Classic British Flight Sim

Looks OK Dan ;-) Here's Wolfy's LHR with the scenery/terrain mentioned above.. :o



ATB

DaveB :tab:

:think: didn't look that way last time I was in LHR.....

But then again, you have had some rain this summer haven't you?....

Yes indeed!

Oh.. did I say that was LHR?? It's actually Thorpe Park ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

Hi Dave

I think you have to change the scenery properties

Heathrow has to be "above" UKVFR in the properties.

If this doesn´t function

Best Regards

Wolfgang

Hiya Wolfgang

Sadly.. it is sir :-(

UKPhoto/Terrain sits at the lowest possible level (the next lowest down the list is Addon Scenery) so everything should sit above it but for reasons unknown, LHR61 doesn't.. well, it does for the most part but not completely as you can also see water beyond the control tower and around the threshold of 27R. A couple of patches for UKPhoto have been released over the years and I'm certain what you see above is a consequence of one of them. Odd it doesn't manifest itself with Garry Summons UK2000 Heathrow or Aerosofts London Heathrow 2007 :think:

I've tried removing UKPhoto for this area and I actually made things much worse.. all coastlines were right-angled blocks (not smooth-ish contours) so I removed the coastline patch which made it worse :o At this point, I got the impression that UKPhoto and the associated patches were not going to go without a fight (taking bits of the default with them!) so I relented and gave in. I left it looking like this for months.. turning a blind eye to the water but when I found a hole on one of the 27L RH turnoffs, the sort that sends you 300ft into the air when you've dropped down it, I decided not to risk it any more :-( Had I not been on a VA flight, it wouldn't have been an issue but the resultant 'straight up.. straight down' damaged the Trident3 to such a degree it cost a fortune to repair. I could've 'binned' the flight while floating back to earth (and should have on reflection) but didn't feel like doing it all over again.

ATB

DaveB :tab:

This looks very much like a mesh problem. Does any of the payware sceneries have mesh as well?

Or does LHR61?

If a scenery is released with a related mesh you shouldn't run into trouble as the scenery has been designed on top its "own" mesh. If not the next scenery's mesh will "grow through" the above.. etc. etc.

Hi Dan,

The story of UKVFRPhoto is a long one as the scenery began in the dark days of FS2002 :o By the time parts 3 and 4 were released, FS2004 had hit our pc's and both parts wore 'FS2004 Compatible' stickers. All 4 parts come with ground textures, mesh and water and with the exception of water, they work well in the newer sim (2004 that is). However, there were errors/incompatibilities between the two sims (as there always are due to Mr Gates and Co. refashioning the world) and this was put right with UKVFRPhotoTerrain (this included some new textures and a completely new UK terrain mesh). Unfortunately, while making the UK a much more realistic looking place, it interfered with sections of the French coastline so a patch was produced to removed the jaggies from those areas. Also, some inland water wasn't displaying correctly and was 'solid' so another patch was released. I think I have water on some parts of the south coast that shouldn't be there but by and large, all works reasonably well.

There is no issue with the default LHR (which, it has to be said hasn't been seen for years!!) and both Garry Summons UK2000 LHR from part 4 UK2000 and AS LHR2007 sit fine on that area. Wolfgang's LHR has these bits of water showing through and I really can't put my finger on why other than perhaps his scenery tile is slightly lower than the others (or to put it another way.. all the others are higher) :think: It's undoubtedly something to do with the mess that is UKVFRPhoto and it's associated patches but having tried to remove them and found bits of the default missing too means that it's here to stay I'm afraid :roll:

ATB

DaveB :tab:

You could try to set the altitude of Wolfgang's LHR a few feet and see what is does for the scenery.

As I recall it could be done in AFCAD2.1...

If you change the airport altitude all the parts of the airport should follow....

Wolfgang's LHR, is really nice, and I think worth some tweaking to get in place.... but all up to once own time an will of course..

Shortly I'll try to make Jens' Copenhagen work in FSX..... It can't hurt trying ;-)

Dan..

The runways and taxiways read at 83.8ft when sat in a Cessna. The bits of land inbetween the runways and taxiways read 83.7ft and the bits you see water showing through are at 81.2ft :o

Going over the same area with AS LHR2007.. it shows the same variation for the most part (83.7-83.8ft) but rises slightly to 83.9ft over the areas where that water shows through on Wolfgangs LHR. Main difference is.. it's completely solid and doesn't cause a 300ft jump into the air :think: I'll leave you to ponder that!

ATB

DaveB :tab:

Hi all,

Dave, that looks like a real problem at LHR and I don't have any suggestions to fix it at this point, since I don't have the UK package installed. Sticking with what you have might be the best solution at the moment...

Dan, I slept on the blurred prop problem and realized this has been covered in the FSX forums already. To fix it you need to:

1. Create a 256x256 pixel bmp file that is solid medium gray (sorry, grey).
2. Load the blurred prop texture into DXTBmp.
3. Choose Alpha/Import Alpha and select your grey square.
4. Save the texture in DXT3 format. You might be able to use DDS, but I don't know about that.
5. If the prop is not transparent enough make the grey color darker, or visa versa.

I'll add this to my FSX Conversion list that I hope to do some day, if it works.

Hope this helps,