• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

P3D v5 Ground Poly's disappeared

S

Sam Coat

Messages
26
Country
netherlandsantilles
Hello,

I am working on updating Wake Island for my upcoming DC-6 World Tour. I have been working on it for close to two weeks. Adding and testing in steps. Since I was new at this, my library objects and such took some time to get sorted however I now get the gist of it. Recently, I have been adding roads. PWAK has a lot of dirt roads around it and that is what I have been working on. Unfortunately, in the process of a rather large update, which included placing and aligning PAPI objects, adding roads and some extra filler objects, ALL my ground poly's have gone. So before posting my ad4, I thought I'd ask if there's an obvious thing to check for. What I have done so far:

1. Changed the layer of all ground poly's from 24 to 16, no change;
2. Locking the ground poly, no change;
3. Placing one of the original ground poly's outside of the airport area, no change;
4. Adding a brand new ground poly inside the airport area, no change.

I do realize some of the above steps obviously wouldn't help, but I was trying anything. And adding a brand new GP and seeing nothig in P3D is kind of worrying because a lot of work has gone into it. So, before I post my ad4, is there something else I can try, to see if they reappear?

Cheers,


Xander
 
Small update as I finished writing this post. I went back to the airport after placing a new ground poly. Still did not show. However by chance I went into top down view and if I was far away enough from the aircraft, all of a sudden, all ground polys appeared. So I went into spot view and climber the aircraft up. At 4000 feet +/- 20 feet, they appear on the apron. Not at 4000 feet, but they start being drawn on their correct positions at 4000 feet. Including the newly placed test poly.
 
It sounds like your GPs are below ground. Have you flattened your airport to ARP elevation? If not, that's a necessary first step. If so, please post your .ad4 file.
 
Thanks for the reply. I'll test out flattening, otherwise I'll report back with my ad4. I just found it weird that they showed up perfectly up to a point and then from one compilation to the next, they disappeared....
 
Hello again,

here is what I tried since my post. It really bothered me that v2 still has the polys showing whilst v3 did not. Even though I have not added any flattening polys to either file.

- I created a new ad4 from v3, removing all scenery objects and roads, leaving basically only the aprons, taxiways, polys and ground polys, no change
- I reloaded my v2 BGL's one last time before replying now just to make sure I'm not going crazy, ground polys appear.
- Added an Airport Background "Flatten" polygon over the area where the parking hardstand polys are placed at ARP elevation and re-compiled, no change. (I expected hardstands to show as they all fell inside the flatten poly)

So again, the only difference between the two is that v2 was based on a badly scaled helper image and so the placements were a bit off. v3 used a much larger image,
had all taxiways, runway and aprons re-aligned, had a sh*tload of scenery objects added and an ever larger load of roads.
Let me know if other files are needed for completeness as I'm not shy about this project. It's purely for my own use and makes extensive use of object libraries etc..

Thanks for all your time and effort...
 

Attachments

  • PWAK_ADEP5_XKv3.ad4
    166.7 KB · Views: 143
  • PWAK_ADEP5_XKv2.ad4
    41.6 KB · Views: 127
I have just compiled v3 and can see the GPs both in cockpit and top-down views. What I don't see is a flatten, and there does seem to be a elevation issue. I suggest a flatten over the area containing the GP, set at the elevation of the ARP.

Don
 
So strange. I can see them in v2 but not v3. I'll try a flatten. Do you suggest, flatten only? Or any of the other options like masks etc?
 
A flatten at ARP elevation is all that's required. Turns out that when I tested, I had a large offset, which is why I saw them and you don't. When I eliminate the offset, I don't see them either.

The ground elevation varies by several feet across your airport. So, a flatten is essential. (You'll notice in several places the taxiways and aprons sides are a sharp cliff. ) And, there's a large concrete apron coming from somewhere (which will be elevated to ARP) and many of your polys are UNDER it. You can prove this by inserting a large offset, say 1-2 m.

)
 
Last edited:
Unfortunately a flatten at ARP elevation did not solve it for me :-( When you add the scenery to P3D, are you creating a folder and then adding all 3 BGL's to one folder and all 6 or 7 textures to a texture folder and adding it inside the library? That is how I do it. In any case, I will try to temporarily backup and remove generate files and all sceneries to make sure I don't have a corrupt .cfg or conflicting add-ons.
 
You are making this far too complex. The GPs are being generated; they are just below the displayed ground/airport surfaces. You just have to find out why. If it were a texture "thing", the GPs would display black. Conflicting add-ons is a possibility, of course, but then I'd have to have the same conflict on my system. Unlikely. Because of the variation in ground level across your airport, you need a flatten anyway to get rid of those little cliffs (unless you find them attractive), What did you use a the flatten elevation?

Perhaps if you post the AD4 file containing the flatten I will see something.
 
Hi Don,

so I have placed a flatten in version 4 of my .ad4. And I got no change to the GP issue. However .... I have narrowed it down to what the problem is. For me at least. Apparently my setup does not like the GP's located adjacent to intersection "C". As soon as I remove these 3 polys, the other polys reappear normally. I don't know why, but that is how it is on my system for some reason.
You also mentioned an elevation issue, and I see what you are referring to I think. I have seen it at more pre-v5 airport I have in my database (picture). I have checked that my flatten has the same 22.999 feet as the airport reference data. When the GP's are hidden the wheels meet the apron correctly. However, when I remove the aforementioned GP's, the apron seems to be around 0.9 feet higher. (with default F-35 it is 32.0 feet without GP's, and with GP's, I need to slew the F-35 to 32.9 feet up to match the wheels with the apron) :-( It seems so much is miss with my airport unfortunately.

Thanks again in any case,

Xander
 

Attachments

  • PWAK_ADEP5_XKv4.ad4
    166 KB · Views: 135
  • 2020-9-1_19-23-38-950.png
    2020-9-1_19-23-38-950.png
    2.4 MB · Views: 170
I have no idea where is "Intersection C", so can't comment on the effect of whatever three polys you are referring to.

For some reason, your v5 flatten has no effect. I went back to your version 3, set a simple triangular flatten over the entire airport and, with a standard offset of 7mm, the GPs displayed normally. It appears that, in v5, all the GPs are being drawn at sea level (which means that PV5 "thinks" ground elevation is 0). By definition, GPs are drawn on the ground. If Flightsim "believes" the terrain elevation to be 0 (i.e., sea level), there's nothing I can do about it. If you set the GP offset to 8250mm, you will see the GPs (though some will be elevated). .

There is an extraneous road not shown in your .ad4 file. These may be from the stock airport and require exclusion. Whether this has anything to do with your flatten not being effective, I leave to you to sort out.

What I can tell you is that the GPs are being drawn normally insofar as the GP editor has any control. Perhaps others can help you with the elevation issue. If, however, PV5 requires GPs specify elevation, GPs will only be available in PV5 if offset by the local terrain elevation, since the GP editor has no way of determining terrain elevation.
 
Sam, I have just confirmed with one of my own airports that GPs in PV5 are drawn normally on terrain flattened to ARP elevation. Therefore, I can say with a great deal of certainty, that your flatten is the issue. I appreciate you have specified it's elevation as the ARP elevation but, for whatever reason, it is ineffective. Perhaps its the complexity. I replaced it with a simple triangular flatten covering the entire airport and the GPs were drawn normally.
 
Don,

thanks again for all the help. I will go over the whole airport again. Maybe try a simple flatten over the stock airport to see its effectiveness in my system. I just noticed that my SDK version does not match the version of my PV5 (I believe 2 hot fixes earlier) don't know if that has anything to do with it as well. In any case, I'll poor over your post last 2 posts as there's a lot of info.

Cheers !
 
An update to my project. I am finishing up most of the tiny tidy ups, but basically it is done, and I'm very happy with the results. I have thrown a hail Mary and just drew a giant triangle flatten and compiled it with a 7mm offset. And it worked !!! However you will see where the flatten shape is, a sharp rise in elevation. I wanted to avoid this by placing the flatting along the coastline, but its effectiveness disappears when I do. Now I am shrinking the poly one compilation at a time, to see where its limits are and ultimately getting the best compromise.
Many times, we come on forums for help and leave when our problems are gone. But I'd like to take the time and thank you @gadgets for your help. And also to @scruffyduck for the many times they have helped. It's amazing how well this program is supported by brilliant minds. So for you, I'd like to share the before and after of my personal Wake Island. I went for a pseudo melt of two different era's as I couldn't find good 50's era aerial views of the island. However I am very satisfied with the result.

This is the end result (Note all the "PAAVille" dirt roads on Pearle Island:
Progress 7.png

From default:
Progress 7b.png


The end result:
Wake Island in P3D.png


Many thanks again for all your support ...
 
You can get rid of the sharp edges of the flatten by adding some blending polys to make the change from flatten elevation to terrain elevation. gradual.
 
Thanks gadgets,

Since that anomaly only appeared when ground poly’s were used on 2 occasions at the far runway end, I changed one to an apron poly and the chevrons to a library object. Eliminating the the need for the flatten poly. But I’ll keep your advice in the pocket for future endeavors.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top