Ground Poly not loading or displaying

[Aviasim]

First a bit of background - I have modelled ground polys since day 1 many years ago - so I am more than firmiliar with the process - the way I export and place ground polys have not changed at all.

The problem:


I created a ground poly for a test project we are working on - I started with just the runway with the same dimensions as displayed in AFX and exported at the same co-ordinates. Not visible at all.
I have checked and double checked everything, scale, co-ordinates and all are matching to what it suppose to - I even exported a test cube and that displays fine. However, the ground poly does not.

After trying for many hours to figure out what could be going wrong - I decided to just start a new 3ds max scene - merged in my runway poly and exported - this was visible. I then tweaked the same runway poly in 3ds and exported a number of times to get the positioning lined up to the photoscenery - I didn't have any issues what so ever. Upon completing the position - I then went ahead and drawn the rest of the ground poly - I applied a base FSX material and exported ..... not displaying in the sim! no shadows nothing - I opened the BGL in MCX to check the placement info and it was where it should be - just invisible (or not loaded).

I tried the little trick I done before by making a new 3ds max scene, merging in my ground poly and exporting - still not visible/loaded.

I then created just a simple square poly in the same scene and exported, this also wasn't visible at all - not even a shadow.

I'm completely at a loss to why the hell it's doing this, it's extremely annoying.

I have added a large flatten which is the exact same altitude as the AFCAD - I tried exporting the GP at both AGL 0M and ASL 89.48M it made no difference, and actually the simple runway poly that worked earlier for me was exported to AGL 0M every time and no issue.

 

[Aviasim]

Follow Up:

I placed the ground poly as a normal object without going through the Ground Poly Wizard - this displays exactly where expected.

So I suspect the problem is possibly with MCX @arno ????

 

[arno]

Hi,

Which format are you using in the GPW? You should always enter the exact altitude there, not zero, to get the right earth curve.

 

[Aviasim]

Hi,

Which format are you using in the GPW? You should always enter the exact altitude there, not zero, to get the right earth curve.

As mentioned - so far this had no bearing on my result - it worked literally 5 minutes before with the altitude at AGL 0.

Also - I have just exported using the Latest Stable Version of MCX and it is displaying fine - again the alt is AGL 0 - I will change it later for more accuracy but the big point is that it works.

This makes me think the problem is with the latest dev release of MCX.

 

[arno]

You don't really answer the question, which settings you use in the GPW?

The stable release is so many years old that it lacks P3D support and many such things.

 

[Aviasim]

You don't really answer the question, which settings you use in the GPW?

The stable release is so many years old that it lacks P3D support and many such things.

I just find it strange that the stable version works for me - I am testing in FSX by the way.

Again - I did get the runway poly to appear using these exact setting just moments before :s

 

[arno]

And if you load back the bgl that doesn't show in MCX do all polygons show fine in MCX?

The settings look normal.

 

[Aviasim]

And if you load back the bgl that doesn't show in MCX do all polygons show fine in MCX?

The settings look normal.

Yeah, all looks good in MCX when loading the compiled BGL....

 

[arno]

Is it completely untextured? FSX sometimes has trouble showing such objects, I have seen that before.

 

[Aviasim]

Is it completely untextured? FSX sometimes has trouble showing such objects, I have seen that before.

It is - but again so was my test which was successful.
I wouldn't think this since exporting it just as an object with no texture does display - I have always applied a blank material to ground polys when matching up scale - never had an issue until now.

I did apply an actual texture but again - nothing.

Please, just fix the GPW. It worked fine for me until the previous updates. It is the GPW I assure you.

 

[arno]

How can I fix it if I don't know yet what is going wrong? That's what we try to figure out now.

 

[arno]

Do you always use 90 km as visibility range? That value might be a bit high.

 

[Aviasim]

How can I fix it if I don't know yet what is going wrong? That's what we try to figure out now.

It just seems you are trying to point the finger at me for doing something wrong, don't mean to sound rude but I said I have been doing ground polys the exact same way since day 1 - all the values etc I use don't change aside from lat/lon...NOTHING has changed other than recently updating the latest dev release of MCX and everything worked the way I do it right up until that point - I don't know what else to say or do I have tried everything and I'm 110% confident the issue is not on my end. This is glaringly obvious at the fact when the poly is exported via GPW it doesn't show at all - but when it's placed as a normal object it shows exactly how I expect it. Plus the fact it works when exporting through the stable release version, again, appearing exactly how expected.

Always used 90km just personal preference as I don't like how the GP pops in and out of view. Never had an issue with this though.

I'll just have to use the stable release version - for whatever reason, that's working better for me now than the LDR version

 

[arno]

If you don't provide any more information than "it does not work" how do you expect me to find what is wrong and fix it?

The GPW is not structurally broken, else I would have heard from many more developers.

So it must be something in combination with your files. So you'll have to help me to find what is wrong.

 

[Aviasim]

Well - I didn't just want to give up on the LDR version of MCX - I gave it one last try.

It worked!!

I done absolutely nothing, just gave up until now - exported the same untextured model out of max, processed it via GPW and it works. Which now leads me to believe, could my system load have screwed up the conversion process due to high memory usage or something? when I was trying earlier I left FSX open, as well as 3ds, chrome with 4 tabs and photoshop - now I only had chrome open. Not sure if this is anything to do with it but heck - it wasn't working then but it is now and I done nothing...very odd!

Thinking about it though, I do recall other times in the past where my exporters would suddenly give me a crap load of errors and throw me a corrupted file but has worked again without changing anything.

 

[arno]

Hi,

Glad to hear it worked. If you have FSX open the bgl file you try to export might be locked because it is in use. I don't think memory load should have a big impact, it will just make the conversion slower.

 

[=rk=]

It is - but again so was my test which was successful.
I wouldn't think this since exporting it just as an object with no texture does display - I have always applied a blank material to ground polys when matching up scale - never had an issue until now.

I did apply an actual texture but again - nothing.

Please, just fix the GPW. It worked fine for me until the previous updates. It is the GPW I assure you.

I might be misunderstanding this, because polygons that are not textured, or assigned a material color, will not render. Now if by "blank," you mean "white," that will work. If by blank, you mean transparent, that will not work, the polygons will not render.

Well - I didn't just want to give up on the LDR version of MCX - I gave it one last try.

It worked!!

I done absolutely nothing, just gave up until now - exported the same untextured model out of max, processed it via GPW and it works. Which now leads me to believe, could my system load have screwed up the conversion process due to high memory usage or something? when I was trying earlier I left FSX open, as well as 3ds, chrome with 4 tabs and photoshop - now I only had chrome open. Not sure if this is anything to do with it but heck - it wasn't working then but it is now and I done nothing...very odd!

Thinking about it though, I do recall other times in the past where my exporters would suddenly give me a crap load of errors and throw me a corrupted file but has worked again without changing anything.

Not high memory usage, but almost certainly excessive resource consumption, which suggests impending card failure, could be your culprit.
In my own experience, I have endured three video card failures, that manifested themselves during 3d sessions and/or YouTube binges. I'm actually in the midst of the third. This card was damaged by a defective power supply, which also got the previous card. On one occasion, I had a slew of videos paused, maybe 10 or 15 and my entire display, desktop included, dissolved into some weird corrupted pixelation. It was very unsettling - and yes, the presence of odd little video ghosts; individual textures that won't render, or things that disappear, funky pixels here and there, is one of the first signs that it's time to start shopping for a card.
So you've got four YouTubes running, your 3ds Max is trying to render out a scene and over in FSX, you have this already impossible to render polygon that sometimes shows up and sometimes doesn't. To me (with my experience with low budget, sold-before-it-died video cards), this does not seem very odd at all. Not to point any fingers, but ya.