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Ground Poly Wizard - layers

Horst18519

Horst18519

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Hello Arno, got a question about MCX' ground poly wizard.
I used it before without issues, but suddenly I get flickering textures on my ground polys. When I checked the correct settings and layers I found that the layer is not saved to the ASM file.

Shouldn't the asm file look like this after tweaking?
OBJECT_0_START label word
IFIN1 OBJECT_0_FAIL, image_complex, 2, 32767
ADDCAT OBJECT_0_SCALE, 14
Click to expand...

Instead the layer "ifin" is missing and the unwanted shadow option is included in the file after processing withthe wizard:
OBJECT_0_START label word
ADDOBJ OBJECT_0_SCALE
SHADOW_CALL OBJECT_0_SCALE
Click to expand...

My assigned layers (10 and 12) were not saved into the file, thus making both layers flicker.

Maybe a problem with the latest MCX release or a user error?
 
Only just realised that MCX does not save the ASM files, just the new BGL. Arno, could you please include the "keep files" option in the ground poly wizard? I'd like to keep control of how the files look after tweaking.
 
Hi Thorsten,

You can keep the sources of the ground polygon wizard, but it is not an ASM file. It is a SCASM file. See the options.

The wizard reads your object and then creates the ground polygons as SCASM commands. This is using exactly the same commands as used by the FS2002 gamepack, but SCASM code was much easier to write for me.
 
Ok, thanks. So if I need to change the layer later I can just change the layer call line in the SCA file. I guess it's also possible to process the files several times with the wizard.
...no, just realized this is a bad idea as the 100m slicing leads to duplicate slices.

Anyway, good to know it was just my bad, looks like the layering works now, maybe I just assigned duplicate layers for 2 files before. Reconsidering this I think I know the reason: I usually use layers 8, 10, 12, 14,... as I found that this works perfectly well in FS9 and FSX. But the wizard only allows 8, 12, 16, 20,... - so the 10 I entered before seems to have been replaced with 8 by the wizard. I guess I'll stick to the numbers that can be handled by the wizard then. :)
 
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No, the problem was in fact even more simple: I had used the "prevent autogen exclusion" option; that caused the flickering. I though it only affects shadows, but in fact it seems to cause general flickering, is that true? No way of keeping autogen without flickering textures? :(
 
Hi Thorsten,

I thought the wizard did also allows layers that are not a multiple of four. Only when using the arrows it increases in steps of 4. But maybe I should check that.

When I tested the autogen suppression trick it only gave trouble with my shadows in FSX, not with other polygons flickering.
 
Arno, I need to come back to this topic. It seems I can't get the "prevent autogen exclusion" to work, I always get flickering textures. From the description I expected that only shadows casted on the poly would flicker, but the polys/textures itself flickers, just like if you didn't use the 100m slicing (which I did).
Did you have any success with this option?
 
Hi Thorsten,

Yes, I did use the feature without problems yesterday on a scenery I was working on.

I should say I only have one layer in that project, so not sure if that influences things. In that project even the shadow did not flicker (yet).
 
I will have to try it with one layer. I tried it yesterday to only use the option on some layers, but the interesting thing is that in that case even those layers that don't use the option flicker. So it might be something that happens to all layers as soon as you use several layers.
 
Ok, I think the issue is related to a habit of mine: I always use different bgl files for all layers, something that is not necessary with the wizard anymore (if it was ever). Including all my layers in one big bgl I get rid of the flickers. I'll have to test if this solves all my problems though. Will be tough to manually tweak the sca file because for one layer I need to tweak the LM textures to use another alpha channel, not sure if I can do this with the wizard.
 
Hi Thorsten,

I guess what you were seeing was that the reference point of each BGL was slightly different. The wizard puts it in the center of the polygons. So then with the curve of the earth I think your polygons were all a bit misaligned with each other.

Not sure if I understand you issue with the LM alpha channel. What kind of tweaking you need to do there?
 
Probably, but it works now.

For that extra layer I need a tweak (described that some time ago in the asm forum) that enables me to use different alpha channels for the ambient and diffuse texture. For this I tweaked the asm to jump to different labels depending on time of day. Is that possible with the wizard?
 
Hi Thorsten,

Do you have the thread with the tweak? I would like to see the code changes.

Probably you can achieve the same result by tweaking the SCASM file made by the wizard. I don't think the wizard can do it directly (but maybe I can add it).
 
Hi,

I see, those tweaks should be possible in the sca file as well. But the wizard can not do them for you at the moment.

What reason do you have to switch? It might be a good extension of the wizard.
 
You know how night lighting is still a problem in FSX with the lofted lines usually blending above their ground layer, making them too dark at night. I try to use an overlay for the lights that is only visible from dusk til dawn, so I need to use different textures for diffuse and ambient with different alpha channels (diffuse= transparent).
 
EDIT: Scratch that. It seems opening the BGL in MCX shows flickering, but it appears in FSX quite fine. Weird.

Was a solution to the layering problem above ever found?

I too have a similar problem with the poly wizard. When I set the layers for each texture in the wizard, I note in the preview area that an offset is applied for each layer and the flickering stops.

However when I convert to BGL and reopen it in MCX the flickering is again present and I notice that the ZBias is set back to zero.

Any solution?
 
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Like you found out, it is more an issue of the preview. It is not really designed to display the ground polygon bgl files correctly. I might be able to change it a bit, so they are shown better.
 
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