• 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.

More issues with terrain flattens...

U

UnitedExpress4180

Messages
222
Country
us-colorado
It seems like I keep having problems with terrain flattens in ADE. This time, I've started getting an issue where I have my custom ground poly loaded in FS, but for seemingly no reason, a huge chunk of it is missing, as though it had been "cut" out of the model itself. It doesn't appear to be a height conflict as there's no flashing or flickering, it just simply doesn't show. I've tried everything I can think of to fix it, from removing the underlying taxi and apron surfaces to taking out the photo background, and none of it worked. What I discovered was that it would only display properly when the borders of my flatten poly were at least a good 40 meters away from the edge of the ground poly. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but the airport I'm working on is in a hilly area, so if it I stick with this flatten, I have prominent ridges on the edge of the flatten far away from the taxiways where it's most noticeable. Yet when I move the borders of the flatten in again, that's when part of the ground poly disappears again. I'm honestly clueless on how to go about fixing this, and would greatly appreciate any help I can get.
 
Other people have seen this too, and I didn't hear of any other way to fix it?
 
Aaaaaannnd it doesn't work. I've tried both ADE and SBuilderX and unless I move my flatten WAY the heck away from the ground poly it still gets clipped. And SbuilderX's flatten, for some reason, doesn't even want to show up.
 
Unlike landclass polys, GP polys do not adhere to the mesh. And, unlike aprons and taxiways, they don't flatten the mesh either. They are drawn in their entirety at the elevation of their reference point.

If you want ground polys at two (or more) different elevations, then you need two (or more) ground polys. Alternately, try compiling with a small group size. This will create multiple ground polys at various elevations (though, if the ground is sloped, that won't work.)

Don
 
See, that's the weird part of this. Everything is at a single, constant elevation, and the mesh (both the custom ground poly as well as the terrain) is already flattened, so this should, in theory, not be happening. I even tried creating a new, smaller surface in 3DS Max and placing it in the problem area. I made sure its height in Max was set to 0, and made sure it got split every 100 meters by MCX, and yet it still got "cut" exactly where the rest of the model was missing. Then I discovered that if I shift the custom ground poly for the entire airport over by as little as 5 meters, another, completely different location was affected in addition to the original one (the original one still had parts missing in the same area). The only thing that fixed the problem was making the flatten cover a larger area, though this isn't a good fix as it creates plateaus that aren't there at the real airport. Other than that, so far as I can tell, the model itself is fine, but something is messed up with the terrain, even though everything is as it should be and set properly in SbuilderX, ADE, and every other program I've tried. So basically I'm scratching my head over an issue that just does not seem to want to be fixed :confused:
 
Then I discovered that if I shift the custom ground poly for the entire airport over by as little as 5 meters, another, completely different location was affected in addition to the original one (the original one still had parts missing in the same area).
Click to expand...
I would regard this as proof that the area is not flat - for whatever reason. If you are placing the poly in the vicinity of a taxiway/apron, then the flatten must be at exactly the same elevation as the ARP (slightly less will also work, but no higher).

Don
 
The humps may be in a higher layer in the Scenery Library than this flatten file?
 
UE4180, the elevation of the entire area occupied by the gp must be below the reference elevation of the GP. Otherwise, in areas where the elevation of the mesh is higher, the underlying terrain will replace the GP texture - which is what appears to be happening in your case.

Don
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top