active P3Dv4 Autogen LOD Radius Issues at ENSG & some other FTX airports

[Rhett]

Hi there,

 

I have found that at several airports (e.g. ENSG Sogndal Haukasan) that if the autogen LOD is set below "high" in P3Dv4, then no / minimal autogen (trees) appears on the terrain immediately around the airport vicinity - irrespective of the density setting. My understanding is that the autogen LOD is meant to only adjust the outer radius of the autogen display and not affect the inner radius. 

 

I have found this at some other airports as well - but the strange/annoying thing is that it is not always the same and is not easy to replicate the problem every time. Reloading the airport or changing the aircraft position also seems to change the level of autogen immediately around the airport. The user manuals do not make any specific reference to the minimum autogen  radius settings. Furthermore, in order to improve performance, I generally fly with autogen radius set below high (as recently recommended by ORBX for KSAN). I do use the Autogen Configuration Merger that is now by 29Palm's Skiathos airport for P3Dv4. However, de-activating this not seem to make a difference.

 

Has anyone else found this anomaly and any recommendations on how to prevent this from happening? Is it perhaps a P3Dv4 issue? 

 

Kind regards,

[Rhett]

Hi again,

 

Here is an example at Sekiu in PNW. The screenshots show the difference that the autogen LOD ("draw distance") makes (all density sliders are the same for all shots = very dense):

 

Autogen draw distance lower than "high":

 

Autogen draw distance ="high":

 

Autogen draw distance lower than "high":

 

Autogen draw distance ="high":

 

Regards,

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi Rhett,

 

interesting observation. However, I just tried to replicate this at Sekiu and failed: regardless of the setting of the "Autogen draw distance" slider the autogen placement around the airport remained exactly the same. Only the "Autogen vegetation density" slider made the expected difference.

 

Your examples ENSG and 11S both have a photoreal coverage area around them, like all Orbx add-on airports. It sounds as if your issue appears to affect the autogen on that photoreal background or do you also observe it at the default enhanced airports within the FTX Regions, e.g., KCLM Port Angeles? Either way, while autogen placement files are somewhat different for photoreal background versus landclass tiles I can't think of a mechanism that would make the P3D display engine treat them differently.

 

Cheers, Holger

 

 

[Rhett]

Hi Holger,

 

Thanks for the reply. I agree with you that is possibly affected by the photoreal background around the airport as there is plenty of autogen well beyond the immediate airport surrounds. I will try other airports like KCLM as you suggested and pay careful attention to the autogen behaviour. I have only ever really noticed it at ORBX FTX airports - but then again I can never really be sure that it is not happening at other non ORBX airports that also have photoreal surrounding backgrounds (as I am not always looking at the autogen behaviour).

 

I have however picked up on the Prepar3D forums that there are "issues" with autogen loading in patches in both P3Dv4.1 and 4.2. Many are complaining to Lockheed Martin (LM) about autogen issues and loading - including when approaching airports. I am using P3Dv4.2. Perhaps it is somehow related to this.

 

Kind regards,