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P3D v5 ADE_GP Custom Ground Lines are black

gadgets said:
Sorry for the tardy response, but I was not6 notified of your most recent post. From that post, it's not clear whether or not the problem of initial concern still exists or if the only remaining issue is the "informational message" - hopefully the latter.

Assuming that to be the case, the message is identifying areas containing one or more problematic lines/polys. Please refer to page 17 of the user manual. To address these issues, you need to identify the line/poly of concern and open it in the GP Editor. Often, the problem is due to the texture offsets of one or more vertices having been lost - or never having been set. In those cases, simply clicking OK is all that is required. In other cases, the issue is the complexity of the line/poly - which must be simplified. You should get helpful info on attempting to close the GP Editor with the OK button.
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Don, the "initial concern" with your updated *.dll AND the ability to select FS-8 Style GPs resolves the problem. With the FS8 Style "unchecked" the GPs have color but flicker when you are close to the GP Line, but do not flicker when seen/viewed from an altitude. Prior to you providing the *.dll, from altitude the GP lines were "black" and did not "colorize" until you were at ground level and they also flickered.

As for the triangulation info, I need to take a hard read of page 17 in your user manual. That said and as a way of education (for me), you stated "Often, the problem is due to the texture offsets of one or more vertices having been lost - or never having been set."....How does one "set" and what is the definition of "texture offsets" and what would cause these "texture offsets" to be lost? Sorry, am out in left field on this...so its off to page 17 (at the min.).

Thank you very much.
 
By "texture offsets", I meant the internal texture related data added by the GP Editor. Sometimes, users will manipulate the vertices of GP lines/polys on the ADE surface but not open the GP Editor to complete the job. Hitting Cancel rather than OK will result in the same deficiency - ADE-GP does not have adequate info for the compile. In other cases, the poly may be just too complex for ADE-GP's algorithm and needs to be split/simplified.
 
gadgets said:
Attached is an updated .dll (2.2.24.4) that should perform somewhat better for you. Just overwrite the earlier version and "play".

I am more than a little embarrassed to admit the problem was due to sloppy development technique. In the last iteration, I was focused on ground illumination and had made a couple of changes to be effective for that. Unfortunately, while I planned to return to adapt those changes to GP poly/line operation, I never did (until now). I'll try not to do that again.

As well, I have restored FS8-style GPs with PV5 and have confirmed they still work. I had severe problems with FS8-style ground illumination with PV5 (it worked with all other versions) so assumed LM had abandoned support for that technology.

EDIT: Incidentally, during the development of this fixe, I encountered a couple instances where ADE had difficulty with your .ad4 and refused to compile the airport. These were internal ADE compiler issues and may have been due to my running an older version of ADE. Just thought I'd mention it.
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Don, I have run into another glitch with Custom Ground Lines even after installing your provided *.dll.
I have attached a couple of pics.
This has to do with your "taxiway_marks" Main Texture. When I select any of the "taxiway_marks" and select "backing texture" of gp_linebase, the selected "taxiway_marks" (in the pic a ILS Hold-Short) the line is overlayed with WHITE as you can see in the pic.
If I select the "backing texture" of gp_Asphalt-Dark, the GP line is correct. This ONLY happens when the selection is from the "taxiway_marks" (aka: if I simply select a "gp_PatternedLines_40F and select a backing of gp_linebase, all is correct...no whiteout).
However, there is a slight twist to this saga...the above described "whiteout" does NOT happen if "any" of the GP custom lines (inclusive or exclusive of the taxiway_marks options), no matter the type, if any one of them within a project has its "Backing Texture" set to "gp_Asphalt-Dark".

Any thoughts.
Best regards
Lemon
 

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Lemon, I meant to have responded to you yesterday when I was on the forum. I can think of no reason for the white texture other than a corrupted testure. You might take a close look at the texture sheets you are using and the relevant LinesDef offsets.

Incidentally, I don't think you need a backing texture for "taxiway_marks.bmp".

Good luck sorting this out. If nothing works for you, send me the AD4 file that displays with white textures, your Textures folder, and your Teztures_Def.txt and Lines_Def.txt files. I MAY be able to take a look.
 
gadgets said:
Lemon, I meant to have responded to you yesterday when I was on the forum. I can think of no reason for the white texture other than a corrupted testure. You might take a close look at the texture sheets you are using and the relevant LinesDef offsets.

Incidentally, I don't think you need a backing texture for "taxiway_marks.bmp".

Good luck sorting this out. If nothing works for you, send me the AD4 file that displays with white textures, your Textures folder, and your Teztures_Def.txt and Lines_Def.txt files. I MAY be able to take a look.
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Don, thanks for the update. I have checked both *.txt files and compared them to previous release 222313 and they are the same. I replaced the 2 *.txt files you mentioned with those from 222313 and there is no change.

Oh, I also reinstalled 222313 and this problem does not exist.

Now, for what its worth there is a file "Textures.Dpy" that is in my ADE folder that does not appear in any of the releases I have saved as far back as 2223 that I downloaded in 04/18/2020

Does I need to delete "Textures.Dpy"?
Thanks Don.
 
Lemon said:
Don, thanks for the update. I have checked both *.txt files and compared them to previous release 222313 and they are the same. I replaced the 2 *.txt files you mentioned with those from 222313 and there is no change.

Oh, I also reinstalled 222313 and this problem does not exist.

Now, for what its worth there is a file "Textures.Dpy" that is in my ADE folder that does not appear in any of the releases I have saved as far back as 2223 that I downloaded in 04/18/2020

Does I need to delete "Textures.Dpy"?
Thanks Don.
Click to expand...
Oops...my mistake...Textures.Dpy I see is created during a compile...never mind.

If I create the ILS Hold without using any "Backing Textures" as you suggested, there is no change. The ILS gets the white over and I just added (as a test) a regular hold short from the "taxiway_marks" and it does not get the "white" but looks as if it has been overlayed with duplicates (see pic attached).

If you want, I can send you both the ADE project and textures and mdls and/or the AD4 + textures.

Let me know and I will zip it all up.

Thanks in advance.
 

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It looks like the segment of the texture sheet "taxiway marks" being used for ILS_Hold is all white. ADE-GP just reads and executes the information available to it.

If you are using "Taxiway marks" as your main texture and ILs Hold Short as the Line segment you do not need backing texture. I suggest you take a VERY close look at the taxiway_marks texture in the Textures folder in the area designated by Lines_Def, i.e. the 64-pixel segment starting at horizontal offset 208 pixels
 
Don, as mentioned above, if I go back to 222313, the problem does not exist. The "white" only appears on the ILS HOLD but if you notice in the screen shot I sent, above the ILS Hold (from Taxiway_marks) is a Hold Short (also from Taxiway marks) and it is not white but appears trashed.
I will certainly do as you suggested above but the data point of 222313 working is a bother.
Cheers
 
Le3mon, not sure what you are asking me to do, especially in light of the trashed texture.
 
Sorry for the delay...I guess I am asking "why", if I back down to your version 222313, there are no "trashed textures" (i.e. both the ILS HOLD and the Hold Short) are correct...no trash/no corruption/no "white", yet if I simply install, as per your instructions in the "readme" of the downloaded zip, any version newer than 222313, I see the problem.
Cheers
 
Have you checked that you have newly downloaded and installed. If I had an easy answer to your question, you'd've had it by now.
Only you know what textures are on your system following each respective load. Only a few textures are actually involved.. It shouldn't be difficult to find the source of the white texture., sice no texture assigned would display as black.
 
gadgets said:
Have you checked that you have newly downloaded and installed. If I had an easy answer to your question, you'd've had it by now.
Only you know what textures are on your system following each respective load. Only a few textures are actually involved.. It shouldn't be difficult to find the source of the white texture., sice no texture assigned would display as black.
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Don, the problem was associated with the illumin textures. The ones from 222313 were not replaced (since one it simply doing a copy) since they had a different name/location
 
Some of the 222313 illum textures were not replaced - intentionally. But, so what? I don't see that you have any use for illum textures.
 
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