• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

P3D v3 Flickering with ground poly

Guys. I do not know what to do. One day I have a major flickering problem, the next I do not.

Video here:https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8fS5h-V-IZBUVowNlFRdFlYd1E

Facts:
I have "No Z Write" and "No Shadow" set correctly under each material in 3dsmax

My Ground Poly with HD textures is on one .BGL file and my Taxiways & Taxilines are on another.

They both have values that are separated by multiples of 4

P3D V3.2

I have a Flatten "CVX"

I follow the guide exactly! Is anyone else having this issue
 
There are three concrete polygons with the same zbias values of -6, try to assign different zvalues to those polygons.

Regards
 
So today I will be testing the new SDK. 3.3.5.

It says here:
  • Fixed custom z bias scenery flickering issues including runways and runway markings
I'll let you know how it goes.

EDIT

Flickering still exists.

I did some brainstorming. Why is it only this one texture that's flickering? My textures are nearly identical, same alpha, same bumps, and specs but just a lighter concrete texture. I did more thinking, what if I changed the texture out. Now it works. ZERO flickering.

My zbias are all separated by even -'s
 
Last edited:
So today I will be testing the new SDK. 3.3.5.

It says here:
  • Fixed custom z bias scenery flickering issues including runways and runway markings
I'll let you know how it goes.

EDIT

Flickering still exists.

I did some brainstorming. Why is it only this one texture that's flickering? My textures are nearly identical, same alpha, same bumps, and specs but just a lighter concrete texture. I did more thinking, what if I changed the texture out. Now it works. ZERO flickering.

My zbias are all separated by even -'s
What did you do solve your flickering problem?

Regards
Alfredo Mendiola Loyola
 
What did you do solve your flickering problem?

Regards
Alfredo Mendiola Loyola


I assume I had a rogue texture, once I removed it and changed the name of the material from "IWA_Concrete" to "IWA_ConcreteLight" that seemed to fix it. I can't explain it.

Other than that the Zbias seems to work perfectly now. I have my Photo layer ground poly at -4 ZBias on a separate BGL and I have my taxiways and runways on another BGL with corresponding materials like taxiways -8 runways -12 Taxiways lines -16 and so on and so on. Make sure you have "No Z Write" and "No Shadow" checked.
 
Last edited:
Did you have to manually change those No Z Write and No shadow material options? If so, I would have to change the GPW to set these automatically.
 
Hey Arno, correct me if i m wrong but shouldn't MCX be reading the z-bias values in reverse? For example, if i load a ground poly BGL into MCX, the z-bias values are exact copies of the layer numbers which are stored in the BGL, ie 4-8-12..etc..But z-bias works the opposite way, ie those layer numbers should be translated with a (-) sign in front no?
 
Last edited:
H
Did you have to manually change those No Z Write and No shadow material options? If so, I would have to change the GPW to set these automatically.

Hi Arno. I changed my values in 3DSmax, so I wouldn't have to change them all the time I export to a BGL.
 
Hey Arno, correct me if i m wrong but shouldn't MCX be reading the z-bias values in reverse? For example, if i load a ground poly BGL into MCX, the z-bias values are exact copies of the layer numbers which are stored in the BGL, ie 4-8-12..etc..But z-bias works the opposite way, ie those layer numbers should be translated with a (-) sign in front no?

With his latest development release it correctly shows the ZBias level in negatives.
 
I changed my values in 3DSmax, so I wouldn't have to change them all the time I export to a BGL.

Let me check if that works OK, since I'm not sure if the GPW makes a new material or not :).
 
Hey Arno, correct me if i m wrong but shouldn't MCX be reading the z-bias values in reverse? For example, if i load a ground poly BGL into MCX, the z-bias values are exact copies of the layer numbers which are stored in the BGL, ie 4-8-12..etc..But z-bias works the opposite way, ie those layer numbers should be translated with a (-) sign in front no?

I'm not sure. When reading a FS2002 style BGL the layer numbers end up in the ZBias material property. For FS2004 MDL and FSX MDL these values are also used and should remain positive.

Until now I have always used positive values for P3D MDL files as well and that seems to work. So I'm not sure a minus sign always needs to be added. For now I made it possible in the GUI to make it minus, but I'll leave it to the developer to choose what value he wants to use (either positive or negative).
 
Thanks Arno, i know it's possible to give zbias a negative value; what i was thinking is if MCX would automatically assign that minus sign in front of zbias value when reading a fs2k poly, which would save some time i guess.
Currently, when fs2k poly bgl files are loaded into mcx the zbias values are not negative (after installing last night's dev release)

Or have i got this totally wrong and there is a P3D ground export option in the GPW which takes care of that and i have missed it? :)
 
Adding the minus only makes sense for P3D output and not for FSX or FS2004 output. So for sure it can't be done automatically on import.

Maybe I can implement it that the zbias is made negative when exporting to P3D when it is not yet negative.
 
What I'm finding is that the actual layer numbers in the GP wizard appear to be ignored and whatever is selected as the default layer number in options is what I get for a z-bias value on all materials.

EDIT: Also doesn't seem to be setting noshadow or nozwrite. Here is my GP model and the .mgp I'm trying to use, once exported to .bgl and opened back up in MCX ORBX_65S_APRONS_BASE for example has a z-bias of -2 (my default setting) where it's defined as -1 in the .mgp. Using the latest MCX dev version, 6/9/2016.

http://www.cat-tamer.com/flightsim/atchmnts/gpw_example.zip
 
Last edited:
Hi all,

I have made some small changes to the GPW tonight. The NoZWrite and NoShadow material options are now set by the wizard. And when exporting to P3D it is made sure that the ZBias values are negative (else they are inverted).

The changes will be in the next development release. Hopefully this should make it easier to create ground polygons for P3D.
 
Back
Top