Interesting anomalies

mongoose

mongoose

SOH-CM-2023
While testing some landing spawns in ETO and Clive's BoB, both with shaders30, I noted some interesting anomalies.

Ghost building in ETO starting scene. I have mentioned this before.

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and with the BoB install all these 'boxes' of trees. The boxes disappear when closer. :dizzy:

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For the ghost buildings, are you in MAW? Could be a mirage...

Never seen that, but the square trees are something I get all the time as well. No idea why, but it's possibly linked to having different scenery sheets in the install, or something.
 
Back to this/ taking screenshots from the same airbase; Hawkinge: in BoB and ETO Era 2 installs, both on the runway and at 2,500 ft., I am getting different issues. Both have Shaders 30 and AFAIK the same tree textures and relevant buildings. So where is the issue?

Runway.

BOB tress messed up but buildings good.
ETO trees good but issues with 'ghost' buildings in the QC UI.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/2u96sa64bqs3p7e/BoB Hawkinge.png#
http://www.mediafire.com/view/uqgx9f3s0h8jkcj/ETO Hawkinge.png#

2,500 ft

BOB 'box' trees at a distance which morph into regular tree closer up.
ETO no such issue.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/sykl8h0pgjm1v8a/BoB Hawkinge 2500ft.png#
http://www.mediafire.com/view/797f79n23xfgtek/ETO Hawkinge 2500ft.png#
 
Facility brightness was a new function added for WOTR. Did you import the d3d8.dll from that version into CFS3?

FacilityBrightness works as a multiplier for diffuse color of building.So if you have a texture pixel with RGB value = 200 and FacilityBrightness = 0.8 the result will appear as if RGB value was 200 * 0.8 = 160. It can also make objects brighter if you use value >1.0.
The problem is that it also multiplies the alpha channel, which it shouldn’t do.
I will soon make a new build with this bug fixed and maybe with the ability to adjust reflection resolution.



Andrey.
Click to expand...
 
Not AFAIK but I'll put the CFS3 2latest dll in and see.

LATER. No It's the same as in my other installs which wouldn't have anything from WOTR.
 
There is a fix for this on the way. Hang tight and don't change anything and you'll be back to normal as soon as the next update of the shaders is out.
 
Hi James, I think your scenerysheet.dds is messed up a bit in your Bob install - would give corrupted trees like that.

There is another long-standing issue with trees - if you look at a typical .sm file for a tree, you will find that there are lo res and hi res textures specified. Hence as you fly along looking at trees, you will find that they "pop" from a low res texture to a high res texture. I think the distance is specified in the compositescenerybudgets.xml file. Trouble is, sometimes as you fly closer, the tree "pops" back to lo res! Again, I think it is when the composite scenerybudget file is messed up.

One thing I have tried doing is to edit the .sm files so as to specify only high res textures for some trees, then I would guess you can rely on LOD settings in texturebudgets xml and also LOD setting in the configoverrides file, for the look of the trees.

For trees as objects in a facility, as opposed to autogen trees, the issues would be different. No doubt MajorMagee, Ankor and others would be able to set us straight.
 
I'm interested to know how you edir an .sm file as with note++ I only see 2 readable parts! I also don't see where the dds files such as "a_c_tree02_high_win.dds" are as a search is -ve. :dizzy:
 
mongoose said:
I'm interested to know how you edir an .sm file as with note++ I only see 2 readable parts! I also don't see where the dds files such as "a_c_tree02_high_win.dds" are as a search is -ve. :dizzy:
Click to expand...

A basic hex editor will edit an .sm file. (I have hex Editor Neo and XVI32.exe) I can't remember if a change in Notepad will work. To find the textures, you need to find the two xml based files which support the scenerysheet01.dds. They are called sceneryobjects.xml and scenerysheet01.xml. Anyway what the xml files do is provide a list of names for the textures found in the scnerysheet01.dds file. The stock scenery sheet contains about 56 textures (more in ETO/BoB) and one of those will be "a_c_tree01_high_win.dds" - which is a high resolution winter texture for coniferous tree 01.

The scenery sheet is arranged with 8 textures to each row so the first 8 textures listed in scerysheet01.xml will be on the first row of the scenerysheet01.dds texture. The first row contains the texture you are looking for.
 
Thanks David for the info which is very useful in general terms as well.:applause::wavey: You have obviously delved quite deeply into CFS3 innards!
 
Well I sort the trees problem which was in both my ETO virgin install and my BoB one by copying my TOW/ETO install assets folder in full to both of those!
Still want to know more about autogen tress. They seem to just pop up in the middle of stuff; not London so much thankfully. Also how far out could one see them.
 
The autogen trees line up with features on the terrain textures. IIRC the location of the trees is set in the mos file associated with each texture? That is why when you play swapsies with textures and scenery files, you get features like a line of trees looking right out of place where they mismatch with a texture - the mos file was made for a different texture.

With so many people using Wiekniera's textures nowadays, it needs to be remembered that there are no matching mos files so his terrain looks better with the autogen turned off.
 
Daiwilletti said:
The autogen trees line up with features on the terrain textures. IIRC the location of the trees is set in the mos file associated with each texture? That is why when you play swapsies with textures and scenery files, you get features like a line of trees looking right out of place where they mismatch with a texture - the mos file was made for a different texture.

With so many people using Wiekniera's textures nowadays, it needs to be remembered that there are no matching mos files so his terrain looks better with the autogen turned off.
Click to expand...

I know Wieknierai's textures has mos files so I assume not the ones which matter to autogen trees, which would be....?
 
There's no 'autogen' as such. The positions of trees and buildings not controlled by facilities is governed by the .lso files. These start life as a black bmp version of the scenery sheets which have a white dot placed wherever you want a tree or building to appear. What the dot represents is defined in the scenery mos file and sceneryobjects.xml. They are not editable without special tools for which M$ negated to provide a working set! I do have a semi working tool which Johnno passed onto me years ago but it's a bit long winded and hit and miss to use.

To remove the autogen you would need to either remove all of the .lso files or modify the sceneryobjects file. Incidently in this file you can change the tree types or building types etc. to add a bit more variety to your landscape. I swapped a lot of coniferous trees to deciduous, for example.

While testing some landing spawns in ETO and Clive's BoB, both with shaders30, I noted some interesting anomalies.
Click to expand...

I've checked all of my installs which have or haven't got the shaders in and none show what you are seeing James! I'm guessing you've fiddled about a bit too much! :)
 
Pat Pattle said:
There's no 'autogen' as such. The positions of trees and buildings not controlled by facilities is governed by the .lso files. These start life as a black bmp version of the scenery sheets which have a white dot placed wherever you want a tree or building to appear. What the dot represents is defined in the scenery mos file and sceneryobjects.xml. They are not editable without special tools for which M$ negated to provide a working set! I do have a semi working tool which Johnno passed onto me years ago but it's a bit long winded and hit and miss to use.

To remove the autogen you would need to either remove all of the .lso files or modify the sceneryobjects file. Incidently in this file you can change the tree types or building types etc. to add a bit more variety to your landscape. I swapped a lot of coniferous trees to deciduous, for example.



I've checked all of my installs which have or haven't got the shaders in and none show what you are seeing James! I'm guessing you've fiddled about a bit too much! :)
Click to expand...

Good info Clive.:applause: As for you BoB, I take stuff from that to ETO. not the other way! :wiggle: Your update? :biggrin-new: Anyway I have solved the problem
 
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