Author Topic: Photoreal Ground shows through surface  (Read 10186 times)

RALF9636

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Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« on: January 19, 2018, 12:45:58 pm »
I just installed FSDT KLAS, updated to the newest version, P3DV4.1.

I have the problem that the photoreal ground textures of Megascenery bleed through the surface as if the ground of FSDT KLAS is semi-tranparent. In the attached picture you see for example the photoreal aircraft which come from Megascenery Earth Nevada. It is not connected to FTX SCA. The problem exists no matter if SCA is activated or not (I executed all the steps top make it compatible and have no elevation issues).

I also tried with FSDT KLAS deactivated and the default airport: no bleed through problem with Megascenery.

Also I have tested for example FSDT KLAX over Megascenery California without such a problem.

I figured the file AP_KLAS2.BGL is the afcad file. I deactivated that file and the bleed through problem was gone (of course all kinds of other problems occured without an afcad file). But that showed that something seems to be wrong with this file.

Can you reproduce the problem or have any idea what causes this?



« Last Edit: January 19, 2018, 12:58:42 pm by RALF9636 »

thomson737

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2018, 02:56:50 pm »
I too have this issue. Attempted a re-install but nothing changed.

virtuali

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2018, 04:12:01 pm »
The problem is not obviously KLAS scenery and it's correctly made this way (the AFCAD doesn't have a solid apron), because it comes with OUR background photoreal scenery so, you are supposed to see that one, not other sceneries in conflict.

This should normally be solved by having the airport on an higher layer in the Scenery Library. Which is where our installer place it by default (for a reason). But if you moved or installed other 3rd party sceneries *after* KLAS was installed, or used 3rd party utilities to rearrange the ordering of sceneries, you must rearrange the Scenery Library to have KLAS on top of everything that might conflict with it.

Airports should always be on top of everything else, as a general rule.

RALF9636

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2018, 05:39:57 pm »
The problem is not obviously KLAS scenery and it's correctly made this way (the AFCAD doesn't have a solid apron), because it comes with OUR background photoreal scenery so, you are supposed to see that one, not other sceneries in conflict.

This should normally be solved by having the airport on an higher layer in the Scenery Library. Which is where our installer place it by default (for a reason). But if you moved or installed other 3rd party sceneries *after* KLAS was installed, or used 3rd party utilities to rearrange the ordering of sceneries, you must rearrange the Scenery Library to have KLAS on top of everything that might conflict with it.

Airports should always be on top of everything else, as a general rule.

I have KLAS above Megascenery in the library of course.

Somehow the lower Megascenery photoreal layer seems to take priority over the photoreal scenery that comes with KLAS even though the latter is higher in the scenery library. I did not see that with any other airport and I have a lot of airports on top of Megascenery, including other FSDT airports like KLAX.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2018, 05:55:16 pm by RALF9636 »

thomson737

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2018, 08:23:36 pm »
Just to confirm my scenery library should look something like this?
Just to note that all the scenery you see can not be moved. Below that included other sceneries that can be moved. I uninstalled both Aerosoft Vegas City and KLAS Airport and this is how it ends up.

thomson737

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2018, 08:24:17 pm »
As above ^

virtuali

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2018, 09:46:08 am »
Just to confirm my scenery library should look something like this?

Yes, that seems fine.

The only way a lower-priority scenery could take precedence over an higher priority scenery, would be if it's a mesh scenery with an higher resolution. However, only the mesh itself (altitude data), should be seen, maybe causing elevation issues, but not the photorealistic part, which should come from the scenery on top.

Have you tried disabling Megascenery ? At least this would confirm that's the conflicting scenery, not something else.

thomson737

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2018, 12:45:08 pm »
I don't use Megascenery.

The only other scenery in this region is the Aerosoft Vegas City and ORBX Global + OpenLC North America (I also only have Northern California installed and not Southern). At this point I am at a loose end.

RALF9636

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2018, 02:05:52 pm »
The attached image shows my KLAS with Megascenery (and also AS US Cities Las Vegas) deactivated.
The photoreal aircraft are gone but I am not sure if this is how it is supposed to look because parts of the apron have a different colour and less sharpness than others, so maybe there still is something shining through.

thomson737

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #9 on: January 20, 2018, 07:05:57 pm »
I can confirm that Aerosoft's Vegas seems to the conflict. I uninstalled and as above see no more photoreal aircraft.

Should we contact Aerosoft?

RALF9636

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #10 on: January 20, 2018, 07:49:51 pm »
Yes, Aerosoft's US Cities Las Vegas comes with a photoreal layer too (I deactivated that one because I use Megascenery), so that must be the one you see if you don't have Megascenery.

But that shows that it is not an Aerosoft or Megascenery specific problem because the problem occurs with both of these addons which include a photoreal coverage of the airport.

The problem is that FSDT KLAS does not completely overlay that photoreal layer as airports normally do, for example FSDT KLAX does it fine with Megascenery California.






virtuali

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #11 on: January 20, 2018, 09:42:18 pm »
The problem is that FSDT KLAS does not completely overlay that photoreal layer as airports normally do, for example FSDT KLAX does it fine with Megascenery California.

That's not the problem. As I've said in one of my previous posts, KLAS doesn't overlay a photoreal scenery, because it comes with its own photoreal scenery so, if it was made to cover up a photoreal scenery underneath, it would end up covering its own photoreal scenery too.

So, the real issue is not how the KLAS AFCAD is made (it *must* be made that way, just like any other airport that comes with a photoreal scenery in the background), but why the Aerosoft photoreal is "winning" against the KLAS photoreal, even if it's on a lower layer.

Are you sure it's not coming with a mesh too, maybe one that is of a (nominally, not real) higher resolution than FSDT KLAS mesh ? If that scenery comes with a mesh .BGL and it's a separate file just for the mesh, a possible solution might be removing just that file.

RALF9636

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #12 on: January 20, 2018, 11:53:17 pm »
First let me thank you for your continuous effort to help me solve the problem.

As I said it is not connected to Aerosoft US Cities Las Vegas specifically. I have deactivated Aerosoft Las Vegas but kept activated Megascenery Earth and I still get the photoreal image with the photoreal aircraft visible. And I am quite sure Megascenery does not have its own mesh, at least all files are either named "...aerial...bgl" or "...POI...bgl", no file is called "...mesh...bgl".

And I repeated the test I already mentioned in my first post: I deactivated the file AP_KLAS2.BGL (by renaming to ...bgl.off) and the photoreal aircraft were not there anymore. What I saw was probably the photoreal image of FSDT.
So that file must somehow affect what photoreal image is shown.

Another thing I noticed which might help to track this down. The photoreal aircraft only appear close to my position. They pop up when I get closer as if a new LOD-step would be loaded at that time. So may be Megascenery has a higher maximum LOD than the FSDT photoreal image and takes priority as soon as the maximum LOD is loaded?


thomson737

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #13 on: January 21, 2018, 05:24:12 pm »
Just an FYI I have reset my PC (due to other scenery issues and a bit of a clean up) so will try both these sceneries before anything else.

thomson737

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Re: Photoreal Ground shows through surface
« Reply #14 on: January 22, 2018, 12:49:10 pm »
I can confirm that for me... with just the Aerosoft Vegas City installed and FSDreamteam KLAS, the issue still persists. Until there is a true explanation I think I'm done with this scenery for now.