the rotate column.
While in 3D mode, you can use the arrow keys to rotate the entire macro in all angles and directions.
The active sequence object is drawn in red, while all others are in blue.
TEXTURE TAB MENU
This panel will show the selected texture for each side or surface of an object. The panel will show all Bitmaps included in the folder as specified in the Program Setup options. Lines color: Use this to change the color of the lines used to indicate a section of the texture. If your bitmap has a white background it will be hard to see the selected section of a texture with white lines so you might change it to blue or red.
Box delimiters: These boxes will define the section of a texture that will be applied to a side of an object. This section can have different shapes and number of boxes. You can drag and drop the boxes to make your selection and a more precise texture selection can be made using the tune options.
File list: To select a texture just click over the texture name in the file list. The current pattern box shows the active texture and its size in pixels. All textures will be shown in the panel as a 256x256 pixel bitmap. For example, a 512x128 pixel bitmap or a 32x32 pixel bitmap will be shown as a 256x256 texture, and you will notice that the texture will look distorted or compressed. This is normal since FS2K points pixel values are always based in a 256x256 texture pixel value ranging from 0 to 255
The point number is displayed when dragging a box delimiter. The box delimiters can be drawn and placed in any order. Here they are in clockwise order. It will often happen that you will need, for some reason, to change the order of the box delimiters to get the right object in the scenery. The actual section shown is on the house in the picture above.
Changing the order of points will result in another, different view...ooppsss... well, I made it on purpose.
This side of the panel will control the design of each side of the object. Textures: Indicates the name of the texture in use for each side of the object and the active side. In this example its the External base side. To change the side click over the texture button name.
Draw: Defines if a side will be drawn or not. You should never draw a side if it is never visible to the eye in the scenery. When the box is checked then the name of the texture and its transparency information will be displayed.
Copy: This will copy one side's information onto another. So you can use this to copy the front side of an object to the back side. This function will copy the texture name and texture points as well as the transparency options. Tune points: You can use these spinners for final fine tuning of the points in the selected texture. You can make a quick positioning of points on the texture by dragging and dropping the delimiter boxes.
Transparency: You can use this feature when you wish to have a section, or a part of it, appear transparent in the scenery. Click here to see more about transparency values and information. If you use the transparency you will see the level of transparency in percentage notation - 100% means fully transparent. Also you can see the colors of the transparency when different from 100%.
The word LAN or Lighted At Night will show if you select this option from the transparency panel option.
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There is another common
control in some of the tools, the Invert box control. This is
shown on the left with the letter N
or I.
The tools like the Polygon A and Polygon B, for example, may have very different layouts and shapes and it will happen quite often that your side, even if the draw box is checked on, it will not be visible... but from the right side.
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What happens
is that, due to the vector values, this side will be drawn but drawn on the
back and will be invisible from the "right" side. To make this
side visible from the right point of view you will then have to Invert
the draw. So where ever your side is placed, at any angle or
position to the center referenced point of the macro, you can make
that side visible by clicking on or off on the Inverted Box control
draw button. If you don't see a side of a polygon and the draw
command is checked on then Inverse the draw and your problem will be
fixed. The picture shows that side 3 of the polygon is Inverted. |
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Altitude is another important common option throughout the program - altitude above the ground. It is available in all tools. Each part of an object or structure will necessarily have a given absolute altitude. |
THE COLOR TABLE FILE
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Some
tools like the bridge, fences and dotted lines use a file to store up to
60 different colors. This file can be edited using any text editor like
Notepad or even the old EDIT program if you are working under DOS.
File name: COLORS.TAB Location: The file is located in your NOVA\APPL folder. |
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On the left you can see
records of the file with the following fields:
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The last 7 colors in the
table are not defined and you can use any of these colors to customize
a new color into the table.
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The original color table |