Big Problem all of a sudden

[solid]

Hi Gentlemen...

I have been using Sbuilder FX for over a year now and it has been a smooth ride. All of a sudden last night I made a AB Flatten Poly. I then made another poly on top of it with exactly the same altitute for a Small City/naming it from the vector poly list --LC Small City Suburban Grid Dry-- compiled them and when I go there the flatten poly is there But the small city is "Flat Too"!!!!!!not 3D---- all buildings are just a "flat decal"!!!!!!! I have been doing this over a hundred times and they always came out just fine in 3D!!!!!!....what has happened all of a sudden?? after five tries I gave up..., any thoughts will be appreciated, I am 3/4 in a project and now don't have a clue what's going on with the program

 

[rhumbaflappy]

I would guess your flatten poly excluded autogen, and that exclude is now working over your small city.

The Aces warned that the order of polygon display compiled in the same BGL was random in nature, and that would explain why the excluding flatten would work on top of the small city poly.

You could place the flatten in a different bgl, and name it alpha-numerically prior to the small city bgl. That should work within the same scenery folder. I think the symbor to use would be '!' to assure display priority???? As in !myflatten.bgl I used to use aaEx_Myflatten.bgl... but that really isn't right according to the ascii table.

The shp file setup had made a UUID category that might have sorted out display issues, but I don't think the UUID ordering actually works during the compilation.

Why did you need a flatten for your city?

Dick

 

[solid]

I would guess your flatten poly excluded autogen, and that exclude is now working over your small city.

The Aces warned that the order of polygon display compiled in the same BGL was random in nature, and that would explain why the excluding flatten would work on top of the small city poly.

You could place the flatten in a different bgl, and name it alpha-numerically prior to the small city bgl. That should work within the same scenery folder. I think the symbor to use would be '!' to assure display priority???? As in !myflatten.bgl I used to use aaEx_Myflatten.bgl... but that really isn't right according to the ascii table.

The shp file setup had made a UUID category that might have sorted out display issues, but I don't think the UUID ordering actually works during the compilation.

Why did you need a flatten for your city?

Dick

Hi Dick...
Hummm, I have always made both the flatten with exclude and then on top of it the other poly, whether a city or whatever and it worked fine.....but you do have a lot of logic in what you say...I´ll try tonight making two separate bgl files..one for the flatten and one for the city, strange!!!!!.....concerning the naming of the polys its the first time someone tells me this....
I have tried placing a "City-Poly" without a flatten and it never works........ In this case I need a flatten also because the airport is very close to the city......FSX is a very strange bug!!!!!

Luis Sa if you are around can you shed some light also????

Thanks Dick....

Gera

 

[Luis_Sá]

Hi Dick...
Luis Sa if you are around can you shed some light also????
Gera

Hello,

Yes, I am

Unfortunately I am not able to add light here. I recommend that you follow the tip by Dick. It is hard to give better advice than him!

Regards,

Luis

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi Dick...
.....concerning the naming of the polys its the first time someone tells me this....
I have tried placing a "City-Poly" without a flatten and it never works........ In this case I need a flatten also because the airport is very close to the city......

Hi Gera.

The naming of the polys won't matter... it's the naming of separate BGLs within the scenery folder that will determine order. The flattens may need to be compiled in a separate BGL, and named like "!myflattens.bgl" in order to assure the flattens are applied prior to "mypolys.bgl", within the same folder.

I think it may have been quite early in FSX' development that the display ordering of polys within a file was addressed... and the answer was that the outcome is random, so we'd need to make separate BGLs appropriately named, if we wanted to assure a specific order.

Dick

 

[solid]

Hi Guys...
Thanks for your help....I think I solved the "anomalous situation!!!".....Maybe I drank to big of a glass of exquisite Italian wine or a fabulous Oporto from Luis´s wonderful land of Portugal but here goes.....
I was trying to place a little town high up north in "Tibet" and like I said all tries placed a "stamp" in 2D!!! no 3D no matter what I did......after a while of rummaging and another glass of the "sweat of the Gods" I got the idea that I should try where I ususally make them....near the Ecuator or up to around latitute 45 or so.....I went down to India and right at the southern tip I drew my polygon and told it it was town full of problems.....BoooM!!!!! came the cvx-BGL with sweet little 3D town!!!!!!!!....what?.......now what?....it worked!!!!!.....
Conclusion:...I believe the program somehow smells that up in the high frozen lands of Tibet--there are NO towns!!!!!--by this I think..the program takes the chosen "town" from certain Lats & Longs...and Tibet is too far, I bet if I try in Siberia this will also happen......
OK..that´s my conclusion since it has been placing towns and cities perfectly below certain latitudes....
Question....what do you think?.....am I right or is it the effect of the wonderful wine?????.....

 

[Luis_Sá]

Hello Gera,

Between other things, FS gives us the chance to build elevated towns in the Tibet or to create islands in the middle of the ocean! That is great!

Concerning the stamping of your cities I suggest that you create a project and draw the city polygon. Then you can send me the project. When I receive it, I open it and get ready for compilation. At the same time, I choose a good wine to taste during the process of compilation. When the experiment finishes I will research the cause of the problem. If I am able to build the city in the Tibet, I will tell you what win I tasted during the experiment!

Greetings from Coimbra,

Luis

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi Gera.

I tried your example on Mount Everest. I made a flatten poly and made a urban poly, exported from SBuilderX, and it is as you say! The urban poly shows, but no autogen.

I then tried separate BGLS for the flatten and city poly... but no combination of naming conventions or separate folders for scenery helped at all.

I then tried a huge conifer forest landclass to cover the Himalayas... but for most areas the trees won't show!

Now I'm thinking there is some elevational limit on autogen, for even the genteler slopes are missing trees until the elevation drops significantly.

I think you found a bug ( or a feature ).

OK I made a huge flatten to 0 meters elevation, and a city poly, and compiled them as one BGL... and the city shows. So it does appear that the problem is elevation, and that would be built into the sim.


Dick

 

[Luis_Sá]

Hi Gera,

While I was writing my last post I just learned that, even with a very good wine, we possibly may not be able to build a town in the Tibet! Let us follow Dick's findings!

Regards,

Luis

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi all.

There is a "treeline" above which nothing will grow... including autogen buildings. It is at 4000m for Mt. Everest.

I don't know if this is a universal altitude, or if it changes with location or region.

New guinea has vegitation at 4100 meters. South America 4100 meters.

Dick

 

[solid]

Hi Amigos.......

Ok......I guess it was not the wine nor the Oporto!!!!! good show!!!!!!..Luis I love your program, its simply is one of the wonders of FS, I would not know what to do without it...even in Tibet!!!!!!!!!!.....
Hey Dick.....I guess that´s that....no town up in Mt. Everest hu????......very realistic.....
I went ahead and "made" may own at around 16,000 ft...using some default buildings and some of my stuff and it´s ok...passable I would say...

Thank you everyone, I have like many other times, learned from all of you and your kind answers.....

Cheers with some Chianti and Goat Cheese!!!!!!!!

Gera

 

[rhumbaflappy]

Hi Gera.

The altitude limit for autogen seems to be hard-coded in the sim, just as sloping forces rock textures to pop up ( another annoyance I dislike in FSX ).

I think you're approach is perhaps right... just place objects.

I haven't checked if autogen can be placed by the annotator on custom tiles at high altitudes. We used to be able to place autogen wherever we liked, but FSX maight not allow this.

I'll see what's what.

More mysteries:

Some of the autogen does show... gas stations, row buildings, market buildings. These are from library BGLs. This would tend to confirm that autogen placed on a custom texture would show up at high altitudes... at least if they were from library objects.

Dick

 

[solid]

Hi Dick.....
Yea, I do have noticed that even when I tried in Tibet and got the "stamp" 2D sample....there was one or two "odd" buildings around!!!!!! and they were it seemed from the default objects...strange...
I gues you have tried FSX Kml....I had not done so until last night and I must say it has a very interesting approach for laying landclass......I fooled around in India and it worked like a clock.......I have been messing around software and computers since 1969 and it amazes me everyday more and more....no wonder I work nine hours in the office with software and come home and do another four to five with my struggles in scenery.....love it.