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Introduction
What is SkyPick? and Why?

We’ve noticed the sky bitmap under FMS are usually pretty plain, so we started to create more dramatic sky bitmaps to replace the default for each landscape scene file (.scn). Note: The associated sky bitmap file for each .scn file is under the SKY heading in the .scn file.

But copying and renaming files became a chore when I we to manage multiple landscape scene files and sky bitmap files. SkyPick was written as a quick scene's sky bitmap manager / swapper. This way you can swap any of the sky bitmap with any other landscape scene!

Included with the distribution of SkyPick is 25 of our favorite sky bitmaps ( see the list on the right ), from puffy clouds to beautiful sunsets. Most were created from real photographs, others were computer generated sky/cloud images. Each were tweaked so they can be "tiled" seamlessly. You can add your own! (256x256 size bmp files)

Sky Package IInstallation

If you received our CD, then SkyPick is automatically installed with the additional Scenes and Models installtion (for customers who purchased the interface cable after July 8). For users who downloaded the program from our web-site, the self-extracting installation program is SkyPickInst.exe. During installation, please select the same directory as the main FMS program (default is c:\Program Files\FMS). A shortcut to SkyPick is placed on the Desktop after installation.

The additional sky bitmaps (25) will be installed into:

c:\Program Files\FMS\Landscape\Alternate\sky] folder. You can also add your own bitmaps (256x256 bmp) to this folder.

Running Screen

YES you can run SkyPick at the same time as FMS. The SkyPick screen is split into two halves:

The top half shows the listing of the available LandScape scenes (.scn files), usually located in the c:\Program Files\FMS\Landscape] folder.
The bottom half shows the available sky bitmaps for use. These bitmaps are kept in the
c:\Program Files\FMS\Landscape\Alternate\sky] folder.

Operation

Landscape Scene
There are three buttons under the Landscape Scene list: copy, scan, Directory:
copy: This button will copy your selected scene sky image to the Sky Bitmaps location (...\Landscape\Alternate\sky). The copied image file will immediately appear in the Sky Bitmap list. If the file already exists, you will be asked whether to overwrite the existing file (with the same name) or not. Since many scene designers name their sky bitmaps the same (such as sky.bmp), it is recommended for you to rename (see below) the duplicate file name to something else then copy.

scan: This is the same as copy but for all the scenes on the list.

Directory: You can change the directory of the list to other folders.

Available Sky Bitmaps

There are four buttons in the Sky Bitmaps list: assign, refresh, delete, rename.

assign: this is the most important button of the program, it will assign the highlight bitmap to the highlighted scene in the Landscape Scene list. Essentially overwriting the existing landscape sky bitmap with the selected sky bitmap. After assigning a new bitmap, just reload the scene in FMS [F3] and you should be flying under the new sky.

refresh: refresh the sky bitmaps list, handy when you are copying bitmaps from other sources using the file explorer. This will update the list and show any new files.
delete: use with caution, there's no confirmation for deletion. This will delete the highlighted sky bitmap.
rename: change the name of any bitmaps, handy when you have different sky bitmaps with the same name.