Scenery Loading Distance

  • Hey Jeff,

    Andrew, set 'Masks' to NO in FSET.

    I'm not too sure why you are using masks here, Aerofly reads the imagery files without masks.

    The only changes that you should be making with the image tiles would be to add alpha to make those areas transparent, mainly for water areas that there is no images or for blending into the Aerofly base scenery.

    Please follow the tutorial on the wiki for this as it explains it clearly.

    Hey Jeff,

    Thanks. I have been having the same issues others have with the scenery tiles I made popping up what seems to be way late. Some of them I am right on them before they pop in. There was discussion here that using masks seemed to load larger areas, at a greater distance. Not pretending to know how it all works, LOL, just trying it to see if it makes a difference.

    Andrew

  • This is something that we are not seeing. Is there some specific time that you are seeing this pop-up? We have run many different configurations and different resolutions (including FSET at -1 and Level 15 converted) to test the geoconvert process but never seen this happen.

    One thing though that you shouldn't use is masking from FSET.

    We will research this a bit to see if something is going on here.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • This is something that we are not seeing. Is there some specific time that you are seeing this pop-up? We have run many different configurations and different resolutions (including FSET at -1 and Level 15 converted) to test the geoconvert process but never seen this happen.

    One thing though that you shouldn't use is masking from FSET.

    We will research this a bit to see if something is going on here.

    About to head to bed for the night, but I will take some screen shots tomorrow so you can see them.

    Thanks for the help as always Jeff!

    Andrew

  • Jeff,

    Here are a couple of screen shots, before and after. You can clearly see the dividing line between the scenery I made, and the default low res out in the distance. The thing is, all of that low res you see out there is actually done in up to level 14, but does not pop in until much closer. I am in about the middle of a 100x100 nautical mile area that I did, at 6000' I don't think you should see the edges.

    So, in the screen shots, the first and second one were taken about 1-2 seconds apart, just before and just after the tile popped in. I am not sure of the distance to it before it popped in, but at 6000', I would say it is not more than 6-8nm. In VR it looks like you are right on it before the next tile pops in.

  • I am really interested in what people are doing to prevent the "pop in" of scenery only when you get close. I see it in all of my self-made scenery.

    This is an instance where it would be great to be able to download other peoples' projects to maybe get a glimpse of what they are doing differently.

  • I am really interested in what people are doing to prevent the "pop in" of scenery only when you get close. I see it in all of my self-made scenery.

    This is an instance where it would be great to be able to download other peoples' projects to maybe get a glimpse of what they are doing differently.

    Download my Florida Keys package. I converted the scenery at levels 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15.

    You will see no pop-in.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • You need to make sure that you are converting your projects with enough of levels for starters. When levels are missing it leaves a void in the scenery loading process. Let's say for example, if you run a job with levels 9 and 13, you will have loading issues with the scenery due to the void between loading of levels (missing levels 10,11, and 12)

    All of the jobs that I have run to test the tool that were successful all had many levels with no skipped levels; My standard now is: Levels, 10,11,12,13,14, and 15.

    I've noticed that some users tried to run jobs with only one level then complained that there were blurry and even black tiles all over the place, this is because you don't have enough levels in your job.

    I hope this helps.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • You need to make sure that you are converting your projects with enough of levels for starters. When levels are missing it leaves a void in the scenery loading process. Let's say for example, if you run a job with levels 9 and 13, you will have loading issues with the scenery due to the void between loading of levels (missing levels 10,11, and 12)

    All of the jobs that I have run to test the tool that were successful all had many levels with no skipped levels; My standard now is: Levels, 10,11,12,13,14, and 15.

    I've noticed that some users tried to run jobs with only one level then complained that there were blurry and even black tiles all over the place, this is because you don't have enough levels in your job.

    I hope this helps.

    Hmmm... I only skipped level 11 and did the rest of 9-14. Is 15 necessary? I will rerun everything and try again.

    Andrew

  • Level 15 is not necessary here. I only run that level because I use high resolution imagery. You can stop at Level 14.

    For your job, I would use levels 9-14

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • The photos that MrRCSound posted is exactly what my scenery does. I convert levels 9,11, and 12. My TMC has level 9 set to create masks, the others are not. So I should convert with masks off on all levels?

    Yes, like I said masks in FSET should be set to NO.

    This will can cause some issues otherwise.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Yes, like I said masks in FSET should be set to NO.

    This will can cause some issues otherwise.

    Jeff. You keep referring to masks in FSET. How about geoconvert masks? True, false, some levels, all levels?

  • Maybe i'm missing something here but I'm really not too sure what you mean by geoconvert masks?

    The TMC is very straight forward and that's pretty much all you need to make successful scenery.

    Are you referring to a tool that someone made and not tested by IPACS here?

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • Maybe i'm missing something here but I'm really not too sure what you mean by geoconvert masks?

    The TMC is very straight forward and that's pretty much all you need to make successful scenery.

    Are you referring to a tool that someone made and not tested by IPACS here?

    Here's an example Jeff. Its these [write_images_with_mask] lines I think people area asking about and aren't explained in the wiki. I need them true so my coastlines appear but I know they also have a role wrt the size of FS2's tiles at different levels.

    <[file][][]

    <[tmcolormap_regions][][]

    <[string] [folder_source_files][./input_aerial_images/]>

    <[bool] [write_ttc_files][true]>

    <[string8][folder_destination_ttc][./scenery/images/]>

    <[bool] [write_raw_files][true]>

    <[string8][folder_destination_raw][./scenery/images_raw/]>

    <[bool] [always_overwrite][true]>

    <[bool] [do_heightmaps][false]>

    <[bool] [write_images_with_mask][false]>

    <[list][region_list][]

    <[tmcolormap_region][element][0]

    <[uint32] [level] [9]>

    <[vector2_float64] [lonlat_min] [-3.27 54.74]>

    <[vector2_float64] [lonlat_max] [-2.69 54.40]>

    <[bool] [write_images_with_mask][true]>

    >

    <[tmcolormap_region][element][0]

    <[uint32] [level] [11]>

    <[vector2_float64] [lonlat_min] [-3.27 54.74]>

    <[vector2_float64] [lonlat_max] [-2.69 54.40]>

    <[bool] [write_images_with_mask][false]>

    >

    <[tmcolormap_region][element][0]

    <[uint32] [level] [12]>

    <[vector2_float64] [lonlat_min] [-3.27 54.74]>

    <[vector2_float64] [lonlat_max] [-2.69 54.40]>

    <[bool] [write_images_with_mask][false]>

    >

    <[tmcolormap_region][element][0]

    <[uint32] [level] [13]>

    <[vector2_float64] [lonlat_min] [-3.27 54.74]>

    <[vector2_float64] [lonlat_max] [-2.69 54.40]>

    <[bool] [write_images_with_mask][false]>

    >

    >

    >

    >

  • I never use mask, in fact I omit the line pertaining to mask altogether. Using masks are problematic and there could actually be a bug in Aerofly with using them.

    I guess i'll have to test with them. Give me a little bit here as I look more into this, but since I don't use mask and have never seen pop-up of scenery then I suspect it's causing some type of problem with your sceneries.

    The goal for geoconvert to be successful is to make it as simple as possible.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • I am going to start over with my scenery. I just did a large area, but to save time I did it at 2m per pixel. Looks bad. I did all levels though, and did not see any pop ups. So back to the start with all new 1m per pixel. Might take me a couple of days to get a large area. I will keep you all updated.

    Andrew