active Terrain reflection... again

[AnkH]

Hi all,

 

One issue still bothering me for some time is this annyoing terrain reflection issue. Somehow, many screenshots I have seen those days do not show comparable errors so I really wonder what is wrong on my side. Two pictures to illustrate the issue close to Aeropelican as an example, I have it all over the world with various addon sceneries:

 

 

 

I never found a solution to this. Turning off reflection obviously removes it, but then hills without trees or houses are not reflected, that looks also silly. Any ideas? Do you also have this issue?

 

Regards

Chris

[AnkH]

Really no one? Can't be that I am the only one with this issue. Is it related to something else? REX?

[Doug Sawatzky]

Hi Chris

 

Which reflections are you referring to? The only annoying reflections I see in your screenshots are the windshield reflections of your aircraft. Have you tried with an aircraft that has no windshield, or one that has the option to turn off the windshield reflections? ( I think it's aka  "VC cockpit Reflections" from the in game menu under the Vehicle tab or the View/Instrument tab)

 

Cheers

 

Doug 

[AnkH]

Don't you see this prominent dark line where the local scenery ends and the default water starts? Just below the boat for example? The lower picture is from exactly the same position (pause mode...) but with terrain reflections turned off.

[Doug Sawatzky]

Yes thanks now that you mention it, I do see that, but have no idea what to do about it....still the relections from the inside of your aircraft on the windshield are far more distracting and annoying for me. 

 

 

[AnkH]

You would judge otherwise if you see this in motion. Then this dark blue reflection not only shows where it should not, it also shimmers like hell in the distance. Extremely annoying. Will test some things later, such as reducing water to "high" or even "medium", activating "bathymetry" and stuff.

[Larry_R]

50 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Will test some things later, such as reducing water to "high

Hello,

 

This is just a quick thought and one I have not investigated regarding this specific problem. I gather you are using 3D waves (the Ultra water setting).   If this problem is confined to that setting, this might help. 3D waves are controlled by the Triton.config file located in the triton resources folder and there may be a setting that you could play with *provided you make secure backup* first. But you are strictly on your own; the LM guys advise not editing this file and they do not use all of the parameters. Some of them have no effect. Nonetheless, the config file is fairly self explanatory and you may find a setting that would be appropriate for your needs. (I have several tweaks I like but they are not related to this issue.)

[Doug Sawatzky]

Chris 

 

I am still curious, do you get the same effect with other or all aircraft? 

[Stewart Hobson]

1 hour ago, Larry_R said:

Hello,

 

This is just a quick thought and one I have not investigated regarding this specific problem. I gather you are using 3D waves (the Ultra water setting).   If this problem is confined to that setting, this might help. 3D waves are controlled by the Triton.config file located in the triton resources folder and there may be a setting that you could play with *provided you make secure backup* first. But you are strictly on your own; the LM guys advise not editing this file and they do not use all of the parameters. Some of them have no effect. Nonetheless, the config file is fairly self explanatory and you may find a setting that would be appropriate for your needs. (I have several tweaks I like but they are not related to this issue.)

Why not turn down the water setting to "high" or even "medium" and see what happens?  I haven't seen the need for an "ultra" setting personally.  Just a thought.

[Larry_R]

59 minutes ago, Stewart Hobson said:

Why not turn down the water setting to "high" or even "medium" and see what happens?  I haven't seen the need for an "ultra" setting personally.

 

Hi Stew,

I suppose that depending on how the sim is used, some may like the 3D waves better. For my purposes, like you I don't use the 3D waves. Until recently the wave heights were based on the Beaufort scale which estimates wave height vs wind in the open ocean with unlimited fetch. The result was that waves would wash over docks in an 8 knot wind! More recently the LM guys changed some of the parameters in the config file to cut the wave height significantly but they are still much to high at the marinas and seaplane docks I do and they also may be less than ideal for some AI boats. E.g. in a 16 knot wind you can intermittently see the fin keel of one of my AI sailboats emerge. 

[AnkH]

Ok, I ran some tests, sadly it is not related to the water quality slider. Might be my mesh then (FSGenesis...).

 

EDIT: removed the mesh, still the same picture. I am lost, why nobody else has this?

[AnkH]

Sadly, all my attempts did not resolve the issue (although somehow less prominent now). I restored all defaults in both PTA and REX 4 and:

 

- updated the scenery part of P3Dv4.1, this needed a re-installation of FTX Global and FTX HD Trees. No effect...

- re-installed both the content and the client of v4.1. No effect.

 

Then, I de-activated FTX Vector and all possible global stuff in the scenery library to see if it might be related to something. No effect.

Last, I completely eliminated my old FSGenesis and replaced it with the PILOT's FS Global 2018 (was anyway long overdue). No effect.

 

So, either there is something intrinsic wrong in P3Dv4.1 and somehow most people do not recognize it (what I doubt and many screenshots and videos show that this is rather unlikely) or it is a "specific bug" in my installation. Seems that the only solution would be a total re-installation from scratch and see if the absolutely addon-free P3Dv4.1 still shows this bug on my end. What a pain...

[AnkH]

On ‎17‎.‎11‎.‎2017 at 4:50 PM, Doug Sawatzky said:

Chris 

 

I am still curious, do you get the same effect with other or all aircraft? 

 

Yes, the effect of the bugged terrain reflection is visible with all aircraft (did not test 100%, but all my commonly used ones).

[AnkH]

Another update: I lost my patience and completely eliminated Prepar3d v4.1 from my computer. I also deleted all P3D related stuff I had on my C: drive in Documents, Appdata, Roaming etc. Then I installed only P3Dv4.1 from scratch and guess what? The issue persists. Now, the only explanation remains: other people are not aware of it. BUT: it might also be related to a specific driver setting? I do not get why nobody else is noticing this annoying bug...

[John Dow]

I've never seen this... but I think I have terrain reflections turned off because the slightly unreal nature of the reflected scenery outweights the pleasure in having it.  I know from experience that it is extremely rare to actiullay notice land and other scenery reflections in ocean water, so I find it more realistic not to have it displayed.

[AnkH]

Kind of. However, in regions where the land is not flat but like in Norway or NZ South Island etc., it is even less realistic to see the clouds reflected where actually a land reflection should be. Means: flying in a Fjord or over a lake in the mountains, no terrain reflection let the water look like a foreign structure, extremly unrealistic. If you fly around islands, yes, then the reflections can be turned off without a huge optical impact, that's true... Might be that I have to continue switching this option on and off depending on the scenario I am flying in...

[AnkH]

Interestingly, the brand new Whangerei scenery does not show this phenomenon, at least not that prominent. However, as it is still visible in a brand new default installation, I really do not know where the problem is in my case. And also not (I repeat myself) why nobody else has this issue... Still did not find time to play around with my driver settings though...

[Stewart Hobson]

Perhaps folks have the issue you have described, but are simply ignoring it; or else they have terrain reflections turned off, as John has done.  Either way, they are not reporting it.

[AnkH]

Might be, but this would surprise me. Also the fact that there are plenty of screenshots on the net and also several videos that show clearly terrain reflections being on but not showing a comparable issue.

 

BTW: I now once tested the nVidia driver defaults, the issue persists. I also tried more settings, such as reducing scenery complexity and stuff to a level just below max, the issue persists.

 

Seems that I have to live with it...