NOTED Possible PFJ bug in Hollis, Alaska area

[stiletto2]

Hello ORBX support,

Recently, while working on some scenery enhancements in the Hollis, Alaska area that will be released on the Return To Misty Moorings site, I noticed an area of ground texture changing from normal to some "does not fit" garbage urban land class texture from time to time. This problem occurs just above where the Hollis IFA dock is supposed to be (represented by a road circle in the ORBX PFJ scenery....yes, this is the ORBX part of the Hollis area). Some other ground areas closer to "town" center also make this "bad" transformation. All of my testing of this apparent land class problem has been done with all third party scenery enhancements in this area disabled other than the ORBX scenery files.

At first it seemed random but now I realize that every time the scenery library update is run…even if you don’t change anything in the library, the texture or land class in that specific part of the Hollis area alternately changes from normal to “garbage" and then back again and so on each time the scenery library is cycled.

Here is a picture in "normal" mode...right after I have started FSX.

Then if I go to the scenery library and choose ok to cycle it…. the ground texture in this area (and a few other areas closer to "town" center) changes to this bad texture:

If you cycle the scenery library again, it will change back etc.

When you do a FSX restart this part of the scenery is always changed back to normal until the scenery library is cycled. So, it appeared random because if you happen to manually cycle the scenery library an even number of times (when making changes) then you don’t see it. What make this a really big problem is that FSX will alternate the texture even if the scenery library is cycled from within the main FSX screen or when working in some other part of the world....and as long as FSX has not been closed and restarted.

As you can imagine, this kind of alternating land class change from good to bad and back again just doesn't look right and makes scenery enhancement in this part of the Hollis area a bit problematic.

I have had someone else on another computer reproduce this so I am pretty sure it is a true "bug". Thanks, in advance, for any help, assistance or quick solution that you might be able to provide on this problem.

Stiletto2

[spud]

I can confirm Stiletto's findings. At the location in his screen shot cycling the Scenery Library causing the scenery database to be updated will cause the texture shown to 'pop up'. Cycling the library a second time and the texture returns to 'normal'???

[Tim Harris]

Thank guys, looks like an overlapping landclass polygon, which will cause the type shown to flip on a scenery refresh, I'll make a note for Holger to check this

[dexthom]

Me 2

[stiletto2]

Ok, thanks Tiim. We will wait to see what Holger thinks can be done to fix it.

Stiletto2

[stiletto2]

Hi guys,

Feel free to just close this one out or back burner it for some future update someday. The immediate issue has been mitigated. As part of the development of the new Hollis Harbor scenery available over at Return To Misty Moorings, I just put a vector poly with an appropriate land class property over the top of it and it is no longer a problem for those who will be doing a lot of lfying in that area.

Stiletto2

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi Stiletto,

I'll deal with the overlapping/conflicting landclass polys in the upcoming PFJ service pack. I'm surprised to hear that an additional polygon works in your case because all landclass-based polys have the same display priority, which is the actual cause of the textures "flipping" back and forth.

Cheers, Holger