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Photoreal LOD priority issue

gouaill

gouaill

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78
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canada
Hi All,
I'm on a Mount Denali National Park photoreal project using SbuilderX.
Most of the park images have been created from LOD12 (what is available) resampled to LOD14.
Now, the area around airports is made from LOD15 (LOD15 being available there) images, covering the LOD14 images in these areas, and this is the issue:
FSX displays LOD15 only around my plane and not for the full area. The rest is LOD14 (with LOD12 quality as you know). I even tryed to resample the LOD15 to LOD16 with no better results.
BTW, my Level of details radius slider is at max.
Any idea about the issue?
Thanks any advance!
Guillaume
Denali nat park.jpg
Denali nat park.jpg
 
Hello:

Have you viewed the BGL(s) output by FS SDK Resample in FS SDK TMFViewer to verify all LODs requested in the INF file(s) were created ?

See this thread: ;)

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/photoreal-scenery-quality.436781/


FYI: Higher LODs will in most cases only be seen within certain distances from the user aircraft according to a "Visual Display Radius" (the diamond-shaped 'higher resolution' area seen in top-down view) that is associated with each LOD and MIPMAP ...for the aerial imagery terrain textures output along with placement instructions within the BGL(s) by FSX / P3D SDK Resample.


PS: You may wish to review some of the info on display priority, LODs and associated Visual Display Radius ...in this thread:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/global-mapper-export-question.434552/page-3


[EDITED]

Note: There are pros- and cons- ...to extending the Visual Display Radius via the FS GUI LOD Radius menu slider or FSX / P3D Cfg file setting :

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/global-mapper-export-question.434552/page-3#post-716568

https://www.google.com/#q=FSX+LOD+Radius+menu+slider

[END_EDIT]


Hope this helps ! :)

GaryGB
 
Last edited:
Hi Gary,
Thanks very much for the advises. This is what I checked following your links:
- TMFViewer verified and all LODs requested as per the INF file(s) were created
- Recompiled it in LOD14 to see if it would make a difference but it did not
- Increased the LOD radius in the FSX.cfg at 4.5 instead of 3.5
- Pushed up the settings at: 100% mesh complexity / 10 Meters mesh resolution and 7 CM texture resolution
I haven't seen a difference yet.

I still have to check the pros- and cons- of extending the Visual Display Radius.

But maybe since I'm used to see (a real) LOD14 quality under a LOD15 and that know I'm seeing a LOD12 quality disgised as a LOD14, the contrast is more shocking than usual.
Thanks again,
G
 
Hi there,

this issue is actually the same with terrain mesh files and likely occurs because the sim appears to be reading the LOD layers of the multi-LOD files as individual entities instead of applying display priority rules to the files as a whole. In the case of overlapping layers with the same LOD it not only uses file order (alphanumeric within a folder, or forced via scenery.cfg) but also spatial file extent, with the larger file getting priority, particularly if the user aircraft approaches from the outside. That's why one often ends up with this weird mix of layers pulled from the different files.

You can try placing your higher-resolution file in a different scenery folder, at higher display priority. However, in our experience that doesn't work reliably either. Instead, our teams use the blendmask option to create a hole in the lower-resolution file of the area covered by the higher-resolution file. That way the sim can't get confused which LOD layer to display from what file.

Cheers, Holger
 
Hi Holger,
First, thanks for the interesting tips.
So, in brief, FSX can be mixed up even if the files use different LODs, reading the files as individual entities.
Since, I don't like to split files (home made for a same area) in different folder, blendmask would be the best route. I could try also using alphanumeric priority of files in a same folder (quick and easy to try).

Thanks again,
I'll report on the result.
G
 
Many thanks to Holger for further clarifying the FS scenery display priority anomalies one may sometimes encounter with multi-layer, multi-LOD BGLs of either terrain mesh or custom photo-real aerial imagery. :)


A few links for those interested in reviewing some additional info related to this type of display priority scenario: :idea:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/lods-for-high-resolution-photoreal.436785/#post-738368

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/photoscenery-texture-problem.436547/#post-735983

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/higher-lod-terrain-not-drawn.435658/#post-727464

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/lods-for-hi-res-photoreal.435132/

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/fsx-photoreal-naming-conventions.20989/


GaryGB
 
Last edited:
Wow, thanks Gary! I will certainly look into that too when I'll have a few minutes to myself ;)
 
Hi Gary and Holger,

I renumbered the files with alphanumeric priority and it worked. I like it simple like that. Lesson: next time I'm creating a scenery, I'll create the higher LOD images before the lower LOD in order for SBuilderX to create by itself the alphanumeric priority in producing the files.

Thanks again for all your help

Guillaume
 
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