gsl weirdness

[UncleTgt]

Anyone seen this issue adding gsl objects:-

Whilst working on my New Britain project, I added some "eye candy" gsl to the gob containing the gsl objects for Rapopo & Tobera. It contains one of Usio's lighthouses, which is the only "unusual" object.

I added several more villages, got half way round New Briatin, then for a rest I chose a Free Flight from Tobera -

Disaster! Although all the gsl objects are there, the blended airfield bitmap does not show!

I tried unloading/ reloading scenery, copy + paste of new copies of the bgl & bitmaps.

I have 700gobs in the cfs 2 gsl, approx 15000 objects.

At the moment I'm retracing my steps, but

Does anyone know what might be causing the trouble? Have I simply added too much gsl?

I will try eliminating the lighthouse & report back if that fixes things.

on a related subject

Steve 2112 posted about releasing some euro style lighthouses

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforu...ghthouse-For-CFS2-Pre-Release-Beta-Announced…

was this ever finished & uploaded?

 

[kelticheart]

Probably it's mesh-related

Hi UncleTgt!

I do remember reading here there's a very precise object limit a cfs2.gsl file can handle, now I don't remember it off the top of my head, but I strongly suspect that 15,000 is a tad too much.
This is the reason why I am fractioning further my CFS2 install down to specific action areas, with smaller gsl files and less aircrafts/ship/object_dps.

But I also encoutered a similar problem while dressing up Gary20's BoB airfields and Achim's ETO sceneries, which I found depended upon Rhumba's new mesh files.

When a given area was free of objects, or limited within the airport borderline, everything was fine. When I started adding houses, bridges over streams, trees and such eye candies, getting away from the strict airport scenery, the blended airfield texture started being eaten up by the mesh, partially or totally. As if the necessity to display objects sitting on top of the mesh somehow voided the built-in flatness of the addon scenery.

Two actions resolved the issue: a) going back to the stock mesh files, which I hated doing, b) creating what Rhumba called a "sledgehammer cure", that is a flatten switch in the scenery.cfg file, flattening all of the airport area and surroundings to the height indicated by the scenery designer. In the second case, the scenery blended texture reappeared again and I also avoided strange things like aircrafts dropping down or hopping up the runways when taxiing around. I can live with the "meteor crater" appearance sometime the scenery takes.

Rhumba always said that a proper mesh correction should be performed within the scenery *.bgl file instead, but this is far away from my CFS2 skills. I hope this helps you somewhat.

Cheers!
KH :ernae:

 

[Rami]

Reply...

Kelti,

I don't think the number is that low....both ETO installs of mine have GSL files with 35,000 to 36,000 objects when you include the airfields, Ettico's EuroTargets, and my GSL work with no ill effects.

UncleTgt,

I have seen this before...one of Achim's bases in England (Scampton) has this issue...and it's strange, because the bitmap does show up as you take off and work your way out from the airfield, but as you approach for landing, the bitmap disappears. Is that what you are encountering? It might very well be GSL related.

I'll ask Achim and see if he can shed some light on this for you.

 

[UncleTgt]

Hi Rami,

No it's not that type of issue. Vunakanau exhibits this issue, but it's quite a large airbase for a single bitmap, so I think it's related to size/ object visibility.

Tobera & Rapopo are quite small, tidy airbases in comparison. I had no issues at all whilst placing the airbase gsl, it's only happened since I started adding the off-base eye candy gsl.

It might be processor + OS related, in that I'm using a 7 year old XP system with only 1mB RAM (I like designing for low end systems), & the relevant gob is now "busy" (but nowhere near 4096 objects per gob limit Martin Wright alludes to).

It's like Kelti has experienced. I already have A16N flattens & really don't like the idea of flatten switches. I may just have to back off with the surrounding non-airbase gsl.

 

[Rami]

Reply...

Achim,

Sorry, I was about to fire off the e-mail, but it looks like you beat me to it!

 

[Shessi]

Hi UT,
Get another gig of RAM in there! I know XP will run happily on 512Mb (even 256Mb!), but CFS2 is a processor based sim, and therefore RAM dependant. You WILL see an improvement with another gig of RAM, especially with intensive scenery. For best effect get a matched stick ie make, amount and timings, to the original. No point on going over 3GB as the most XP will see is 3.25GB (and no to putting in 4GB, even though it will only see 3.25GB, as this can cause problems). If you do your painting on the same pc, again you will see a difference when using paint prog.

Having said that, I have to agree though, I don't think it is the above in total. I think it is the size, visibility distance and maybe height (is the flatten too low or not low enough?).

Cheers

Shessi

 

[UncleTgt]

panic over - operator error

All is as it should be. (see pic)

The source of the problem was operator error.

I had added a mission builder layout that contained the same airbase objects twice, saved under different layout names. Interestingly, it was only when I exported & gobchecked all of the adjacent gobs that I found the object overlap - it allowed me to save the same objects in 2 separate gobs!

Lesson - always gobcheck each layout before adding to the cfs2 gsl, & manage the active .lay files better!:redf:

for info: Current gsl total: 770 gobs, 16236 objects (pacific & CBI only)