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MSFS20 Model disappears with distance

jgarnold

jgarnold

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I have created a simple model of a marine navigation beacon with an emmision color as its material (VERY simple) and added it to my MSFS project, placed it with SDK and when I am close to it I can see it but as I move further away it disappears even though the size is still easily seen. I presume this is because I am not using 'lods'?
I realise that LODs relate to size on screen however another much larger model I have in the same project I can move away from to such a point that its size is so small I can barely see it yet my beacon disappears when it can still be easily seen on screen.

As the model is has very few triangles etc I feel that there is no need to bother with the modifier decimate. Is it possible to manually create copies of my .gLtf files and then simply edit the .xml file to add the necessary lod statements for the .gLtf files and if so what is the minimum number of LODs required (sorry I seem to have asked that last question before and was it 3?).
 
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When your model size (bounding box) on screen Is less than 0.5% the model Is discarded. This Is hard coded and can't be modified
Either with lods or not
Lods are used to make you model more simple for the system to handle It (by reducing polycount, material, texture size)


but

You can fool the system by elarging you model, usually throwing and underground plane into It,
So the engine thinks It Is big (because It Is!) and Will display it


I have a tutorial about that



Inviato dal mio Mi 9 Lite utilizzando Tapatalk
 
Thanks mamu. I had already doubled the model size which didn't appear to make any difference. As it is a BEACON it will only display in the dark and so the actual structure of the beacon will not be seen especially from the air. I will try a very large size.
Yes that is the tutorial I watched before posting.
 
Use the debug lod tool of the Devmode, so you can visually see the on screen size of your model
Be aware that "enlarging" stuff must be part of your mesh, if you have a mesh for the beacon and a separate mesh for the enlarge the trick won't work

Also, any scaling must be done in edit mode in Blender, not in object mode (when in object mode the scale of your mesh must be 1)

Inviato dal mio Mi 9 Lite utilizzando Tapatalk
 
Thanks again. Yes I always (try to remember to) scale my meshes to 1 in edit mode but have never checked in object mode.
I have never used the debug lod tool.
I will now redo it and create a very skinny pole with a LIGHT at the top pointing directly down and allow it to light up whatever scenery is below it. I guess the same 'limits' will be used for the area which is lit up by the light.
It's just to replicate the marine beacons which are placed at the end of breakwaters for navigation which are nowhere near as large as a lighthouse basically a RED lamp at the top of a pole. No one would ever see it (pole) unless they want to land a floatplane on the sea nearby just to have a look.
 
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I think I have tricked MSFS.
I added a very large plane mesh to the base of my light pole (100 metres square) with an 'area' light and then placed the model in MSFS so that the plane mesh was below ground level so that it doesn't display and the top of the light pole above ground. I can now see my beacon light from a much further distance.
Is that what you were suggesting?

I also tried using a cube with 'emission' lighting which disappeared when within say 200 metres of the placed object even though I used a 100m square plane mesh.

Here is what it looks like. Probably larger and brighter than the real one.

LAKE_ILLAWARRA_BEACON.jpg
 

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Well I didn't trick MSFS. My 'light' still disappeared when I 'moved' away from the light.

HOWEVER experimenting as I do I considered Joining (select All and then CTRL J) the two mesh objects (my light and the plane) into one and THAT WORKED.
 
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