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fsx groundpoly with sp2 - flytampa did it

B

BrBlazer

Messages
481
Hello,

I've noticed the new St Maarten release has full FSX SDK usage, all the groundwork of the scenery has the rain effect that you see in FSX ground. How is that done?

Last I knew, it was only possible with the FS2002 gamepack. Furthermore, I know it's the FSX gamepack due to the fact that all textures are DDS, there's no more BMP in there.

Let's hope this is a new beginning for us all.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that it also has the shadow of the aircraft on the ground, something we only see in the FS2002 gamepack using the groundpoly tweak

Kindly,

Blazer
 
It's under the Attach Point Tool. If you open up the Oil Rig Sample you'll see they used Platform for the landing pad.

David
 
PakMac said:
It's under the Attach Point Tool. If you open up the Oil Rig Sample you'll see they used Platform for the landing pad.

David
Click to expand...

Hi,

But this is for a landable surface, for example, a helipad on a roof.

What I mean is how to get the FSX-SDK groundpoly without flicker, with aircraft shadow on them AND with the FSX wet rain effects.

Thanks for your help either way :)
 
DDS textures don't rule out the use of the FS2002 gamepack. However rain effects would. But they may be default surfaces with FS2002-style layers on top.
 
Hi,

It is indeed hard to say without seeing the product yourself. If they have the rain effect they must either have used XML style taxiways or FSX MDL files. With the last option I expect a lot of problems with flickering so that does not seem likely to me. But maybe they found a way to optimize around that. Or they are XML aprons, with the details laid on top with old code as Robin suggested.
 
BrBlazer said:
But this is for a landable surface, for example, a helipad on a roof.
Click to expand...

I thought runways were landable surfaces :D

toprob said:
DDS textures don't rule out the use of the FS2002 gamepack. However rain effects would. But they may be default surfaces with FS2002-style layers on top.
Click to expand...

I have found that the rain effects will show through an image that has an alpha channel. But how they got the ground polys to use DDS files is still unclear.

David
 
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Hi Folks

PakMac said:
I have found that the rain effects will show through an image that has an alpha channel.
But how they got the ground polys to use DDS files is still unclear.
Click to expand...
Just a guess.
AFAIK
DXT3 alpha channels will work with both FS9 & FSX.
Any appropriately named dds files will be called.


EDIT
May be unrelated in this case.

You can also hexedit the bgl
so that any filecalls are to filename only, (no dot extension)
this then allows dual bmp & dds to be called for a single filename.

Might also work in whichever modeling tool
if only the filename is used, (no dot extension).

e.g.
Textures types are blahblah.bmp & blahblah.dds
edit the bgl call from blahblah.bmp
to just blahblah
then both types are automatically called.

HTH
ATB
Paul
 
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Yes, my comment was based on an earlier experiment converting my FS2002-style ground poly textures to DDS -- works like a charm.
 
Unfortunately we didn't figure anything new out and I don't think there is anything left to be figured out as far as airport-ground-design goes.

TNCM was compiled with the FSX-SP2-SDK except for the ground polys. Those are MakeMDL2002 files and as has been pointed out, FSX appears to load filename.dds first, then filename.bmp (if the dds is not present).

SABA does not have ground polys, it uses a 3d terrain mesh with a platfrom attached. This would be a pure FSX SDK scenery, but it is not a solution for large, flat airports.

MakeMDL2002 BGLs won't load the night/LM texture in DX10 mode btw, they appear grey instead. Compiling with Night-Texture disabled still works, it darkens the day texture at night as expect.

Martin / flytampa
 
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Thanks for that information, Martin. If you use the old 2002-Gamepack it should be possible to overlay an invisible runway to get rain fx, shouldn't it?
 
I get the rain fx from the Afcad underneath the ground-polys.

Quite simple: make a large Afcad apron covering the whole airport area while making taxiways as apron-links. Then in your grd-textures alpha all the tarmac a bit so you get to see the apron texture underneath.

The invisible runway (Scasm) I avoided because it causes the invisible-AI bug in SP2 unless AC-shadows are turned off. On top of that, Scasm runways have a devastating perf-impact when using more then one. We were working on another location that needs 4 or 5 invisible Scasm runways and those alone killed perf to single digit fps.

MakeMDL ground polygons are themselves causing a hefty hit since SP2, especially with with high AA. I assume this is caused by FSX applying tessalation (to render on round-earth) and this tessalation increasing the poly-count sky-high. I see ground BGLs consuming around 10 fps, not normal taking their poly-count into consideration.
 
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That is useful information. Didn't know that with 99% alpha I get the full rain fx. :)

As how you made so brilliant ground poly textures, I guess you did it all by hand like an art designer?
 
Hi everyone,
I am currently in the process of converting my scenery for FSX.
Basically I am using the same procedure as mentioned here which is of using the Fs2002 gamepack for the ground polygons and using the FSX gamepack for the 3D objects.

However I have encountered a couple of issues regarding the ground polygons. First one is that aircraft shadows do not render correctly (ie they flicker or disappear) in spot view. This happens on polygons having textures with an alpha channel being either bmp or dds. I read that this was supposed to be resolved in SP1.
The other problem is that the aircraft landing lights are not rendered on those polygons that are within a couple of metres from the aircraft ie the area where there is a ground poly appears black.
I've had a look at Flytampa's TNCM scenery (which btw is a wonderful scenery) and none of these issues appeared. I've also had a look at their textures and they used dds DXT5 textures so they do contain transparency. I wonder if anyone can shed any light on this.

Thanks
Daniel
 
Hi Daniel,

Just to be sure, but when you say you use FS2002 gamepack for the polygons I assume you also tweaked the source code and made sure the polygons are not too big for the earth curvation fix in FSX?
 
HI Arno, tha's correct the asm file has been tweaked using the ADDCAT tweak and some of the polys are very small say 3m x 1m.
I have attached a screenshot to show you what's happening with the landing lights on. Strangely enough this does not happen in spot view.
Daniel
 

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Hi Daniel,

Maybe another stupid question :), but you also made a flatten to be sure the area is at the correct altitude? That is all that comes to mind for the moment.
 
HI Arno,
yes a flatten has been included as well. Honestly I can't understand why this is happening. I'll keep on experimenting.

Daniel
 
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