FSX Terrain patch

Hi all,

Thanks to informations from Holger Sandmann and Luis Feliz-Tirado, I managed to decode most of lclookup.bgl. I am proposing to establish a new standard for it so as to fix a few annoying things with the way FSX displays terrain.

- Featureless white on mountains changed for snow/rock depending on slope
- Sand textures on steep slopes replaced with rocks
- Crops extending to slopes ~15 degrees steep
- etc.

You can find this modified lclookup.bgl here :
http://arnaud.clere.free.fr/FlightSimulator/fsx_lc_fix_ac.7z
(use http://www.7-zip.org/ to decompress the archive)

The archive also contains a fixed mask for snow (removes tile edges when merging snow with some other class) and modified 900/901 masks so that different classes blend without "leopard skin" effect.

I am posting here because I think modifying lclookup.bgl is a double-edged sword that can help us or harm us (scenery authors). I think fixing the above problems is worthy but I would not like to see many different versions of lclookup.bgl around. So, I would like to be sure that this version reaches a consensus among scenery authors before delivering it to a wider audience.

Also, since the mapping of textures depending on landclass/slope/polygons is so complex and touches the whole world, I would appreciate if you could test it for real and tell me about any problems encountered.

Thanks,

Arnaud Clère

An example of beautifully looking mountains using this modified lclookup.bgl

Hi Arnaud.

I'll test this over the next few days, and see if I have any problems.

Dick

Hi Dick,
I am glad someone eventually felt interested in it
Here is an Excel sheet with a synthetic view of lclookup.bgl and the proposed changes (in red). It should help people test the changes and understand what's possible by changing lclookup.bgl.
http://arnaud.clere.free.fr/FlightSimulator/lclookup.xls
Basically, starting with a LC in classes sheet, you should switch LC according to Remap type and slope (not sure in what order), then take a texture index according to region. Then look at its characteristics on the second worksheet of the document.
Cheers,
Arnaud

I have to say, the screenshot looks great! Could you maybe show a before and after shot so we can better see what's going on?

Cheers
Alun

Hi,

Mountains are uniformly white in default FSX. Rather than reloading FSX scenery a hundreds of times in order to take comparative screenshots, I encourage everyone to try it for their region and see what is improved (or not), then take a look at the Excel document to see the details of what's been changed.

Cheers,

Arnaud

Fair enough... I'll have a looksee.

Cheers
Alun

I stumbled on this thread thanks to Holger. Thanks Arnaud for your work on this. I had good success with FS9 version of lclookup mod.

One question I have is how does FSX assign texture to the FSX airport skirtings (bounds)? All texture.cfg gives is the maskclassmap. I understand from Holger that textures 139 and 140 are the ones used. I have seen instances where nearby airports have different textures.

scott s.
.

scott967 said:

One question I have is how does FSX assign texture to the FSX airport skirtings (bounds)? All texture.cfg gives is the maskclassmap. I understand from Holger that textures 139 and 140 are the ones used. I have seen instances where nearby airports have different textures.

scott s.
.

Click to expand...

I think the assignement of the airport grass textures is connected with the classes positioned in the nearby of the airports. Try to change the classes, and you will have sandy or green grass.

I guess I suspected something like that. I will have to put together a test LC and investigate some.

scott s.
.

Hi Scott,
Try and have a look at the Excel link previously given for a complete list of LC remappings. I am currently testing a few modifications of these in order to reduce the pervasing problem of irrealistic grassy AND sandy airport skirtings. These are due to two neighbour landclasses rather similar, but where the "airport" remapping will lead to two very different skirtings.
Cheers,
Arnaud

Hi Arnaud!

Very compliment for the good job about lclookup.bgl file
Only a question: I've download your package and I see that last upgrade date (first version) is end of novembre 2006; Will you have a second (most recent) upgrade of the package in next time ?
Thanks!

Hi,
Thank you for the kind words. I am still working on improving that. Especially regarding detailed comments from Holger. However, I cannot tell for sure when I will upgrade this work. I am wondering too what to do if lclookup.bgl is improved in the apparently upcoming FSX patch. May be I should tell_fs@microsoft.com and ask them...
Cheers,
Arnaud

Thanks for the ICLOOKUP.BGL. It solved my problem with trees popping up in farm fields. The pop-up textures appeared as jagged zig-zag areas or were shown with straight line borders. Very unnatural. The ICLOOKUP change greatly reduced these and now they only appear where they make sense, on real slopes.

Thanks,
Dick Boley

Changing Slope Detection - ICLOOKUP?

I really dislike the zig-zag pattern that Microsoft uses to place trees on slopes. While your ICLOOKUP makes it more tolerable I would like to experiment with it some more. My question is how can I make further changes to go higher than the 15% slope you set?
Dick Boley