Tomsky Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Hello mates, As it's my first visit here I want to say a big "Thank You" to the entire Orbx team for the great freeware stuff you are giving to the flightsim community. Tasmania just blew my mind and I reckon that I will surrender to a "Buy Now" button for the entire package rather sooner than later. But maybe that's just what you guys are intending by laying out such a tempting bait... . Naa, everybody got his free will However, if a product is really as good as yours, why shouldn't I buy then. Nevertheless I came across a weird little problem in YMLT. I found some rather stealthy looking large flat mounds of about a one metre heigth across some parts of the airport, mainly the runway. They have the appearance of some texture blurring jelly and aircraft don't cast shadows on them even when being well above them. But on the runway the rolling aircraft will just disappear in the "stealth jelly" right up to the belly although they won't crash. Oddly enough the stealth jelly seems to vanish once the aircraft/viewpoint has reached a few hundred feet AGL. This phenomenon occured with the basic YMLT as it's included in the demo as well as the HD version. See attached screenshots for depictions of that mess... Tinkering around with the scenery library (deactivating all other addons, especially addon meshes) I was finally able to track the stealth jelly's origin down to an airport file of YMLT called "ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl". When I render this file inactive by changing it's file name designator to "OFF" such as the "Control Panel" script does everything seems to be fine. The stealth jelly's gone but the nice Launceston airport is still there. I haven't figured out yet if other discrepancies have shown up due to my deactivation of that file. But as the filename is just not as self-explanatory as let's say ORBX_YMLT_Grass.bgl I thought it maybe smarter to ask the developers: - What's ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl good for anyways? - Do I possibly have a corrupted ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl that could be replaced easily? Thank you in advance Thomas BTW: Together with a good land class file the Tasmania demo does work surprisingly well in giving the little country on the far side of the Tasman its characteristic appearance. Remembered that from the FS9 days where you could the same with the moderate "Blue" zone of VOZ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Eccleston Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Welcome to the forum, Thomas. That CVX file is required to provide a flatten for the wider area around the airport for the additional scenery that has been placed. It needs to stay. We are aware that on some systems, this has caused problems similar to the one you are having with the runway and have modified the runway 'flatten' accordingly. I'm pretty sure that revised runway is now included in the most recent download file for Launceston. Could you therefore download AU YMLT v2.5 from the Orbx Freeware page and install it. You do not need to uninstall anything, just reinstall the newer version straight over your current files and all should be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomsky Posted December 15, 2009 Author Share Posted December 15, 2009 Hello Graham, Thanks for the quick reply. I downloaded the latest files for Tasmania and YMLT 2.5 and installed them - to no avail. Whenever ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl is active I got the stealth jelly covering most parts of the runway and an elevated area between the runway and the main taxiway. BTW: all my ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl showed a "last changed" date of May 29th 2009 in Windows Explorer so I assume it has always been the same file. On the other hand I would still have to see any really significant rendering error without ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl. At least within the boundaries of the photography based immediate airport vicinity. No floating or halfway submerged objects nor funny looking terrain depressions, protrusions or spikes. I literally ran around virtual Launceston in circles again and again, oblique and top-down, everything looks perfect. So when you are referring to flatten information for additional scenery being contained in ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl does that apply to the photo scenery only or does it include a wider area coverage? Googleing ADE_CVX eventually revealed (one lone find in an Austrian flight sim forum!) that this kind of file is created by a program named Airport Design Editor - thus ADE - and ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl had already rung a bell in my head as it looked somewhat similar to the AFCAD file designations from FS9 days. I even downloaded ADE and tried to open ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl but it didn't work (didn't have too much time and ADE isn't properly set up yet) but I could view other YMLT files. As I'm usually craving for a maximum of realism in my flight sim installations regarding the landscape (elevation models, water bodies, shore lines, roads in particular) I may have unknowingly tweaked something in my FSX installation which renders ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl not only obsolete but actually counterproductive. Even with all other addons being deactivated through the Scenery Library. I don't doubt that your current files for Tasmania and YMLT are working as is on most systems but for some yet mysterious reason my FSX (or computer) doesn't appreciate them in the original form. Just out of curiosity I'd like to examine the contents of ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl and compare them to my current FSX installation. But judging by my previous experiences in scenery design (some half bred attempts in correcting gross land class and airport elevation errors, suppressing obnoxiously misplaced autogen and adding some missing objects and landmarks) that's usually the hardest part: reading information from MSFS and converting its cryptic format into something understandable and editable. I definitely have some serious respect for you scenery design guys taming that dragon on a daily basis... Cheers, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Eccleston Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 Hi Thomas, Could you try this APX file. Just drop it in your FTXAA_Airports/ Scenery folder overwriting the existing one. Let me know how it goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomsky Posted December 15, 2009 Author Share Posted December 15, 2009 Hello Graham, That was quick, my compliments. Tried the APX file from your last post; the result is definitely different from using the old APX as far as the stealthy stuff is removed. But the runway and some other parts of the airport now give a slightly entrenched impression as to be seen on my attached screenie. I even checked the place with Google Earth and although not being perfectly flat it looks a lot flatter than on my screenie. Note: I've cranked up mesh resolution to 1 metre as the effect is most prominent then but it's also well visible at 10, 38 or 76 metres (using FS Global 2010 payware mesh). I really start scratching my head here... Cheers, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Eccleston Posted December 15, 2009 Share Posted December 15, 2009 Everything is perfect on my system at mesh settings right down to 1 mtr although Orbx generally recommend this be set at 10 mtrs. I think the only difference between your set-up and mine is that I am using FTX AU Mesh (Holgermesh) while you are using FS Global. I'm not sure why this would be an issue though, as the CVX file should take care of that. It's getting late at night for you now so I will play around with this some more today and see if I can find out why this is happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Eccleston Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 Unfortunately, I did not spend a great deal of time on this today due to some family issues (all good I must say, my son was married yesterday so there were many things from the event that resulted in today being very busy) however I was able to try a few different things this afternoon. I have been unable to recreate the situation you are showing in your last screenshot. I have also been unable to de-compile the CVX file so am still unsure of precisely what area it covers or what altitude it is set at. It is seemingly doing it's job on other systems, including mine, so I am unsure if there is a problem with that file. The only variable seems to be your FS Global mesh however I am unable to see how that could be an issue. Is it possible for you to disable the FS Global mesh to see if that has any effect? Failing any ideas from other posters, can I suggest you disable the CVX file for now as that appears to be giving you the desired result without any apparent other problems. In the meantime, I will continue to see if I can find out why you are having this issue in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomsky Posted December 16, 2009 Author Share Posted December 16, 2009 Hello Graham, Thanks again for your support - but please stop wasting your time. I wasn't able to spend much time on the issue as well and won't have any tomorrow as well as I'm heading to Antwerp in Belgium to fix a broken real world plane. My preliminary final status is: - FS Global or Holgermesh (downloaded and installed it then disabled FSG) - doesn't make a difference at all. Neither does the default mesh apart from the fact that the landscape looks just - umm - a little bit flatter. But the funny effects at YMLT are present with all three meshes when ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl is active. - Deactivating ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl shows a neat result - best of course with FSG 2010 or Holgermesh. Nothing seems to be broken and needing any attention to fix it. The airport's terrain in the East undulates a little just like the same area does in Google Earth. The railway there follows the terrain smoothly and level and in the West I haven't come across any submerged or floating buildings or other objects around Launceston airport. Maybe I unknowingly did "something" to my system which makes ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl obsolete. As I said before, I tinker around with scenery optimizations in a dilettant's way quite a lot (sometimes forcing to me reinstall... ), so who knows. But I think your time maybe better spent rather than trying to fix something that isn't really broken. It was mostly my dilettant's interest in "What does ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl?" which made me ask this question. And as nobody else seems to have this or a similar problem I think we should consider the issue as rather irrelevant and somewhat resolved although none of us can answer the initial question yet. If you should some day occasionally come across the answer what's actually in ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl please post it here as I will look every now and then. But save your efforts for more sensible things. Cheers, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolter van der Spoel Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 Hi Thomas, I have FSGlobal 2008 installed and also have the Holgemesh active, works a treat as long as you make sure that the Holgemesh is higher on the scenery list as FSG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwiviator Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 Unfortunately I to have the same problem. I downloaded the YMLT_APX file with no difference. I will disable ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl and report back. I can confirm that I have downloaded and installed v2.5 and I have FSX Global which is located well down in my scenery library. Cheers Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwiviator Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 I have disabled ORBX_YMLT_ADE_CVX.bgl and all is well. Cheers, Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fmorgenstern Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 For what it's worth, I have just done the same to correct this elevation issue at YMLT. It's been a while since I flew there, and the airport looks great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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