Author Topic: Weird Night Textures  (Read 9090 times)

AtomicPizzas

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Weird Night Textures
« on: October 27, 2019, 09:24:06 pm »
Hello,

Whenever I'm at KLAX at night the textures are very strange textures. Closer to the 25 side there is a shimmery and reflective texture, and closer to the 07 side there is a low res blueish texture. I'm pretty sure this is caused by tomato, but KLAX is the only airport affected, even CYVR works fine. Hope there might be a new fix for this.

virtuali

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2019, 10:48:32 am »
I'm pretty sure this is caused by tomato, but KLAX is the only airport affected, even CYVR works fine. Hope there might be a new fix for this.

Yes, the problem is the tweaked shader. Does it happen if you go back to default shaders ?

Flyboyaz

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2019, 02:55:38 pm »
I had this problem too with Tomatoshade. After I stopped using it, it returned to normal. I never tweaked the settings which I think you would have to do to reduce the shiny effect. I like it better without personally.

asegm08

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #3 on: November 28, 2019, 03:51:37 pm »
Is there anyway to be able to have this effect go away with out Tomatoshade being removed? The dynamic reflections it offers are great but the airport looks like it just rained all the time. Thanks.
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AtomicPizzas

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2019, 04:01:20 am »
I agree, it's super annoying to have to disable tomato if I want to fly to this airport. This doesn't happen at any other addon airport, or even any other FSDT airport, so I hope we could get a fix.

arwasairl

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2020, 04:28:13 pm »
Actually older versions of KLAX for P3Dv4 did not have this issue. But the AFCAD and GSX Jetways update added this artifact when using tomatoshade. I've looked at my older KLAX P3D v4 videos and the artifact was not there back then despite using tomatoshade.
Aaron Kim

virtuali

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #6 on: February 05, 2020, 12:19:05 pm »
Actually older versions of KLAX for P3Dv4 did not have this issue. But the AFCAD and GSX Jetways update added this artifact when using tomatoshade. I've looked at my older KLAX P3D v4 videos and the artifact was not there back then despite using tomatoshade.

It's exactly the opposite.

The problem with the old version was the LACK of support for rain in one half of the ground textures. The correct texture is the one that, with Tomato Shader, looks "wrong", because on a normal system with no shader modifications, that shiny effect is supposed to be seen only if it's raining and, even when it does, it's not that visible, especially at night.

So, with the current update, we FIXED the problem and enabled precipitation sensitivity to the other half, so now when it rains, it rains over the whole airport. However, if you use Tomato Shader, now the *whole* airport will look "wrong", although is finally correct. Before, with Tomato shader, the wrong part of the airport looked "right" on Tomato Shader.

Basically, if you use Tomato shader, expect any kind of weird effects on any scenery. Well, not "any" scenery, but surely the better ones, those the exploit the capabilities of the sim, and use proper materials with the full features, like support for rain. Lesser sceneries with less features will not be affected much by these tweaks.


Hawaiianstyle78

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #7 on: February 28, 2020, 11:58:39 am »
Is there a fix to this? I just landed KLAX now and I have the bluish and shiny (looks like water ) runways and taxiways . I too have PTA. I never had this problem before until I did the recent FSDT update +GSX update . I been using PTA for over a year and never had this occur at KLAX Untill recent update . Can we get a fix please ?

Thank you

virtuali

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2020, 02:37:32 pm »
Again, there's no "fix" possible or required on our side. The scenery is CORRECTLY set to be sensible to rain, so it will look "wet", but ONLY when it's raining. It looks dry when it's not.

However, if you use a modified shader, anything can happen, and it seems those products alter the default sim behavior in a way that, instead of looking wet only when it's raining, it will always look wet, even when it shouldn't, possibly because the 3rd party shader is not taking into account the rain or more precisely the lack of it, so it's always using the environment channel, even when it shouldn't.

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I never had this problem before until I did the recent FSDT update +GSX update . I been using PTA for over a year and never had this occur at KLAX Untill recent update . Can we get a fix please ?

See my previous reply, which clearly explains why what you think it's a "problem", is in fact a bug fix. With the previous version, half of the airport didn't support conditional reflections in rain, so it was wrong for everybody using the simulator with standard shaders, since it didn't respond to rain, at least not in one half of the runway. You DID had what you call "a problem", in the other half, since the CORRECT part looked "wrong" with some 3rd party shaders, and the wrong part looked "right", while for everyone not using modified shaders it was the other way around.

Now, with a recent update, we made the whole airport CORRECT, so it will respond to rain across the whole surface, but again, those with 3rd party shaders will think it's "wrong" across the whole surface, because we fixed it for everybody else.

So, the "fix" in this case, would be asking to those that modified the shaders, to support an official function of the simulator SDK, which is the conditional reflection based on rain, which they don't seem to support properly.

It just not right removing a feature from the scenery that works perfectly with the stock sim, just because the shader modification you are using doesn't support it correctly.

See here what other developers think of shader modifications:

PMDG:

https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/5957-11mar19-shader-mods-if-you-are-having-trouble-with-artifacts-after-our-747-pbr-update-you-need-to-read-this


khairlines

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #9 on: March 28, 2020, 09:40:27 am »
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So, the "fix" in this case, would be asking to those that modified the shaders, to support an official function of the simulator SDK, which is the conditional reflection based on rain, which they don't seem to support properly.

I have read almost every thread there is relating to KLAX night textures in this forum and you guys remain so obstinate on not putting in effort to help with this problem. We don't want to hear how your scenery is superior to others on the market and that's why its not compatible with extremely common shader tools. That is invalid. A good product is able to withstand small tweaks (and i can start naming names)

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It just not right removing a feature from the scenery that works perfectly with the stock sim, just because the shader modification you are using doesn't support it correctly.

I mean seriously did you guys really think a large majority of your client base simply flies with stock settings and textures? There are tons of communities on Facebook geared towards doing exactly the opposite, and shader tweaking technologies were in use during the development of this product!

I seriously haven't seen a worse response from a firm about issues with there products...

Anyways, I have given up on working to find a fix to this problem, it's a matter of time before your team realizes impacted sales due to poor customer support, but apart from that how do I get rid of these rainy-day, grainy night textures? Is there a bumpmap I can delete? Something I can tweak? The scenery is *gulp* fine otherwise, but its these ground textures that truly ruin it.
 

virtuali

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #10 on: March 29, 2020, 02:30:38 pm »
I have read almost every thread there is relating to KLAX night textures in this forum and you guys remain so obstinate on not putting in effort to help with this problem.

If you read this last post, it should have been obvious that:

- We FIXED this, but the fix was for the stock shaders, so now the whole airport supports rain effects on ground. Before, it was only half airport. However, some shader modifications are bugged, and when the airport properly supports rain, it would look too shiny.

- There's just nothing we can do if your shader behaves in the wrong way, and destroy what is supposed to be a default function of the sim SDK.

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We don't want to hear how your scenery is superior to others on the market and that's why its not compatible with extremely common shader tools. That is invalid. A good product is able to withstand small tweaks (and i can start naming names)

We don't want to hear your shader is superior to other, when it's clearly not compatible with an extremely common scenery from FSDT. This is invalid. A good shader product should enhance sceneries without destroying them.

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I mean seriously did you guys really think a large majority of your client base simply flies with stock settings and textures? There are tons of communities on Facebook geared towards doing exactly the opposite, and shader tweaking technologies were in use during the development of this product!

Sorry, but this is totally wrong. The onus on not destroying a scenery using a perfectly legit and official SDK method ( rain support on ground ) it's on who made the shader modification, not the scenery that is using it correctly.

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I seriously haven't seen a worse response from a firm about issues with there products...

PMDG and Aerosoft says the SAME things about Shader modifications. See my previous link on PMDG forum, go there complaining you haven't seen a worse response too.

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Anyways, I have given up on working to find a fix to this problem, it's a matter of time before your team realizes impacted sales due to poor customer support, but apart from that how do I get rid of these rainy-day, grainy night textures? Is there a bumpmap I can delete? Something I can tweak? The scenery is *gulp* fine otherwise, but its these ground textures that truly ruin it.

As I've said, we are in good company so, you must realize those that should act are those making those modifications, to be sure they don't destroy your FSDT/Aerosoft scenery, your PMDG airplane or anything else.

Let's try this one:

Assuming we, FSDT, made Tomato Shader, and you bought a scenery of KLAX that WORKS PERFECTLY WITHOUT IT from other developer. Would you still say that WE, the developers of the shader, are offering "the worse customer support", because we said it's the scenery that must be "fixed" ? The scenery that works 100% with default shaders ?

khairlines

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #11 on: March 30, 2020, 05:34:45 am »
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Sorry, but this is totally wrong. The onus on not destroying a scenery using a perfectly legit and official SDK method ( rain support on ground ) it's on who made the shader modification, not the scenery that is using it correctly.

Sure fine.....then explain why your sceneries are the ONLY ones to screw up. Flightbeam KDEN, KPDX, KSFO, KIAD and plenty more, these guys are compatible with the modern day simmer. And fine, u did it better....doesn't mean its enjoyable to fly to your destinations... in fact it's horrible. So how do i make this "incredibly beautiful and wonderful" scenery enjoyable and not an eye-sore.

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Sorry, but this is totally wrong. The onus on not destroying a scenery using a perfectly legit and official SDK method ( rain support on ground ) it's on who made the shader modification, not the scenery that is using it correctly.


You can say this another 500 times, we wont entertain this cop-out...

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Assuming we, FSDT, made Tomato Shader, and you bought a scenery of KLAX that WORKS PERFECTLY WITHOUT IT from other developer. Would you still say that WE, the developers of the shader, are offering "the worse customer support", because we said it's the scenery that must be "fixed" ? The scenery that works 100% with default shaders ?


I would ask the KLAX developers why their product is the odd one out when it comes to Tomatoshade...which if u haven't noticed by now is the O N L Y reason we approach you guys on this. You are the ugly duckling, the odd one out, the square peg in a round hole, the fish out of water, do you need more?

you would make so so so many of ur customers happy if u released a downloadable fix for those who want it......that way ppl can have the best of both worlds



virtuali

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2020, 10:02:41 am »
Sure fine.....then explain why your sceneries are the ONLY ones to screw up.

Already explained, so many times already.

- The scenery supports rain on ground.

- It has normal maps on ground, which obviously looks more realistic and less flat.

It's the COMBINATION of these that Tomatoshader doesn't seem to support.

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Flightbeam KDEN, KPDX, KSFO, KIAD and plenty more, these guys are compatible with the modern day simmer.

They just chose to make ground polygons in a simpler way, with only Diffuse+Specular, forfeiting normal maps, making ground totally flat, so they are not affected by this issue caused by the shader mod, which clearly hasn't been tested with a scenery that use a complete material, including normal maps.

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And fine, u did it better....doesn't mean its enjoyable to fly to your destinations... in fact it's horrible. So how do i make this "incredibly beautiful and wonderful" scenery enjoyable and not an eye-sore.

Stop using a shader mode that alters the normal rendering of the sim. Or report to the shader developers a scenery that works perfectly without shader modifications is affected by their shader this way.

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I would ask the KLAX developers why their product is the odd one out when it comes to Tomatoshade...which if u haven't noticed by now is the O N L Y reason we approach you guys on this. You are the ugly duckling, the odd one out, the square peg in a round hole, the fish out of water, do you need more?

If a scenery works perfectly with the sim is installed by default, if ANOTHER add-on destroys it, the onus is on the OTHER add-on, even if that scenery is the ONLY one affected. You might have had some kind of point if we tried to do something not standard, but supporting rain and using normal maps on ground is a totally legit and documented method in the SDK.

When more sceneries will use PBR, you'll see more of them affected by those shader mods. This because, until today, even sceneries that are advertised as "full PBR", are not 100% PBR. Ground polygons are still made using the Legacy shaders, because P3D4 default terrain is not PBR, so making ground polygons in PBR would look very bad, since they won't match together, lighting would be off.

But when the default terrain will go to PBR too, the reverse would be true, and sceneries would *HAVE* to be updated to PBR ground polygons. And, while the Legacy shaders can work without a normal map, PBR really can't, since it would result in all light calculations being off, so more sceneries will have to use normal maps on ground, and they will be affected by those shaders too, unless they decided to get rid of rain effects.

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you would make so so so many of ur customers happy if u released a downloadable fix for those who want it......that way ppl can have the best of both worlds

No, because we would have to lower the quality of our product, to overcome a bug in the shader and if we did that, those making the scenery would never try to fix it.

Instead, what you and everybody using that shader and KLAX should really do is the following:

- Go to their developers, and saying something like:

"Hello, I have this scenery which works PERFECTLY with the default scenery but, when I install your shader, for some reason, it looks too shiny at night. As soon as I restore default shaders, the scenery works perfectly again so, clearly, it's your shader. The scenery developers told me the problem is caused by the fact the scenery is one of the very few that uses normal maps on ground AND supports rain effect, so it's possible you haven't tested your shader using this 100% legit SDK method, because there are not many sceneries using it ? Could you please check if you can fix this problem with your shader, since this method will likely be used by other airport developers in the future, when more and more sceneries will switch to PBR, making the usage of normal maps on ground mandatory ?"

« Last Edit: March 30, 2020, 10:10:05 am by virtuali »

khairlines

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Re: Weird Night Textures
« Reply #13 on: March 31, 2020, 03:27:00 am »
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"Hello, I have this scenery which works PERFECTLY with the default scenery but, when I install your shader, for some reason, it looks too shiny at night. As soon as I restore default shaders, the scenery works perfectly again so, clearly, it's your shader. The scenery developers told me the problem is caused by the fact the scenery is one of the very few that uses normal maps on ground AND supports rain effect, so it's possible you haven't tested your shader using this 100% legit SDK method, because there are not many sceneries using it ? Could you please check if you can fix this problem with your shader, since this method will likely be used by other airport developers in the future, when more and more sceneries will switch to PBR, making the usage of normal maps on ground mandatory ?"

ok fine, thx