Aircraft Shadows Being Turned Off

[mt2608]

Hi,

I am having a problem with KLX where the option for "Aircraft Casts Shadow On The Ground" keeps getting turned off, shortly after takeoff. I also then get a problem where AI traffic appear sunken and have no visible shadows either.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, installing the Standalone Addon Manager etc. I have UT2, and have uninstalled that and run with zero traffic, but still the same.

I have an ATI Radeon 6770, and have set all the parameters as suggested in the manual.

I uninstalled all FSDT sceneries, and then reinstalled just KLAX to try and help with my troubleshooting. I don't know for definite which FSDT sceneries had this problem, but I do know that KLAS and KORD did, but that LSZH didn't!

Any thoughts?

Thanks
Mark

[virtuali]

It's not a problem or a bug, it's obviously made intentionally, because the way of KLAX (and KDFW) ground is made, airplane shadows wouldn't be visible anyway after a certain altitude so, it doesn't make any sense to keep them on, killing fps, when you couldn't see them in any case.

But, this is happening ONLY in the airport range, when you exit from the airport range, the value will be set back to what you had before.

However, if you quit a flight or exit from FSX for any reason while in the airport range with shadows turned off, FSX will *save* this setting in the FSX.CFG, so there wouldn't be any other way for us to know if the setting was set by you intentionally, or was saved by FSX because you quit when the shadows were turned off automatically by KLAX and you were in the airport range (which is from 10 to 16 NM at most).

So, don't quit if you are *flying* and in the airport range, if you need to quit from FSX inside the airport range, do it when you are on ground.

[johndrago]

Hi,

I am having a problem with KLX where the option for "Aircraft Casts Shadow On The Ground" keeps getting turned off, shortly after takeoff. I also then get a problem where AI traffic appear sunken and have no visible shadows either.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, installing the Standalone Addon Manager etc. I have UT2, and have uninstalled that and run with zero traffic, but still the same.

I have an ATI Radeon 6770, and have set all the parameters as suggested in the manual.

I uninstalled all FSDT sceneries, and then reinstalled just KLAX to try and help with my troubleshooting. I don't know for definite which FSDT sceneries had this problem, but I do know that KLAS and KORD did, but that LSZH didn't!

Any thoughts?

Thanks
Mark

Strange, I have the same thing, but coudn't figure out why my shadows kept getting turn off.  Here's the stranger thing though, this has been happening at KBUR (default airport) for me on the ground.  If I check the FSX.cfg, and see that the value is turned on, I then go to KBUR at a gate.  I see the shadow appear for second, and then dissappear.  I exit from FSX, look at the fsx.cfg file, and see that the value has been turned off again. 

Umberto, any reason it would turn off at a default airport?  I didn't know that FSDT KLAX did this, as I haven't noticed.

Thanks,

John

[mt2608]

Hi Umberto,

Thanks for the explanation. Aircraft shadows is not a big deal now that I know the behaviour is by design.

Is there any reason however that at the same time as the aircraft shadows disappear, so do the shadows for the AI aircraft? And that from all appearing fine beforehand, they then appear to be sunken in to the ground?

Thanks again

Mark

[virtuali]

Is there any reason however that at the same time as the aircraft shadows disappear, so do the shadows for the AI aircraft? And that from all appearing fine beforehand, they then appear to be sunken in to the ground?

There's no difference from the FSX point of view between AI shadows and user-airplane shadows, the variable is the same. You don't see artifacts because we turned them off *before* they show up, but if we didn't, all AI (and the user airplane) shadows will flicker against the ground.