TS Pro Alpha V0.0.24 Available for Evaluation

[gadgets]

The other related threads were getting quite long, so I thought it best to start a new one.

I have just uploaded TS Prop Alpha version 0.0.20 to http://stuff4fs.com. Navigate to the Terrain Sculptor page and click the Development Release menu item.

This new version contains a large number of changes, so may be a little "delicate". As explained in another post, initially, to save overhead, the database held indices to the various terrain types rather than the guid of the terrain. This resulted in a significant savings in required RAM and offered some other advantages. But, with the help of a couple users, I recently realized this scheme had some major shortcomings. So, I've spent a good part of the weekend implementing the scheme I should have done originally. Fortunately, while there were a large number of edits, they were mostly "mind-numbing" mechanical changes,, but that aspect seems "solid". The project data storage scheme is now quite different; but all the older formats can be loaded.

As well, I fixed a number of other issues, primarily involving the manipulation of blends and profiles. These now seem to work as intended.

There is still (at least) a couple very elusive, but significant issues remaining. Occasionally, flattens are extended to the boundaries of each QMV14 area that they enter. This appears to be an issue in a third-party package I use, but I haven't yet confirmed so. As well, I seem to have "lost the recipe" for consolidating adjacent polys. So, for the moment, I've disabled the consolidation routine. Consequently, if your .bgls have been clipped, you'll see the lines. This is a temporary situation.

So, I hope that those of you currently used an older version of TS Pro will install and exercise the new version. New users are welcome as well. As always, please report any issue,. no matter how seemingly minor.

Don

 

[gadgets]

I have just uploaded TS Prop Alpha version 0.0.21 to http://stuff4fs.com. Navigate to the Terrain Sculptor page and click the Development Release menu item. It is identical to 0.0.20, except that poly consolidation (which was the cause of the occasional extended flattens) has been re-enabled using a workaround. The effect of the workaround is that all items are clipped at QMID 14 level, rather than the lower level that would ordinarily be used.

Don

 

[Jay Bloomfield]

Don,

Sorry, I've been busy with "real world" stuff and I just had a chance to quickly test 0.0.21. I can't add a Blend Outline anymore. I can start one, and add points, but they become immediately invisible, unless I select them with a right click mouse rect. I also can't add a hydro polygon. Nothing major, though. I have a couple of questions. Is it possible to set the initial zoom level on a new project? Also, I noticed that you have a new cfg file that matches up terrain.cfg landclass with bmp file texture numbering conventions and those match Holger Sandmann's Excel spreadsheet. Is there a future possibility for making that extensible to non-standard terrain.cfg entries, like ORBX for example? Or can one just edit the texture_Xref.cfg file now and it would work?

Jay

 

[gadgets]

I can't add a Blend Outline anymore. I can start one, and add points, but they become immediately invisible, unless I select them with a right click mouse rect.

I haven't done that in a while. I'll check and fix.

I also can't add a hydro polygon

Same answer as above

Nothing major

I'm glad. I'm in the process of drawing an optional airport image in the background - which I'd like to finish first - and that may take a couple days.

Is it possible to set the initial zoom level on a new project?

. Not at the moment. When a project opens, all data is displayed with a small surrounding buffer.

Is there a future possibility for making that extensible to non-standard terrain.cfg entries, like ORBX for example?

You can )or should be able to) now. That's the purpose of allowing users to select the appropriate terrain.cfg file.

Don

 

[gadgets]

I have just uploaded TS Prop Alpha version 0.0.22 to http://stuff4fs.com. Navigate to the Terrain Sculptor page and click the Development Release menu item.

This new release includes fixes for all issued reported as well as a new feature - Add Airport to Background. Selection of this item in the Files menu results in a shaded display of all runways, taxiways and aprons at the designated airport in the background - instead of or in addition to any already-selected background.

Don

 

[FlyingAxx]

Hi Don,
I just dropped in in order to report the Blend Outline issue, too. Even if I wasn't able seeing anything, I've tried to place a frame of vertices around my flattened airport. Singel dots appeared to be visible when hovering over them with the mouse pointer. When clicking right and selecting peer nodes all of them appeared, but no line connection at all. Only a vector point towards the next neighbouring node is visible all the time. Unfortunately I detected, that quite a bunch of them had been virtually connected not in the right order. Finally I even tried to give them a different colour ending up in an application crash.

A second observation, but this might have happened with version 0.0.20 (I'm not sure at the moment unfortunately): I imported the following ADE produced CVX-BGL containing already sloped polygons resulting in similar visual appearance like your application.

The import worked, but the resulting flatten became kinda consolidated in a strange way. The vertices at the outside do have the correct elevation, different from the flatten in the middle. However, there are are two polygons having the same parameters like the one on the centre (the dark yellow one is a background exclusion polygon, green are of type LC). BTW, this import was my try circumventing the failing Blend Outline function.

As I wasn't able doing anything with imported stuff, I started deleting the exclusion and LC stuff first an then the outer vertices. The result showed, that these dots where out of order as well. Some of the northern ones where followed by others in the south. As anything I've tried enabling the triangulation function failed, I gave up finally.

 

[gadgets]

Axel, are you sure you were actually using 0.0.22? That blend issue is fixed in 0.0.22. Please send me the .bgl file you were importing. I really can't comment without actually seeing what happens.

Don

 

[Jay Bloomfield]

Don,

A couple of items from 0.2.2.

1) It seems that the vector width and elevation values for a node are being overwritten by each other. For example, select an existing vector node and then display the elevation. The result is that the width is displayed.

2) Hydro polys now work correctly, except should certain hydro poly types (ocean, lake) be allowed to have varying elevations for its nodes?

3) As to airport backgrounds, I was at a loss to display anything. I opened the default FSX project. I navigated to scenery area 101/ file APX15140.bgl for CYYJ and added it. It did something, because it took a second or so, but nothing was displayed. I checked the ADE folder location entry in the TSPro.ini file and it was blank. Even changing the entry with a text editor to the correct folder name (in my case E:\Program Files (x86)\Airport Design Editor 1.76) did not matter as TSPro rewrote the entry as blank when restarted. I'm not sure whether this entry is even needed for the airport background option to work. Then I tried adding your actual ADE BGL file for CYYJ and that worked, It got a bunch of gray polys which I will try to post later.

4) Also I tried adding a new entry to Texture Xref.cfg for ORBX LC=14 (ORBX_FLOOD_PLAIN_WITH_TUSSOCK_SLOPE) but the entry was just skipped.

5) If I tick Include Non-stock Terrain and P3d4, I get double entries of everything in the node type lists.

6) Blend points are now visible.

I'll have more time to play around with 0.0.22 later today.

Jay

 

[Jay Bloomfield]

 

[gadgets]

It seems that the vector width and elevation values for a node are being overwritten by each other.

What are you looking at? the editor, tooltip, ???. If the editor, perhaps the label is wrong. No vector type has both elevation and width, so I use the same text window for both and just change the label.

Hydro polys now work correctly, except should certain hydro poly types (ocean, lake) be allowed to have varying elevations for its nodes?

I've never worked hydro polys - which is why they were missing from the start list. Water is generally flat, so I wouldn't expect individual nodes to have elevations. (I simply don't know.) I assume the slope parameters are intended to address and small deviations.

As to airport backgrounds, I was at a loss to display anything. I opened the default FSX project. I navigated to scenery area 101/ file APX15140.bgl for CYYJ and added it

I guess I should have mentioned that you must (currently, at least) point to an airport .bgl that holds a single airport. It's easy to handle multiple airport files but, since TS Pro is likely to be used with airport projects where the airport .bgl contains a single airport, I didn't feel I should burden the user with specifying an airport ICAO. What you sewe in the screen shots are the aprons

Also I tried adding a new entry to Texture Xref.cfg for ORBX LC=14 (ORBX_FLOOD_PLAIN_WITH_TUSSOCK_SLOPE) but the entry was just skipped.

Please provide a little more detail describing exactly what you did.

If I tick Include Non-stock Terrain and P3d4, I get double entries of everything in the node type lists.

Apparently, I didn't clear the list before regenerating it.

Blend points are now visible.

Phew! At least one thing worked as expected.

Keep it coming,
Don

 

[gadgets]

Jay, as you've probably noticed, my initial reaction to your point about not being able to select an airport for the background from a stock airport file was less than enthusiastic. At the time, I failed to appreciate the potential of doing so.

But, that's changed. The next version allows that selection; the user is not bothered unless the file contains more than one ICAO. Not only that but, with about 10 minutes extra work, I was able to allow a project to be opened at an airport location using the same mechanism with an image of the airport in the background already displayed.

Thanks for the idea.

Don

 

[Jay Bloomfield]

LOL. And to think I only did that by accident, because for the some reason the P3d4 scenery folder was the last location that I looked at and TSPro just opened there. So out of laziness, rather than changing to the folder with your CYYJ version, I just gave it a go to see what would happen with a stock airport file.

 

[FlyingAxx]

Axel, are you sure you were actually using 0.0.22? That blend issue is fixed in 0.0.22. Please send me the .bgl file you were importing. I really can't comment without actually seeing what happens.

Oops, shame on me, but obviously the update did not work as I thought it would. After reading your reply I asked for an update check under "Help", and got this one (I think not implemented, right?):

My only excuse: I had switched the update function ON but for general releases only (why ever) and didn't get any error message while booting. I'll test the new version tomorrow.

 

[FlyingAxx]

Don, while trying to add a Blend Poly, both attempts ended with a failure. The first round seemed to work nice, except that from time to time the placed node jumped to another place. However, I rearranged those before creating the elevation profile. Nonetheless the Triangulate button remained inactive after everything was ready. This was reproducible for me.
The second attempt was started after I'd cleared all related lists. TS accepted this attempt by offering its normal dialogue about the poly's name. But for both node being set after the starting point (CCW, of course) I got the following message.

I've continued clicking in the next nodes (with some jumping out of the row again) and tried to sort the nodes after finishing (what does the "it will be rewound" wants to tell me?). The first four vertices or so where connected in a wrong sequence even if set in correct way, indeed. Unfortunately while trying to sort them I got in one case error messages allowing continuing and saving the result, as this behaviour was reproducible again, my second try ended with a CTD.

Another issue: When trying to set a sculpt node a the cursor position, it asked for the elevation, but only left the little red cross marking the last cursor position. When clicking in order to continue the procedure, no trace was seen of the previously defined node.

EDIT: Obviously the basic import file was corrupted during the above described edits. It probably started at the very beginning as after the first added node of the blend outline I wasn't able adding a second one. After trying to clean every previous entry, except the imported elements, it seemed the file kept some data nonetheless as my next started blend outline got a #2 after the proposed name. Now I started again from the very beginning and everything worked as expected.

 

[FlyingAxx]

everything worked as expected.

Unfortunately it didn't.
After writing my more enthusiastic sentence I detected, that a standard flatten without any other parameters obviously killed a default road vector. I tried to correct the blend poly in a way not to cross or even touch the road, but it doesn't help. The rest looked nice, indeed.
In order to circumvent this issue, I changed my ADE AFCAD, killed the road and replaced it by a self-made one in ADE, fitting better to the background picture I used. Unfortunately it didn't help, too. Leaving the imported vector lines (the roads) in TS Pro had no visual effect after exporting the file. Strange enough, roads that touched the airport flatten remained visible.
Back to the previous version of TS (no Pro) everything showed up as it should.

Common to both versions: If giving the exported file a name like ICAO.bgl, the resulting and shown file name includes the extension. However, both are adding a "_CVX" to it (like "ICAO_CVX.bgl"). It's kinda feature, but should be known before.

 

[gadgets]

a standard flatten without any other parameters obviously killed a default road vector

I'm going to need a lot more detail just to understand what this means. Every element has its own individual data record. While I'm not suggesting you haven't found an issue, it's not possible for one item to kill another. Instead of attempting to describe such apparently complex symptoms in generic terms, why don't you e-mail me the files involved and tell me how to duplicate it

Common to both versions: If giving the exported file a name like ICAO.bgl, the resulting and shown file name includes the extension. However, both are adding a "_CVX" to it (like "ICAO_CVX.bgl"). It's kinda feature, but should be known before.

The title bar in the window where yo specify the save-file name says: "(The filename will automatically be suffixed with "_CVX")"

Don

 

[gadgets]

I have posted TS Prop Alpha version 0.0.23 to http://stuff4fs.com. Navigate to the Terrain Sculptor page and click the Development Release menu item.

This new release is basically an internal clean-up issue with a couple minor new features. You are now able to start a project by designating an airport .bgl and the project will open with the airport displayed in the background. Also, if you have specified the last-loaded file be reloaded at startup, it will open at the zoom level at which it was last closed.

With this issue, it appears all FSX/P3D-related features are operational. There is still some work for me to do re FS9

Enjoy,
Don

 

[FlyingAxx]

I'm going to need a lot more detail just to understand what this means. Every element has its own individual data record. While I'm not suggesting you haven't found an issue, it's not possible for one item to kill another. Instead of attempting to describe such apparently complex symptoms in generic terms, why don't you e-mail me the files involved and tell me how to duplicate it

In this case I had to give a different ICAO and slight location shift to the respective airport (UAFL in FS and UCFL in real life). I'll try to produce a package, but first I have to look for the status of the file I worked with in TS Pro as I did some attempts before changing to the old version.

Well, regarding the CVX remark... I haven't seen it, that's it - sorry.

 

[FlyingAxx]

I'm going to need a lot more detail just to understand what this means. Every element has its own individual data record. While I'm not suggesting you haven't found an issue, it's not possible for one item to kill another. Instead of attempting to describe such apparently complex symptoms in generic terms, why don't you e-mail me the files involved and tell me how to duplicate it

Don

Hi Don, you got a package in your PM inbox, where I obviously hit the send button after the two first words. However, you'll find an enclosed ZIP containing a ReadMe and all files I thought that they might be useful.

BTW, after installing TS Prop Alpha version 0.0.23. I got this one:

I had to kill the process.

EDIT: Obviously it wants to write the existing INI file new...

 

[gadgets]

OOps! In the TS Pro.ini file add the line "Zoom at Shutdown = 1.0" or delete the "Load Project on Startup =" item.

Don