NOTED SAK: PAJN bridges become wireframe and grow taller.

[Matt McGee]

This is just weird.  I did NOT notice this before the KBZN corrupt dll.xml issue I had.

 

- My dll.xml is repaired.  KBZN installs without the dll error.

- I have re-downloaded PAJN from FSS and re-installed it.  Again, no install errors.

- I installed Orbx Libraries 130909 last.

- I have played with FSX scenery setting since yesterday and nothing seems to change it.

 

The bridges around PAJN start to grow as white wire-frames.

(I think the original (good) bridge stays in place the whole time, the wire frame arrears to grow and drift off the road a bit.) 

They get taller as I fly away.

They get shorter as I get closer and then just disappear at short range.  The wire frame does not shrink all the way down again, it just disappears at short range.

Happens with multiple aircraft (F-18, T-28, T-34)

Happens with Central set to both North America and Global

Happens to the east as well as west.

 

Any ideas?

 

Here are some screen shots:

Note the increase in height and drift from the bridge spot as range increases.  (shot 1-3)

Note how size decreases and original bridge appears to be there in shot 4

Shot 5 is the instant the wire frames disappeared.

 

 

 

 

 

[Alex Goff]

I'm not aware of a solution for this, but I can provide background on what you're seeing. Those long lines you see are the underground portion of vector bridges that extend far beneath the surface. It looks like at a distance FSX is mixing up the draw order and displaying the bridges in front of the ground. I've seen it a couple times when loading or after a lot of scenery refreshes. 

[RJ]

Sorry to barge in but have you tried reinstalling the scenery? I know this may sound dumb but sometimes it works for me. Again it may not have an effect but install OrbxLibs too. 

Cheers, 

[Matt McGee]

I'm not aware of a solution for this, but I can provide background on what you're seeing. Those long lines you see are the underground portion of vector bridges that extend far beneath the surface. It looks like at a distance FSX is mixing up the draw order and displaying the bridges in front of the ground. I've seen it a couple times when loading or after a lot of scenery refreshes. 

I've never seen them before.  I'll fly around some other airports and see it anything pops up.

At PAJN they start immediately after take off.  Even after a fresh start of FSX.  If I cycle the views, sometimes they will not be there in spot (or locked spot) view, but will still be there when I cycle back to cockpit or chase view.

[Matt McGee]

Sorry to barge in but have you tried reinstalling the scenery? I know this may sound dumb but sometimes it works for me. Again it may not have an effect but install OrbxLibs too. 

Cheers, 

Hi TheMan_RJ.

 

Before I posted, I made sure the problem repeated after a restart of FSX, a switch to Global, and a PC restart.  I then downloaded PAJN from FSS again and re-installed, followed by the current (130909) library.  I spent a day changing scenery settings and trying different aircraft and speeds to see if anything made a difference.

I always try to trouble shoot a bunch before I post, since I don't want to waste people's time if I just have a setting wrong!

[Jon Murchison]

Had the same issue myself. Never seen it before.

[Matt McGee]

Had the same issue myself. Never seen it before.

You had the same issue at PAJN?

Were you able to fix it?

 

I've still got it at PAJN, but haven't found any other airports/areas that do it.

Thanks,

Matt

[vampire163]

I've got the same issue around Creswell. I don't have PAJN but don't see it in any other scenery.

 

Tried everything to resolve but must admit I haven't posted about it before, just stopped flying there! Glad someone else is getting this (sorry for you though!), hopefully it can be fixed.

[Mallard]

Have that issue myself around Juneau - but also at Wollongong as well. Thank goodness only in the outside views, and not what one sees from the cockpit...

 

Matt - are you using EZdok?

 

Cheers

 

Mallard

[Matt McGee]

Hi Mallard.

Have that issue myself around Juneau - but also at Wollongong as well. Thank goodness only in the outside views, and not what one sees from the cockpit...

 

Matt - are you using EZdok?

 

Cheers

 

Mallard

 

No, I am not using EZdok.  (I've actually never hear of it.)

Haven't flown much at YWOL lately, but did fly Wollongong to Canberra once last week, but didn't notice it there.  I'll take another look. 

I DO see the wire frames from the cockpit view though.  (screenshot #4)

 

Matt

[Mallard]

Right - I was just asking, because in EZdok my zoom settings between the inside- and outside views are quite different, and because I have only noticed the wire-frames growing and shrinking in the outside views depending on how much or how little I zoom in and out of these predefined views. This phenomenon does not appear quite as strong with the standard FSX external spot views - and my pretty much standard cockpit setting does not show this at all.

All of this would only be an indication of what could be going on - but I can't offer an indication towards a fix of course...

 

Cheers

 

Mallard

[jmd]

Hello,

 

Have that issue myself around 77S and PAJN

 

Cheers

[Russ White]

The bridges are part of FTX SAK, not PAJN, so i suspect your issue will still be visible if you untick PAJN in your scenery library.

 

Make sure your PAJN entry is above all SAK entries in your scenery library (FSX menu, 'world' > 'Scenery Library')

 

Russ

[Tim Harris]

Hi guys,

 

They are indeed a part of the SAK region pack, and not PAJN

 

Not able to replicate the issue at my end, and seeing as the bridges are using the default FSX extrusion bridge texture, I'll ask if the users suffering this issue have ever used any texture converter programs, or are using DX10/mods etc?

 

I'll ask Holger to pop in when he has a moment.

[Mallard]

I had the issue long before I switched to DX10. Haven't been back to SAK since, so I'm not sure what the situation is now. I don't use texture converters...

 

Cheers

 

Mallard

[Matt McGee]

The bridges are part of FTX SAK, not PAJN, so i suspect your issue will still be visible if you untick PAJN in your scenery library.

 

Make sure your PAJN entry is above all SAK entries in your scenery library (FSX menu, 'world' > 'Scenery Library')

 

Russ

Hi Russ,

 

My  FTX_AA_PAJN Scenery is priority 73

FTX_NA_SAK05_SCENERY is 98

FTX_NA_SAK06_CVX  is 99

FTX_NA_SAK07_MESH is100

FTX_NA_SAK08_CUSTOM is 101

 

FTXAA_AIRPORTS as my highest priority Orbx scenery entry.

FTXAA_HOLGERMESH and then FTXAA_ORBXLIBS.

All the Australia airports follow, then the FTXAU scenery entries, then all the other FTX_AA airports.  (With FTX_AA_GLOBAL_AIRPORTS in the middle of the list.)

Wales, North America, and NZ scenery files are last.

 

I'll un-tick PAJN an give it a go tonight.  I haven't noticed the issue anywhere else in SAK yet.

Matt

[Matt McGee]

Hi guys,

 

They are indeed a part of the SAK region pack, and not PAJN

 

Not able to replicate the issue at my end, and seeing as the bridges are using the default FSX extrusion bridge texture, I'll ask if the users suffering this issue have ever used any texture converter programs, or are using DX10/mods etc?

 

I'll ask Holger to pop in when he has a moment.

Tim,

I've never used a texture converter.  I'm using DX9.  No other mods.

Matt

[Matt McGee]

The bridges are part of FTX SAK, not PAJN, so i suspect your issue will still be visible if you untick PAJN in your scenery library.

 

Make sure your PAJN entry is above all SAK entries in your scenery library (FSX menu, 'world' > 'Scenery Library')

 

Russ

 

 

Hi guys,

 

They are indeed a part of the SAK region pack, and not PAJN

 

Not able to replicate the issue at my end, and seeing as the bridges are using the default FSX extrusion bridge texture, I'll ask if the users suffering this issue have ever used any texture converter programs, or are using DX10/mods etc?

 

I'll ask Holger to pop in when he has a moment.

Russ, Tim,

 

Un-checked PAJN in the scenery menu and the errors went away.

Re-enabled PAJN and the errors came back.

Also noticed no error in spot or locked-spot views, just cockpit and fixed external views.

 

PAJN disabled (SAK only), errors gone.

 

 

PAJN re-enabled, errors are back

[Russ White]

That makes little sense, the bridges are not part of the PAJN scenery (hence why you still see them when you disable PAJN) so i have no idea why they are causing an issue for you when PAJN is enabled.

 

I cannot replicate the problem my end, nor did it come up during beta testing, but seeing as a few of you are experiencing this i would suspect that it's the result of a specific circumstance, hopefully Holger can shed some light on what the culprit may be.

 

Russ.

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi guys,

 

unfortunately, I'm as stumped as everyone else. I've checked on my system with the F-18 and all sliders maxed and the bridges stay in place in all view modes and zoom levels.

 

Those "extrusion" bridges are placed by the FSX terrain engine on-the-fly meaning the code we create for them only provides relative heights for each bridge support (along with other parameters) and then FSX places them on the local terrain surface using those values. Since FSX "morphs" through several mesh resolution levels (LODs) with increasing distance from the user aircraft this approach is specifically meant to ensure that the bridges remain properly attached to the terrain regardless of the current LOD. One can see this behavior by quickly slewing towards a bridge located in hilly terrain and then watch as the terrain catches up moving through the LODs and the bridge changes shape as well.

 

I've never seen the issue experienced by Matt before and can't think of a mechanism that would cause the bridge behavior to reverse like that (= raise up with increasing distance). The code for extrusion bridge placement is somewhere embedded in one of the FSX dll's so I doubt that it can get corrupted in isolation. Perhaps it's a resource exhaustion issue but then it should be more readily seen by stress-testing on other systems like mine. Moreover the apparent link with PAJN is baffling as it doesn't contain bridges or terrain mesh files, both of which are supplied by SAK. 

 

If I had an issue like that the first thing I'd do is to temporarily deactivate (in the scenery library menu) all other third-party add-ons for that area except for SAK and PAJN. If that doesn't help then I'd navigate to \ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_AA_PAJN\Scenery and move some of the files into a temporary holding folder on the desktop and then restart and re-check; it doesn't matter which files since we don't have any obvious candidates. Perhaps one or more of those files are the actual trigger, which would allow us to dig deeper.

 

Keep us posted if you find any other evidence or commonalities and we keep thinking about possible causes.

 

Cheers, Holger

[Jon Murchison]

Here are a set of screenshots that show off the issue quite well. Note all camera are EZDOK cameras.

 

1 - Taken above the control tower, this is a world camera with a zoom setting set at .60, you can see the bridges extruding.

 

 

2 - Taken from my 'front' aircraft camera, zoom setting once again .60 about 100 feet above the nose of my A330 sitting on the runway, this is a lot closer to the bridges so no extrude is visible.

 

 

3 - Taken from the same 'front' aircraft camera, zoom setting still at .60 but I have moved the camera several hundred feet away from the nose, note the areas i Have highlighted as everything is still fine.

 

 

4 - Taken from the same camera as above, but moved a couple of feet further away. Note several changes have happened. The clouds now cover the top part of the right hand side mountain, more trees have appeared on the left hand side, and the bridges have begun to extrude. I could move back and forth between two positions and these differences would turn on and off as I moved between the two distances. The fact the bridge extrusion happens at the exact same time as the other graphical changes is the interesting bit.

 

 

5 - I then decided to disable PAJN to see what would happen. The extrusion goes away.

 

Here are 2 shots from the camera above the control tower, and then in front of the aircraft. In the bottom image I am further away than those with PAJN enabled simply because PAJN changes the shape of the scenery a little, so given the results above the further you are away the more extrusion you see it should be visible here.

 

 

6 - And here on approach to runway 8 we can see the difference between SAK without and with PAJN turned on. PAJN turned on in the bottom image and we see the bridge extrusion.

 

 

Hope these help.

 

 

 

 

 

I just checked the cockpit view, no bridge extrusion with PAJN enabled so this is definitely an external camera issue as someone has already indicated.

[Matt McGee]

I just checked the cockpit view, no bridge extrusion with PAJN enabled so this is definitely an external camera issue as someone has already indicated.

 

Unfortunately it is NOT just an external camera issue.  My posted cockpit view screenshots clearly show the bridge extrusions.

 

Haven't had a chance yet to start removing individual PAJN files as Holger suggested, to try to find an offending file.

Still baffled by the issue.  I also don't have any third party add-ons for the area to deactivate.  SAK, PAJN, and REX is all I have.

[Matt McGee]

If I had an issue like that the first thing I'd do is to temporarily deactivate (in the scenery library menu) all other third-party add-ons for that area except for SAK and PAJN. If that doesn't help then I'd navigate to \ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_AA_PAJN\Scenery and move some of the files into a temporary holding folder on the desktop and then restart and re-check; it doesn't matter which files since we don't have any obvious candidates. Perhaps one or more of those files are the actual trigger, which would allow us to dig deeper.

 

Keep us posted if you find any other evidence or commonalities and we keep thinking about possible causes.

 

Cheers, Holger

 

Holger,

 

PAJN_VASIS_FS9.BGL appears to be the culprit.

With it removed, I do not have the error.  Unfortunately, without it, there is also no VASI.

When I put the file back, the error returns. 

 

Here is additional info to help find a solution.  (to allow VASI to work without causing the bridge error) 

I disabled ALL of my freeware airports.  The error remained.

With PAJN_VASIS_FS9.BGL removed, I enabled my freeware airports and there is no error.  (just no VASI)

 

FTX Global only = NO error

FTX Global + Hybrid, PAJN disabled in FSX scenery menu = NO error

FTX Global + Hybrid, PAJN enabled = ERROR

North America, PAJN disabled in FSX scenery menu = NO error

North America, PAJN enabled = ERROR

 

Cheers,

Matt

 

In typical Murphy's Law fashion,  PAJN_VASIS_FS9.BGL is the last file in the FTA_AA_PAJN\Scenery folder.  I had to try every single file to find the culprit.  

[jmd]

Hello,

 

 It's same for me with PAJN.

For 77S, the bad BGL is:ORBX_77S_FS9_PAPI.bgl.

 

Thank you for search work Matt.

[ggerman]

Not to hijack this thread, but I noticed the same anomoly flying out of PAJN yesterday... but I've also encountered it in other areas of the world.. flying in and around Norway, in particular. I've seen these extrusions near ENGM (Aerosoft), but only at a certain LOD. I've also seen them in and around Japan, as well.This has been both before and after FTXG installation so there's no correlation with that.

 

I've just chalked it up to one of those FSX "quirks" and have learned to live with it.

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi guys,

 

interesting finding regarding the VASI/PAPI files. I'll ask Russ to check whether he can find any components within it that would cause the issue. I doubt that there's a simple fix though especially since the issue doesn't happen to everyone.

 

In the meantime if you would rather deactivate the bridges than the VASI file the extrusion bridges in the Juneau area are contained in FTX_SAK_roads_1211_Juneau_EXT.BGL, located in \ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_SAK06_CVX\scenery; renaming the .bgl extension to OFF should do the trick.

 

Cheers, Holger

[Ed Correia]

I actually did the VASI for PAJN & Creswell and used the well publicised method over at FSDeveloper. I will check through their forums to see any mention of this bug.

[Matt McGee]

I actually did the VASI for PAJN & Creswell and used the well publicised method over at FSDeveloper. I will check through their forums to see any mention of this bug.

Ed,

 

Did you find out anything more about the bug?

 

I miss VASI at PAJN  .

 

Cheers,

Matt

[Ed Correia]

Sorry Matt, I couldn't dig anything up. Maybe Holger's suggestion above regarding renaming the FTX_SAK_roads_1211_Juneau_EXT.BGL file will allow you to enjoy the VASI lights?

[Matt McGee]

Sorry Matt, I couldn't dig anything up. Maybe Holger's suggestion above regarding renaming the FTX_SAK_roads_1211_Juneau_EXT.BGL file will allow you to enjoy the VASI lights?

Thanks Ed.  Sorry to hear you didn't find a solution to the problem.

I tried out Holger's idea of removing all the bridges, which does allow VASI, but the scenery looks funny with all the bridges gone.  (gaps in the roads and partial shadows of bridges in the water just look weird)

 

I'm sticking with bridges over VASI for now.

 

Cheers,

Matt

[Thomas_LOLW]

Hi there,

I have the same issue with the wireframe bridges, also at PAJN and S77, like the others.

For PAJN, it started to show up after the recent SAK patch.

Any news on that topic since last year?

Cheers, Thomas

[Stillwater]

Inetersting thread, seems to be the issue is not able to be solved, neither at PAJN nor at YWOL. OK, we´ll accept & survive... 

[JPL19]

See my proposed solution here:

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/88783-ywol-issue-bridges/