There has been a lot of discussion in the Discord server recently about how to properly make overlays to use in FVD++, so i figured i would write up a quick tutorial on the topic.
What you need:
Google Earth Pro (its free)
FVD++
Image editing program (I will use paint.net)
To start off, you need to go find the area you want to use for the overlay on Google Earth. For this tutorial I'll be using a plot of land where a certain giga (dive) is going in a small park located in Ohio. (Please note that the area selected can be no bigger than 440 m, I will explain this in more detail later.)
Second, once you see the area you want to use, go to File -> Save -> Save image... and then under Map options, disable everything but the scale
Save the image to somewhere on your computer and open it in your image editing software.
(You can use a higher resolution image if you would like, I just used 1080x1920 for the tutorial)
Use the box select tool to measure how many pixels are in the scale in the bottom right of the overlay image
This basically tells us that every 100 meters in this image is around 183 pixels give or take. Here is where some math gets involved.
You want to find the ratio of units per pixel. This can be found by simply dividing the value on the scale, 100 in this case, by the amount of pixels the scale is.
So in this case, you would do 100/183 and get the answer to be 0.54644808743
This means that the length of every pixel is around 0.54644808743 meters in length and height.
With this information we can find out how big the actual overlay image we will use in FVD will be.
Overlays in FVD repeat every 440 meters, so we need to scale the image to be 440 meters in length and height using the ratio we have calculated.
To do this, there is a simple equation i use every time i make an overlay and it is: 440/ratio = pixels
ratio being the 0.54644808743 we calculated, and pixels being the size of the FVD overlay.
So when we input our values we get: 440/0.54644808743 = 805.200000002
Now we know how big the overlay needs to be!
Since you cant have a fraction of a pixel, just round off the decimal so we end up with 805 pixels total.
With this new found info, we can create a new blank image that is 805 pixels by 805 pixels
Now just paste the image you saved from google earth onto this blank canvas
If the original image is larger than the new one and you are using paint.net you should get this popup message:
Just click keep canvas size and continue to paste the image into the blank one.
In order to fit the whole area into the new canvas, you might need to rotate and move it until its all inside the canvas. If you cant manage to make it fit, then the area is just too big to make into a functional overlay in FVD.
As you can see, I was barely able to squeeze this area into the canvas
Now that you have created your new overlay, just save the image as a .png file, launch FVD++ and find the ground texture option that is located on the first screen when you start the program up.
Click browse and find the overlay you created and start making your ride!
There has been a lot of discussion in the Discord server recently about how to properly make overlays to use in FVD++, so i figured i would write up a quick tutorial on the topic.
What you need:
Google Earth Pro (its free)
FVD++
Image editing program (I will use paint.net)
To start off, you need to go find the area you want to use for the overlay on Google Earth. For this tutorial I'll be using a plot of land where a certain
giga (dive)is going in a small park located in Ohio. (Please note that the area selected can be no bigger than 440 m, I will explain this in more detail later.)Second, once you see the area you want to use, go to File -> Save -> Save image... and then under Map options, disable everything but the scale
Save the image to somewhere on your computer and open it in your image editing software.
(You can use a higher resolution image if you would like, I just used 1080x1920 for the tutorial)
Use the box select tool to measure how many pixels are in the scale in the bottom right of the overlay image
This basically tells us that every 100 meters in this image is around 183 pixels give or take. Here is where some math gets involved.
You want to find the ratio of units per pixel. This can be found by simply dividing the value on the scale, 100 in this case, by the amount of pixels the scale is.
So in this case, you would do 100/183 and get the answer to be 0.54644808743
This means that the length of every pixel is around 0.54644808743 meters in length and height.
With this information we can find out how big the actual overlay image we will use in FVD will be.
Overlays in FVD repeat every 440 meters, so we need to scale the image to be 440 meters in length and height using the ratio we have calculated.
To do this, there is a simple equation i use every time i make an overlay and it is: 440/ratio = pixels
ratio being the 0.54644808743 we calculated, and pixels being the size of the FVD overlay.
So when we input our values we get: 440/0.54644808743 = 805.200000002
Now we know how big the overlay needs to be!
Since you cant have a fraction of a pixel, just round off the decimal so we end up with 805 pixels total.
With this new found info, we can create a new blank image that is 805 pixels by 805 pixels
Now just paste the image you saved from google earth onto this blank canvas
If the original image is larger than the new one and you are using paint.net you should get this popup message:
Just click keep canvas size and continue to paste the image into the blank one.
In order to fit the whole area into the new canvas, you might need to rotate and move it until its all inside the canvas. If you cant manage to make it fit, then the area is just too big to make into a functional overlay in FVD.
As you can see, I was barely able to squeeze this area into the canvas
Now that you have created your new overlay, just save the image as a .png file, launch FVD++ and find the ground texture option that is located on the first screen when you start the program up.
Click browse and find the overlay you created and start making your ride!
(StragigaDiveinator 405 by asianguruu)