Terrain mesh issue

[jonmkj]

Used the MSFS Toolkit to create a mesh for an airport I'm working on. Overall it looks good, but there are some jagged edges showing up in some areas. These don't show up in the original data, nor in the heightmaps that generate the terrain in the sim. Any suggestions?

 

[Clutch Cargo]

I don't have any suggestions but just wanted to comment how how nice it looks even with the little humps.

 

[Bavarello]

What falloff value did you set? try playing with that a little bit.

 

[Jimbo in Thailand]

Jon - If playing with the falloff value doesn't fix it and you can't find a decent solution then maybe just hide the jaggies with matching shrubs until you hopefully run across a solution. Just a thought, anyway.

Cheers from Thailand!

 

[GaryGB]

Hi Jon:

IIUC, you may be incurring aliasing of run time terrain grid quad edges in the horizontal plane just as legacy FS version terrain grid quads might do when a RWY is not precisely oriented on the N-S, E-W Cardinal Axes.

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...g-a-large-non-flat-airport.450254/post-865482


AFAIK, MSFS SDK has not yet formally documented what the terrain grid quad system infrastructure actually involves, so we can work with a set of known guidelines and stop guessing.


Hmmm... August 18, 2022 will be MSFS' 2nd birthday; do we want to deal with a temperamental sim undergoing a "Terrible Two-Year-Old" phase ?


But I am intrigued by the vertical "undulations", and I wonder if that may be an artifact of terrain 'smoothing' as a result of the terraforming subsystem when a substantial "falloff" is applied.

This would be a good test case for better understanding how the new MSFS terrain engine works.

I would be interested in looking at high resolution elevation source data for this location.

Would you please consider disclosing the ICAO either here- or via PM- so I can see what the SDK is actually doing with our submitted high resolution elevation source data ?

(I suspect MSFS is "dumbing it down" to reduce precision at run time).

GaryGB

 

[jonmkj]

I tinkered a bit with the falloff but nothing changed. I'll play with some wilder numbers.

I would be interested in looking at high resolution elevation source data for this location.

Would you please consider disclosing the ICAO either here- or via PM- so I can see what the SDK is actually doing with our submitted high resolution elevation source data ?

(I suspect MSFS is "dumbing it down" to reduce precision at run time).

Apparently they're going to soon open up terrain editing to us. We'll see.

The airport is KMKJ. The elevation data is the lidar based DEM found on the USGS data download site. SUPER crisp resolution.

 

[GaryGB]

Hi Jon:

Thanks for the ICAO; here's some screenies for others to compare MSFS default with Google Earth and your custom terrain above:

MSFS (default terrain)

MSFS shows a "flat" terrain appearance that is not representative of the local terrain in real life; definitely NOT "As Real As It Gets".


Google Earth - Desktop Edition

Google Earth shows "vertical undulations"; this 'may' have used the same elevation source data (but down-sampled to ~30 Meters).

UPDATE:

Here is the extent of MSFS' default "Airport Bounds" flatten; it does not extend outside any immediately adjacent KMKJ default Airport terrain surfaces.

It is otherwise likely that the Terra-forming "Falloff Distance" (Meters) may impact run time rendering of surrounding terrain:

https://docs.flightsimulator.com/ht...r/Objects/Runway_Objects.htm?rhhlterm=flatten

"Terraforming

Initially, when you place a runway, the land that it is placed on will be automatically terraformed to flatten it and keep the runway on an even plane. However this can then be edited from this section. The most basic option available is the Falloff Distance (in meters) which is used to "feather" the edges of the terraforming to make the transition between the flattened runway and surrounding terrain less (or more) extreme. When setting this value, an extra set of lines will be rendered to show the area of the falloff, as illustrated in the image below:"

GaryGB

 

[jonmkj]

Some insight.... decreasing the output resolution with the toolkit smoothed it out a good bit. Will just have to be a temporary measure until more terrain capabilities are unlocked!