Draw order, 'priority'?

[jgarnold]

I do hope that I have selected the correct forum to post this question.

I have searched the internet and SDK manual but cannot find what order if any polygons and aprons are 'drawn'.
For example if I create a polygon of grass material and place an apron in the middle, will the apron be drawn on top of the grassed area in MSFS?

Also what about multiple polygons which perhaps overlay each other (maybe to save adding heaps of vertexes). For example a water polygon and a 'ground' polygon. IMHO a 'water' polygon would be drawn over a 'ground' polygon. And what about polygons with different 'ground' textures?

I notice there is a PRIORITY parameter. It seems IMHO that it is used to ensure a particular polygon gets 'priority' over others (it is blank by default). And if it is set to say '1' then it will be drawn 'over the top of' polygons with either a blank priority or a higher number priority?

Is there a document which contains this information?

Also is there any documentation on how to create sloping ground not using terraforming. In FSX it was possible to enter the elevation/altitude of each vertex in a polygon?

 

[GaryGB]

I do hope that I have selected the correct forum to post this question.

I have searched the internet and SDK manual but cannot find what order if any polygons and aprons are 'drawn'.
For example if I create a polygon of grass material and place an apron in the middle, will the apron be drawn on top of the grassed area in MSFS?

Also what about multiple polygons which perhaps overlay each other (maybe to save adding heaps of vertexes). For example a water polygon and a 'ground' polygon. IMHO a 'water' polygon would be drawn over a 'ground' polygon. And what about polygons with different 'ground' textures?

I notice there is a PRIORITY parameter. It seems IMHO that it is used to ensure a particular polygon gets 'priority' over others (it is blank by default). And if it is set to say '1' then it will be drawn 'over the top of' polygons with either a blank priority or a higher number priority?

Is there a document which contains this information?

Hi John:

Regarding terrain object "Priority", this might be a place to start:

https://docs.flightsimulator.com/html/Introduction/Introduction.htm?rhsearch=PRIORITY

Also is there any documentation on how to create sloping ground not using terraforming. In FSX it was possible to enter the elevation/altitude of each vertex in a polygon?

Regarding sloped polygons, this may still merit consideration as a workflow to test:

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...togen-buildings-be-changed.456616/post-911758

GaryGB

 

[jgarnold]

Regarding terrain object "Priority", this might be a place to start:

https://docs.flightsimulator.com/html/Introduction/Introduction.htm?rhsearch=PRIORITY

Thanks Gary
I have 'been there' searched the web page for the word 'priority' and also entered 'priority' in the search bar on that web page and also searched the 'index' and NOTHING.

 

[=rk=]

Also is there any documentation on how to create sloping ground not using terraforming. In FSX it was possible to enter the elevation/altitude of each vertex in a polygon?

Since this is _exactly_ how the terraforming tool creates sloped polygons; no, there is no documentation on "other" sloped polygons that are not made using the provided DevMode tools.

 

[jgarnold]

Thanks Rick. I am having all sorts of issues using a terraforming polygon to achieve what I want to achieve. It appears that all the area bounded by the terraforming polygon becomes flat and the surrounding area bounded by the 'dotted' line is sloping. Is that correct? Or does the area bounded by the unbroken line retain the existing ground elevations?
If so then perhaps multiple intersecting terraforming polygons might be required to achieve a particular 'look' eg if a short falloff is required along one 'side' and a longer falloff on the opposite 'side'? I am stumbling along with this and a lot of trial and error on my part.

 

[mamu]

My two cents here

The polygon is always drawn over aprons
(Other known priorities are runways that are on top of aprons, and painted line that are on top of pretty much everything)

If you need some more controls with terraforming, the right tool is the Rectangle, you can literally paint the terrain ondulation as you wish

 

[jgarnold]

Thanks mamu
In that case (use of rectangle for terraforming and using profile editor) I think I will need to add a few rectangles to cover the irregular area I have (along a coast line etc).
I will give that a try.

 

[GaryGB]

Thanks Gary
I have 'been there' searched the web page for the word 'priority' and also entered 'priority' in the search bar on that web page and also searched the 'index' and NOTHING.

Hi John:

Sorry for the delay in attaching the screenshots I added to my 'late night' post above, ...which I edited only just this morning.

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/draw-order-priority.456755/post-912341


Are you saying you do not see the results from a query at the online MSFS Docs webpage shown above, or just via your on disk MSFS Docs version ?

If you do not see the results shown above from a query of your on disk MSFS Docs version, it may not be installed properly and/or is missing content.

If instead by "NOTHING" you refer to not finding a detailed list of examples of objects that identifies sequential top to bottom display priority, then I agree that there may be no such list to be found in the SDK Docs that identifies objects in explicit detail by name.

GaryGB

 

[GaryGB]

I am having all sorts of issues using a terraforming polygon to achieve what I want to achieve.

It appears that all the area bounded by the terraforming polygon becomes flat and the surrounding area bounded by the 'dotted' line is sloping.

Is that correct?

Or does the area bounded by the unbroken line retain the existing ground elevations?

If so then perhaps multiple intersecting terraforming polygons might be required to achieve a particular 'look' eg if a short falloff is required along one 'side' and a longer falloff on the opposite 'side'?

I am stumbling along with this and a lot of trial and error on my part.

If a single Polygon Face has its (1) "central" surface assigned an Altitude, there are still multiple "Falloff" / 'Feathering' terrain skirts outside a central Face.

The area bounded by the 'dotted' "Falloff" part of a Terraforming Polygon is the portion which will slope up/down to meet terrain or other nearby objects.

https://docs.flightsimulator.com/ht...bjects/Rectangle_Objects.htm?rhhlterm=falloff


The caveat with this type of object is that, AFAIK, MSFS SDK requires a minimum of 1 Meter horizontal extent for such Terraforming Polygon Falloff areas.

The extent of the Falloff area uses the same value for all sides of the polygon.

Thus, if multiple different extent sizes of Falloff are required, one must use multiple Terraforming Polygons.


Note that a SDK-mandated minimum value for 'Falloff' area extent may vary based on Polygon "type" (for objects that are not a Terraforming type).


Thus, use of multiple adjacent Polygons with precisely overlapping edge vertices may be required to achieve desired control over Terraforming results.

But, the Terraforming Polygons may require differing Priority layer numbers to prevent "mutual Exclusion" issues, even if they appear to render at run time on ground as a "coplanar" meta-object.

Overlapping MSFS Polygons with identical GUIDs & Priority Exclude each other, so Terraforming TINs must be single objects with multiple Faces.

https://docs.flightsimulator.com/ht...enery_Object_Definitions.htm?rhhlterm=falloff


However, you may find that a desired precision for some (most ?) terrain surfaces cannot be achieved via MSFS SDK DevMode GUI Terrforming tools.


IIRC, you have tested making and placing 3D model objects via Blender that might have originally been captured from Google Earth 3D objects.

That is a rather convoluted process, so I suggest instead that you may be able to 3D model a terrain surface for use as a MSFS sloped flatten.


Here is a proposed workflow:

Process your 3D model of a TIN terrain surface via MCX as a FS2Kx CVX vector sloped flatten BGL.

The resulting FS2Kx CVX vector sloped flatten BGL output by MCX can then be processed via CvxExtractor into a FLX*.SHP file.

The FLX*.SHP file can be Appended to SBuilderX and edited as desired.

The edited *.SHP from SBuilderX can be submitted to MSFS SDK DevMode Scenery Editor as a "primitive" Polygon.

You may then wish to assign Properties for Terraforming to the "primitive" Polygon (this adds 'missing' *.SHP "Attributes" to the object that MSFS requires).

Once Polygon Properties are added to a "primitive" Polygon, it is no longer a "primitive" Polygon, and should function normally as assigned in MSFS SDK.

GaryGB

 

[jgarnold]

Are you saying you do not see the results from a query at the online MSFS Docs webpage shown above, or just via your on disk MSFS Docs version ?

Well yes BUT when trying again this morning after a very long delay (maybe 10 seconds and when I started to consider that it it could not have found anything) it did eventually display the screenshot below which does NOT 'look' like your screen shot. I tried BOTH my disk version of the SDK documentation AND via the link you sent. Another one of those unexplainable 'things' I seem to come across which annoyed the hell out of me. The more these 'gremlins' appear the more I consider rebuilding my PC starting with a complete reformat and reinstalling from Windows up. Knowing the time that takes puts me off it.

Are you saying you do not see the results from a query at the online MSFS Docs webpage shown above, or just via your on disk MSFS Docs version ?

BOTH

If instead by "NOTHING" you refer to

Well EVENTUALLY it did display BOTH using the link AND using my ondisk SDK documentation

Thanks for the information you gave in your second reply.

[added later]
I now know about render order -
(Priority) This option sets the render priority for the projected mesh object. The default render priority is 0, which for most cases is fine. However, if you have overlapping meshes and want one to render over another one, then you will need to change this value to make it a higher or lower priority. Higher priority values will render over lower priorities, for example, a mesh with priority 1 will render over one with priority 0, which in turn will render over one with priority -1. Note that the engine cannot guarantee the render order for meshes with the same priority, so if you need something to always render over or under something else, you need to set this value.
ALSO there is a big difference as to how to search between the online 'manual' and the one on disk. With the online version one enters word in the search bar and NOTHING else.
In the SDK documentation (saved to disk) version one needs to also 'delimit' by pressing the ENTER key - if entering the word and nothing else one would sit waiting forever. Yet using either method loos exactly the same onscreen.

 

[GaryGB]

Hi again:

Indeed, sometimes the search function for the SDK Docs web page is slow.

GaryGB

 

[jgarnold]

Indeed, sometimes the search function for the SDK Docs web page is slow

AND using the search bar in the ondisk version required the ENTER key (see previous reply - 'added later')

The reason for this latest 'thread' is related to ground elevations and texturing for the area between the road and the water behind the Lighthouse pub at Sechelt where the terrain is a gentle slope from the road to the water EXCEPT the last few metres and where I added a terraform polygon, a polygon with asphalt texture and car park and I was interested in determining what order all those would be drawn as I have encountered a problem which I now think is caused by the draw order (wouldn't the polygon want to flatten the area?) (PLUS not using the rectangle polygon (with default terraforming) where 'profile' can be added which mamu suggested above). I now think that the best method is using the rectangle polygon and add a profile which I will investigate.

The default MSFS terrain here also is a gentle slope HOWEVER the contour is incorrect for the last few meters where the slope down to the water is steeper which I am trying to rectify. The only reason I am trying to modify the terrain is so that the end of my pier is at ground level instead of above it as is the case with the default MSFS terrain as well as maintaining the gentle slope from the road to the end of the pier.
It is a big learning experience and thank goodness for how Devmode redraws as polygons are added/modified to show the result.

 

[jgarnold]

FYI
I have found what I believe is a fantastic video tutorial which shows how to create sloping terrain using the 'terraforming rectangle'.
It's exactly what I want.
Creating Scenery for MSFS 2020: Terraforming and Other Things skip forward to around 27 minutes - yes it is a long video of over 44 minutes.