UncleTgt Solomons early 43

[UncleTgt]

Hiede,

I had a good look at the screengrabs on my laptop. I've no idea what those objects are, but they look like ships derricks to me. Not an object I've made, or come across before.

Does anyone recognise these - I even trawled through the PHP2 scenery objects (not in my 87 Days install) but didn't find anything that looks like this.

However, rather than waste time trying to identify some old object, I decided to build on Kevin's hunch it's an object GUID conflict.
Rather than try to pin down what these items might be, I looked at the gsl object listing for Kukum. In the gsl I put 2 pairs of inf_belltent_grn_UT on the right hand side of the runway. Two are close to the takeoff point, & a second pair about 1/3 of the way down the runway. Based on those screengrabs this looks like it might be a good match for the location of those derrick objects (altitude difference excepted)?

Seeing as I created these small tent objects, I fired up GMax & recompiled the object once more, using a different GUID number.

Put the attached bgl in your CFS2/SCENEDB/inf/scenery folder & allow it to overwrite the one that's already there.

Launch CFS2 & try that mission again. Hopefully the GUID conflict has been fixed, & it should work OK.

 

[kdriver]

John,

I disassembled the two offending Henderson flattens and it appears they either overlap or are very close together with a 9 metre height differential.

Kev

 

[UncleTgt]

Kev,

I misremembered that they were at the same altitude & on a single bitmap. I think I got confused with Maskriders versions.

Looking at the Airbases.dat info, Kurt's Henderson is at 26ft altitude, & Fighter 1 is at 55ft. Difference is 29ft, which will be noticeable if the background bitmaps lie close to, or even overlap each other.

It's part of the reason I did the '43late taxiway between them as a vtp poly pathway (although I had Henderson at 24ft & Fighter 1 at 15ft, a 9ft slope instead of 29ft, & sloping down to Fighter 1 instead of up towards it).

TBH I'm not sure if anyone has the appetite for revising the '42 Fields - it would mean revising "87 Days" missions (again), but also impact upon Skylane's Guadacanal work from the Jap side.

You could try improving the flatten using FSFlatten - to use just put your plane in MAP VIEW & use Slew to draw the polygon needed.

BUT, as the height difference is nearly 30ft, & the blended bitmaps are so close to each other, I think you'll probably create display problems with Fighter 1 bitmap as the A16N blend encroaches over it.

As the dip at the east end of Henderson doesn't seem to have caused anyone issues flying "87 Days" so far, I'd probably just leave it as it is...

 

[UncleTgt]

The only problem was with the LDW Trees.I had them already on the computer from years ago when Al downloaded them,but kept getting couldn't find them in the library and re-downloaded them and everything is fine now.

My son has started to fly the P-40 campaign with the new Solomons 43 scenery.It will take him some time because he is still in school,has to do homework and also has little league.

Hiede

Just in case anyone else is stumped trying to find the LDW tree library, it's linked through the saved version of Maskriders site (see top of CFS2 Discussion Forum page)

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/MaskRider2008/resources/ldw_treelib_061109.zip

 

[Hiede]

Hiede,

I had a good look at the screengrabs on my laptop. I've no idea what those objects are, but they look like ships derricks to me. Not an object I've made, or come across before.

Does anyone recognise these - I even trawled through the PHP2 scenery objects (not in my 87 Days install) but didn't find anything that looks like this.

However, rather than waste time trying to identify some old object, I decided to build on Kevin's hunch it's an object GUID conflict.
Rather than try to pin down what these items might be, I looked at the gsl object listing for Kukum. In the gsl I put 2 pairs of inf_belltent_grn_UT on the right hand side of the runway. Two are close to the takeoff point, & a second pair about 1/3 of the way down the runway. Based on those screengrabs this looks like it might be a good match for the location of those derrick objects (altitude difference excepted)?

Seeing as I created these small tent objects, I fired up GMax & recompiled the object once more, using a different GUID number.

Put the attached bgl in your CFS2/SCENEDB/inf/scenery folder & allow it to overwrite the one that's already there.

Launch CFS2 & try that mission again. Hopefully the GUID conflict has been fixed, & it should work OK.

UT

They were from ships,my son made a GSL file with them.After I read your post about this I checked it out.Once removed no more problems.
He tried just putting ships in with the mission builder and it happened again,even with different ships.He only used transports.

Hiede

 

[kdriver]

I found the problem with my setup - I had Lunga in with the 1942 scenery layer. Rather than start all over again when I installed the scenery for the various time periods, I expanded and contracted on what I already had. I didn't realise Lunga was next door to Henderson. Sorry John.

 

[Hiede]

My son started putting in the infrastructures,planes, and as he gets in the air they some seem to be above him at Kukum.

When we did the 87 days install it was into a clean install of CFS2.The Solomons was installed over this with the 87 days with the 87 days removed.Also there were no MR scenery installed.Would this have any effect on things?In free flight everything works fine.

Sorry to be such a bother,just reporting our findings.Most people may not be building missions with infrastructures and may not be noticing these things.Only one else that has mentioned anything has been Kevin.

Hiede

 

[UncleTgt]

Hiede,
Not quite correct regarding feedback. SOH member Skylane did a fair bit of testing for me as I developed the scenery - it was his desire to create missions depicting the Japanese side of "87 Days" that prompted me to expand the project as far north as Bougainville

Anyway, back to the current issue. Every object in the sim gets a GUID number, even ship models. So, if my guess at the Belltent object is correct, the bgl with the new GUID above should allow your son to place transports in Mission Builder without running into the issue.
If this works, I'll update my Objects pack accordingly.
We could help in trying to test this if we knew which ship model was being used...

 

[Hiede]

UT

The ships we've tried are the Transport_USA by Collin and the PSK_AP_1 & 2. The file you posted actually didn't do anything.Also the ships were taken out.

The issue in my last post was about infrastructure planes,vehicles and AA put around the air field.Some appear above field after takeoff at about midway down the field maybe a little further down the field.It only last for a second or 2.After getting by that point they can be seen on the ground when fly over them.

Hiede

 

[UncleTgt]

Thanks Hiede

I will check out the mdls using ModelconverterX, if I view them it will tell me the object GUIDs.

To answer your earlier question, my Solomons pack reproduced the scenery used for 87 Days completely, so installing my pack over a clean CFS2 install shouldn't give you any "87 Days" related issues.

IIRC PSK transport 1 was included in "87 Days", so I should have seen the Derrick issue whilst building Kukum. So I don't think it's transport 1.

Interesting comment about the momentary lifting of objects around the runway midpoint. That's the point I fail to see any background when viewing in Mission Builder. This suggests it's something to do with the mesh at that point, & I don't know how to fix that.

My workaround for placing objects was to make a copy of the Kukum_A16N & put it into cfs2/scenedb/runways/scenery. This was because I have all my scenery folders in a single central directory outside of the sim, & this includes Rhumbas LOD7 & LOD8 mesh.

The downside seems to be a poorer blending of the A16N flattens with the surrounding terrain when flying normally in the Sim, so I only ever did it to help with object placement.

I will take a closer look at the Kukum area when I can in the next couple of days...

 

[kdriver]

John, could the problem be the one we've both experienced where Mission Builder reverts to basic terrain when it encounters complex scenery?

Hiede, ask your son to go into settings after he has started Mission Builder and check the terrain complexity sliders are on maximum. They have a habit of resetting to minimum.

Kevin

 

[UncleTgt]

Kev,

Good suggestion.

Hiede,

Sorry I didn't find anything when I tested my install. I created a series of takeoff missions, without ships and with (see zip).

I ran each of them several times but didn't experience any issues or visual glitches.

I did check the ship models, there doesn't seem to be any GUID conflict with anything in the gsl layout at Kukum.

It's obvious from your screenshot earlier that those Derrick were from Collin's USA transport, but, as you can see from the pics, I didn't have any issues when adding Collin's model into the mission, either as static infrastructure or as a moving vessel.

Maybe the missions will help pin some difference down?

Sorry I can't be more help, but I'm out of ideas as I don't seem to be able to replicate what you're seeing...

 

[Hiede]

John, could the problem be the one we've both experienced where Mission Builder reverts to basic terrain when it encounters complex scenery?

Hiede, ask your son to go into settings after he has started Mission Builder and check the terrain complexity sliders are on maximum. They have a habit of resetting to minimum.

Kevin

Kevin

That was the answer.Only the new installs were had didn't have them set to maximum.All other installs were done by Al (Talon ) so are at least 10 years old,his Pearl Harbor install is from 2003 or 2004.

Thanks for all your help you and UT.

Hiede

 

[kdriver]

You're welcome Hiede - I'm glad it worked.

By the way, how did you go with the PDF creator?

Cheers,
Kevin

 

[Hiede]

You're welcome Hiede - I'm glad it worked.

By the way, how did you go with the PDF creator?

Cheers,
Kevin

Kevin

I haven't had a chance to work on that yet.My parents will be coming out here for awhile in June,so I have to get everything ready for that plus my daughter will be coming home from Florida also.It's going to be a busy summer.

Hiede

 

[Hiede]

UT

Are the excludes supposed to get rid of the stock scenery?I have it installed but there are both the stock airfields and yours still as scenery.Examples are-Munda,Kahali,Buka and Vila.

I looked at the readme and pretty sure it was all installed right.Maybe we missed something.

Thanks for any help.

Hiede

 

[UncleTgt]

Sounds like the 87 Days Airbase excludes layer isn't active, or is too low down the scenery library.

This layer contains all the airbase excludes, for all the different periods.

If the Runways layer is higher than this exclude layer, the stock runways will still show up.

 

[Hiede]

It was in the install and just above the runways with the Solomons excludes above that.I reversed them but no difference.

Hiede

 

[UncleTgt]

Hiede,

Check the contents of the 87 Days Airbase Excludes. If you're using the original one that came with "87 Days", it will only contain excludes for Henderson area & Rekata.

The airbase excludes in my Solomons scenery includes a lot more files...

Here's screengrabs of my 87 Days Install Scenery Library.

With it I'm able to fly Skylane's IJN Guadacanal & IJN Floatplane mission packs, as well as Captain Kurt's 87 Days revamp.

I don't see any stock fields at Munda or Kahili.

 

[UncleTgt]

I created another 87 Days install from CK's autoinstall, & just added & activated the 43erly airbases, & deactivated the 87 Days airbase layers. I did not update any other files.

I see stock runways at Munda & Kahili (incidentally, both located in the wrong place by MS...).

So far, this is the only way I've found you can display Guadacanal area fields correctly, but run into issues elsewhere.

Hope this helps.