Paging Maskrider...

[UncleTgt]

Hopefully someone can point out my obvious error...

I've created a new background for Wake Airfield, using GavinC's excellent FSSC file as the start point.

But now I have a background bitmap that disappears as I approach it, only to reappear behind me ...

I've spent the last 2 nights fiddling with altitudes & redrawing fresh A16N flattens, but nothing seems to make it work, so I'm stumped. The screenies show the issue, it's visible in both spot view & cockpit view.

 

[Rami]

Reply...

UncleTgt,

When you get your answer, let me know; I am having the same issue with RAF Scampton from Achim's JHS_UK package.

 

[kdriver]

Hi John,

I had a similar problem with Aspelare airfield in Belgium. The only way I could fix it was to make an additional flatten for its scenery layer in the scenery.cfg file.

This is not the ideal solution but it worked. I would like to have known what was causing the problem in the first place.

Kevin

 

[MaskRider]

Hiya UT,

What is all that other sand colored texturing under the disappearing-reappearing ground texture of yours? It doesn't look like landclass texturing. Is it another ground poly trying to occupy the same space as yours?

MR

 

[UncleTgt]

Hiya UT,

What is all that other sand colored texturing under the disappearing-reappearing ground texture of yours? It doesn't look like landclass texturing. Is it another ground poly trying to occupy the same space as yours?

MR

Hi MR,

'fraid not, it's not a ground poly, just some island-specific Landclass bitmaps with patches of sandy ground amongst the greenery...

 

[MaskRider]

Hi MR,

'fraid not, it's not a ground poly, just some island-specific Landclass bitmaps with patches of sandy ground amongst the greenery...

Hiya UT,

Those patches of sandy colored ground, if they aren't part of your textpoly, definitely appear to me to be part of someone else's textpoly. When you get closer, with detail texturing active, does the sand colored ground display detail texturing.

BTW, was the island flat to begin with?

Do the airfield/runway altitude and flatten altitude match?

MR

 

[UncleTgt]

Hiya MR

The background landclass bmps are one of my specials, the sandy colouring is in the bitmap. The finished version will be less "blocky".

A16N & airfield elevations match. Even tried dropping the A16N by a couple of feet below the runway (works for issues elsewhere) but it doesn't change anything.

Wake has elevated mesh & is not flat. Last night I was using FSflatten to improve the coastline definition & began to notice that the airfield flatten (created using FSSC) appears to not have worked - in slew mode at very low level I can look across the runways & apparently see a small hillock inside the triangle formed by them. My airfield flatten should've removed that.

I'm going to reinstall FSSC & see if I get an improvement.

If that resolves the issue, blame "Windoze", as FSSC was working fine for Marcus Island (including FSSC A16N flatten) & that was less than 2 weeks ago

If not, I'll try creating a flatten using the (older) FSflatten, maybe that will work.

If that doesn't work I may just crate some runway boundaries & hardstanding using G2K instead. Not as pretty, but it's a workaround.

The other thing I've been playing around with was the visibility tags. Usually it can be left at auto, but a search on FSDeveloper mentions disappearing runway polygons in FS8 & FS9 as being influenced by "V2 distance" in the scasm code.

Now these experiments haven't worked completely yet, but increasing the visibility entry in FSSC (seems to adjust V1 in the SCASM code) does seem to influence how large the "disappeared" bit of the merged backdrop polygon is.

In summary, I still think it's an elevation/ flatten issue, I just have to find a technique that works.

 

[MaskRider]

Sounds like you are outside my comfort zone!

MR

 

[MaskRider]

PS The only other thing I can think of that might be causing it is if some stray unmasked(visible) portion of your texturewa.bmp lies outside the boundaries of your A16N flat area.

MR

 

[MaskRider]

PS The only other thing I can think of that might be causing it is if some stray unmasked(visible) portion of your texturewa.bmp lies outside the boundaries of your A16N flat area.

MR

Ho again UT.

And yes, I concur. The texpoly background needs something flat to sit on, and from what you have written, WRT there still being elevated ground between the runways, for some reason the flatten isn't happening.

I wonder if the flattens you made to define the shorelines has anything to do with it.

In the Gilberts, where all of the islands also contained elevated mesh, to give more definition to the shorelines, ie make sure they were all lying flat, I used the old "How to covert a G2K LWM bgl into an A16N Flatten" routine.

Have you ever used that method? Using that method I was able to define the shorelines and successfully use an FSSC-created A16N for the runway area. Of course I wasn't using texpolys with custom textures but still the FSSC-created flattens were working.

You start with the basic outline from the G2K _land_lwn.bgl, redraw it to create a flatten outline and then use SBuilder and AutoCoast to convert it into an A16N flatten.

Cheers,
MR

 

[MaskRider]

Here is how that method works. I forget who turned me onto this. I use it all the time

How to Convert a G2K LWM.bgl into an A16N Flatten

1. 
   [*=1]Set up an LWM poly project in G2K.
   [*=1]Make sure the FS/CFS parameter for the project is set to FS2002 in the file parameters window.
   [*=1]Make sure that the altitude value in the Polygon/Lines -> LWM tab setup window is set to 0 (zero) and that water is chosen.
   [*=1]Compile the poly.
   [*=1]Set up a new project in SBuilder.
   [*=1]Load the LWM.bgl using:
   [*=1]File -> Append -> LWM Bgl (designate path to compiled LWM.gl)
   [*=1]Export the LWM.bgl as a SBuilder SBX file using:
   [*=1]File -> Export -> SBuilder SBX (designate path to desired file location)
   [*=1]Covert exported SBX file to A16 Flatten via AutoCoast
   [*=1] Tools -> Convert SBX to A16N

Done deal.

Cheers,
MR

 

[UncleTgt]

Hi MR,

No I had never used this method to sharpen up the coastlines, thanks for the tip, must try this.. very interesting.

I was using FSFlatten to draw partial flattens, just where the water was rising towards the coastlines I had drawn. I don't think I had drawn large enough areas to interfere.

See the attached screengrabs.
I created a fresh install of FSSC to make sure that prog was working fine - no change.
I changed the A16N flatten to cover only the main runway, & not the 2 unfinished runways - interesting, showed some small hills in those areas, & the blended backdrop did not disappear in that corner when I overflew it.
I removed all gsl objects in case one of those was influencing things - no change, so not the gsl objects.
Then I removed the A16N flatten altogether & went for a drive - it looks like the land has some small hills in the airfield area, but nothing an A16N flatten shouldn't cure.
I tried creating a flatten using FSFlatten instead of FSSC - no improvement.
I removed the blended poly & drew some textured "taxiways" for the parking & refuel areas. In aircraft spot view these areas show complete, but begin to disappear as you overfly them. In top down view you can get a sense that something funky is going on with the mesh that is somehow taking priority over everything else.

So, now I'm convinced it's the mesh, maybe I now have to learn how to create a LOD9 mesh for Wake that will help to flatten the airfield area?

 

[MaskRider]

Hi MR,

No I had never used this method to sharpen up the coastlines, thanks for the tip, must try this.. very interesting.

I was using FSFlatten to draw partial flattens, just where the water was rising towards the coastlines I had drawn. I don't think I had drawn large enough areas to interfere.

....In aircraft spot view these areas show complete, but begin to disappear as you overfly them. In top down view you can get a sense that something funky is going on with the mesh that is somehow taking priority over everything else.

So, now I'm convinced it's the mesh, maybe I now have to learn how to create a LOD9 mesh for Wake that will help to flatten the airfield area?

That is very strange indeed. I can't imagine any reason why the flatten would not be affecting the mesh.

Is the mesh just Rhumba's mesh?

Is the Wake Island land bgl an LWN poly that you yourself made with G2K?

If it is then open the project in G2K and save it as wake-island-lwn-flatten.

Reopen the new project and set the settings as per above, rename the output bgl too, and then run it through the process outlined above. This will created an A16N flatten that covers the entire island- making it entirely flat. stick it in there and see if the problem disappears.

Like I said I can't imagine any reason why the mesh doesn't respond to the flattens.

Also, you might try renaming your FSSC-generated A16N flatten with a Z at the beginning of it's name, so that it will be the last thing loaded in the folder.

Either that or try putting the FSSC-generated A16N flatten into another scenery folder group that loads after the rest of the Wake scenery- sitting above it in the scenery library list and see if that forces the flatten to take priority over the mesh.makes the flatten work.

Its unlikely but it might work.

MR

 

[UncleTgt]

Hi MR,

Yes, Wake is a newly drawn G2K LWM land poly.

Thanks for the steer onto using G2K/SBuilder & CFS2Autocoast for the island A16N coastal flattens, checked the process out earlier today & it really speeds things up! Like all flattens the transition back to mesh can be a tad severe, so on smaller islands you can lose a fair bit of mesh details at the coastline, but that's better than seeing sloping water, & then spending lots of time in slew mode at very low level, creating small flattens using FSflatten...

I messed around with Wake airfield altitude some more, no real improvements so I just gave up. I drew some VTP1 polys for the hardstanding in G2K, created a blended edge line & recompiled. This will have to do for now. At least both Marcus & Wake are now ready for some GSL scenery. As an aside, Wake is as per DEC'41, complete with a seaplane runway over at Peale Island.

I may revisit later & do a 1943 version, the Japs extended the airbase, adding more bomber revetments northwards after the islands capture

 

[MaskRider]

Hi MR,

... but that's better than seeing sloping water, & then spending lots of time in slew mode at very low level, creating small flattens using FSflatten...

LOL! Yeah, what I always used to, still do in some cases, is put it in slew mode, put myself on the deck usually using the stock zero which has an on the deck altitude of around 6 feet. Then I slew along just off shore, facing the shore, in maximized cockpit view, connected to G2K via 'FSConnection'->'Show location'. I slide along til I come to a place where the water creeps up the slope and then slew in very slowly until my altitude just barely goes up. Then I back up slightly and put myself back on sea level (altitude 5.6 feet). Then I go to G2K and move the LWM poly outline out until it matches up with the my AC location. I keep doing that all the way around an island or along the bit of shoreline of interest until all creeping water is gone.

There is a lot to be said for the G2K/SBuilder/Autocoast method- creating the flatten skirt around the islands. I still use the above method to get rid of major water creep issues but for the minor stuff that happens along the shorelines of these low-lying islands the G2k/SBuilder/AutoCoast method does a more than adequate job.

Cheers,
MR

 

[UncleTgt]

MR

Getting reacquainted with these techniques is good practice for getting in the mood to tackle something bigger & more complex ...

In the meantime, I spent a bit of time today seeing if I could get JBKs Martin M130 into the sim ...

 

[MaskRider]

Hiya UT,

MR

Getting reacquainted with these techniques is good practice for getting in the mood to tackle something bigger & more complex ...

Sounds intriguing!

In the meantime, I spent a bit of time today seeing if I could get JBKs Martin M130 into the sim ...

Its looks as though you've succeeded! Looks like a winner! How many variations might we expect?

MR

 

[MaskRider]

Hi MR,

......checked the process out earlier today & it really speeds things up!

Did you try making a flatten for the island itself using the G2K/SBuilder/Autocoast method? In other words did you make a flatten for the interior part of the island- not just for the immediate offshore water and shorelines?

I was wondering if it would yield better results than anything you had tried so far.

Also, when you say you "drew some VTP1 polys for the hardstanding in G2K, created a blended edge line & recompiled" do you mean to say that you created a new blended line/shore texture for a VTP1 line poly and used that to texture a hardstand_poly_8.bgl for your hardstand_poly_7.bgl?

If so, can you send me a copy of the texture file so I can take a peek?

Is that kinda what you did to create those sandy splotches?

Cheers,
MR