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Shadow Problem in ADE

Larry N.

Larry N.

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us-colorado
I've been noticing that shadows from sceneries compiled with ADE act strangely, not matching either flyable aircraft or sceneries built with other mechanisms. To cap it off, a friend has built (with Sketchup) some buildings for a project we're working on. He's provided them as models, rather than as BGLs, but when we found the shadow problem he gave me BGLs (as a library, which I imported into ADE), and they exhibit the same behavior when complied with ADE, yet shadows on those same library objects behave normally when installed via Instant Scenery. Also, we see the same thing with static aircraft, buildings and other objects that come from various libraries found on the web, and they exhibit the same odd shadow behavior when compiled with ADE.

The behavior I'm talking about is that the shadows don't go in the same direction (usually toward, rather than away from the sun) as those in default (and other add-on) sceneries, and even are often detached from the objects they come from.

Has anyone else seen this? Is it possible I have something set up wrong?
 
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Hello Larry

This is a airport (KTUS) that has addon scenery including static aircraft and built / compiled with ADEX. My user airplane is pointing North (has the crosshair) and its early morning. Sun is coming up on the right of my plane which is East and all shadows are on the left (away from the sun).



The sun is now setting in the west (to the left) and all shadows are to the right of scenery and airplanes.



Not sure if that answers your question. If not maybe you can attach some pictures.
 
Not sure if that answers your question. If not maybe you can attach some pictures.
Click to expand...

No, though it does indicate that you aren't seeing this, but I wasn't asking how shadows should behave, but whether I'm alone in seeing this and how to resolve shadows not showing correctly. Of course I should have attached a screenshot, so here is one.

In this shot below, the problem shadow is shown with the glider trailer with the orange circle around it (installed with ADE as part of the airport), while the same trailer installed with Instant Scenery is shown to the left of it. Note the proper shadows on the Baron and on the left hand trailer. This trailer is "gen sailplane trailer03" in airport_objects.bgl. Not ALL objects have this problem, but it seems that most of them do with ADE. It didn't used to be a problem, though I don't know exactly when it started, but we noticed this within the last few months, as we were working on bringing some defunct airports back to life for FSX.

Again, note that both trailer instances shown above are the using same library object, just different installation programs.


ShadowAnomaly.png
 
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I tried to place the objects in the same position to make a comparison. I added the trailers with ADEX and compiled. I cannot replicate the problem you are having.

I do not use IS and was under the impression it does not use the FSX SDK BGLComp.exe compiler. When I do design work I always stay with one program when compiling to the airport.

 
I appreciate you trying to replicate the problem. It's obvious that you've not had that happen. It would be great if I could discover what the difference is in my operation/installation vs. those of others without the problem.

I do not use IS and was under the impression it does not use the FSX SDK BGLComp.exe compiler. When I do design work I always stay with one program when compiling to the airport.
Click to expand...

I don't normally mess with IS, either, and I normally stick with ADE, but the use of IS was an attempt to find something to help solve the shadow problem, not something I would normally do.
 
UPDATE: We (my friend and I) have pursued this problem and made some interesting discoveries. First, is that the shadows are not the problem, rather the objects are what is offset -- it's altitude related -- and it's only FSX objects, not those from FS9 that have the problems. Also, it's not just ADE, but Instant Scenery does the same thing, if the field is well above sea level, and ADE doesn't have the problem (in appearance) near sea level. Even ORBX scenery exhibits this problem (I have no idea what tools they use) -- we checked and found that objects at Billings, MT (KBIL, somewhere near 3,000 MSL), for example, have this problem in ORBX.

And the higher the elevation (MSL), the worse it shows up -- try it at Leadville, Colorado's Lake County Airport (KLXV, 9934 ft. elevation), and the offset is more than twice what it is in the Albuquerque or Denver areas (around 5,000 ft.).

So the screen shots I posted above are at a field that is about 5,000 MSL, while I suspect those showing proper shadows were close to sea level, where the error is so small it's hard to see.

Our preliminary thought is that the problem is related to the curved earth used in FSX, vs. the flat one in FS9 and before, so it's apparently an FSX bug. Oddly, though, the shadows are where they should be, that is, they match up with my object placement via ADE.

Also, I've been noticing for a while that many objects that I place with ADE are offset in the sim from where I place them in ADE -- at 5200 feet it's off by about 3.5 feet east/west and a (not measured) similar amount north/south. I presume this is just another side of the same problem, and explains why the placement offset hasn't been consistent, with fields at different altitudes.
 
It is interesting indeed. We are aware that Generic Buildings can be offset in the sim from the location provided for them. We even tries to work out a correction algorithm but were never able to make it reliable enough to be worth using. I think the round earth model has a lot to answer for :(
 
Hmm, it could be that General Buildings could be effected for the same reason. However, even close to sea level I experienced some strange misplacements when using them. I have some doubts the the reason has the same roots.
 
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