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FSX ADE 160.4886 beta flatten and .alt problems

robystar

robystar

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5,214
Hi Jon,

Sorry to be a pain in the wherever you want it:).
If you followed the 0.0.42 thread, you must have noticed the problems with a.o. NSTU.
Now, NSTU is an airport made with ADE 155 with an alt.bgl in the world scenery, a bunch of flattens and another flatten (for the two lakes at still another level) in a seperate folder.
I imported this airport with ADE 160, added some ground polys and saved and compiled as an NSTU_test.bgl.
The ground polys only show up at a certain zoom level in topdown view.
I noticed that the alt.bgl was not updated. I backed it up and had ADE 160 make a new one. It did not and some of the flattens are missing (hence George's weird looking screenshots and now mine).

nstuflattenproblem.jpg


I have also problems still with DA16 where several flattens are present.
At other airports with just one flatten I do not have any problems.
Could you shed some light on this please?

Roby
 
So if you remove ALL the files created by ADE for this airport in FSX and compile it again with 1.55 can you confirm that you do not have these problems?

Now remove ALL the created files again and try the project in 1.60 - do the problems now exist. Do this without any GPs. I just want to know if the flattens are badly compiled by 1.60?

Also when you load the project does the title in 1.60 contain *Revised Alt*
 
BTW I can't see a copy of your NTSU project anywhere.......
 
Does DA16 exhibit these problems? If so I see a lot of new airport backgrounds in the file but no exclusion of the default background - I do not know if there should be one.

FABS does not contain any terrain polys so I assume that is not involved in this?
 
Hi Jon,

I can confirm it compiles fine in ADE 155.
No, ADE 160 does not show revised altitude in red.
I took out the gpolys and compiled again with ADE 160. Same (erroneous) result.
I did not remove anything but changed the .bgl extension to .bak but I suppose that is OK.
My NSTU test ad3 can be downloaded here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t3jm8kpx906bq7t/NSTU_ADEX_RStest.zip
I do not have a new alt.bgl (as 160 does not generate it) so I attach the old one here.
 

Attachments

I'll check it.

So for the avoidance of doubt. you have:
  • Cleared all the bgl files created for this airport from FSX including the alt file and recompiled with 1.55. Everything is OK?
  • Cleared all the Bgl files you just created including the alt file and compiled in 1.60. This results in the error but no Alt file is created
  • If you put the old alt file back in after the 1.60 compile is the problem solved?

If no alt file is created then this is going to cause height problems. Presumably your flattens are at you new airport reference altitude?
 
I really need the project file you are using in 1.55. Clearly the one you refer to will not load since it contains a GP Poly and 1.55 will probably throw an exception.

What I do see in this file is that ADE does not think this has a revised altitude. I need to confirm that 1.60 is somehow stripping that information.
 
In the meantime I made a simple test. I opened an airport in 1.55, added an airport background (which is by default at the reference altitude).

I changed the airport altitude and ADE reports the revised altitude (which is now different than the flatten I just created)

I then created a new airport background poly - this by default is at the new airport reference altitude. So I have one flatten at the old altitude and one at the new.

I saved this in 1.55 and opened in it 1.60. ADE 1.60 reports the revised altitude in the title and shows that changed altitude for the airport.

I saved the file in 1.60 and reloaded it. The revised altitude is still present and the flatten altitudes are unchanged.

Finally I compiled the airport with 1.60. The Alt file was created.

Also to be sure I tried to load the 1.60 file with the GPPoly back into 1.55. An error message is displayed and I can't load the airport. The error message is not greatly helpful but it means that ADE 1.55 encountered an unknown element in the project file (the GP Poly) and could not load the file

So far then I cannot lose the revised altitude.....


I then added a GP Poly and resaved and reloaded. Again the flattens and revised altitude are present.
 
Hi Jon,

- I used the old alt.bgl
I just found out that 155.4860 does not seem to keep the revised alt info either.
I send you one I made on 23/2 (with the previous version of 155).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mfn0dwn2ahsnqm9/NSTU_ADEX_RMCS8.zip
- Yes, no alt file generated, you get the effect as per my screenshot (no alt and some flattens missing) but it can be compiled of course.
- yes but gpoly do not show up.
 
I need to check the code but if for some reason you revise the airport altitude back to the stock alititude then I think ADE will cancel the revised altitude flag.

However I cannot get either 1.55 or 1.60 to lose a revised altitude.
 
OK the altitude of this airport is shown as being different than stock and there is no revised altitude flag set. However I changed this by .01 and there is now a revised alt flag that I cannot get to go at the moment.

The other thing to be aware of is that when you create an airport background poly it takes the airport reference altitude by default. If you then change the airport reference altitude then you will get a difference to old flattens but by default the new ones will be at the new reference altitude. Of course if your flattens are at a different altitude than the reference altitude then you may get unexpected results - especially if the revised altitude flag (and hence the pre-load file) are not present
 
One final thought. If you have used the Raw Data View have you by chance changed the Create Stub Flag on the Top Level Property Grid? Changing it from true to false will stop the Alt file being created. It probably should be read only since making it false is a recipe for trouble. However if you do use RDV then just change it back to true and your revised altitude and pre-load file will be created again.
 
We crossposted.
Thank you for all the trouble, Jon.
- What I have now is an airport ported over from 155 to 160, without gp polys at a revised altitude of 9 ft (but ADE does not show it is revised) and 160 does not seem to be able to generate a new alt.bgl. So...
- I change back the altitude to 32 ft in 155 and now ADE 155.4860 reports a revised altitude!
- I change it back again to 9 ft.
- I compile with 155 and I now find a new alt.bgl in the world scenery.
- I load FSX and my scenery looks to be OK at 9 ft.
- I now load the scenery in 160 and 160 reports a revised alt as well.
(By the way, I cannot hide the exclusion rectangle so I deleted it to be able to add some gp polys).
- I add a gp polyline and a gp polygon save and compile (with 160).
- The polyline and polygon only show up in topdown view:mad:. The rest is OK.
This leads me at least to the idea that the rev. alt. info is lost upon porting over a workfile from an earlier version of 1.55 to 155.4860. What happens between 155.4860 and 160 I cannot fathom.
But I am still stuck with the gp poly not showing up as they should :(.
 
The only method I can find to lose the revised altitude flag is via the Raw Data View. I have tried updating from 1.50 thru 1.55 to 1.60 and the revised alt flag (which is stored in the project file) stays put :confused:

As to GP Polys etc if they float then I would suspect a problem with flattens (airport background polys in ADEX). Otherwise I have seen in a stock airport with a single poly but have not been able to see why. One thing worth checking is the GP Layer - if you have several items with the same layer and they might overlap or be close then I do not know how FS would behave.
 
Hi Jon,

You were right regarding the raw view data. It was checked 'false' in 155.
I redid the whole previously mentioned process again. The scenery is OK but no ground poly except in top down view.:mad:
And no, the ground poly do not overlap.
 
robystar said:
Hi Jon,

You were right regarding the raw view data. It was checked 'false' in 155.
I redid the whole previously mentioned process again. The scenery is OK but no ground poly except in top down view.:mad:
And no, the ground poly do not overlap.
Click to expand...

There is an issue with viewing of polys. It seems to be erratic and what works on one system seems not to work on another.

We do not have any control over the altitude of GP Objects. So the key question in my mind is what altitude does the FS graphics engine use when placing these polys. I could assume AGL but I don't think they follow the terrain.

Perhaps someone can tell us and that might help folks to manage their flattens and so on. It is also possible that the situation is different for FS9 and FSX.....
 
Roby,

Can you try compiling the attached file.

It has a revised altitude, but, after I changed the altitude I added an exclusion and airport background polygon. The airport background polygon was created at the default height so I needed to set the height manually.

Also, for the non-revised height file, I had problems seeing the GP polygon at various viewpoints :confused:

I copied the bgl files to my W7 machine and it displayed correctly :eek:

So, back to XP and a re-boot and it displayed correctly :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
Hi,

For what it is worth:

James performed the same procedure as ( :) ... ) beforementioned on the DA16 stock airport (deleted all bgl's except the obj.bgl compiled by 155) added gp polys and one flatten and compiled in 160.
Everything now shows correctly.
And once again he wondered how come this time it works,...
He then performed the same procedure as beforementioned once more but this time on his own DA16 that contains all default land and waterclasses and trees and several flattens.
Result: gp polygons show up only sometimes in spotview under a certain angle.

The common denominator between the problematic DA16 and NSTU is that they both contain various landclasses and trees and have several flattens.
 
Hi George,

It displays the ground polygon fine without having to reboot.
But I do not see any mention of a revised altitude nor do I have an exclusion or an airport background in the ad3 file you sent.
I am still on Vista, by the way.
 
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