Rianur Posted September 20, 2014 Share Posted September 20, 2014 Hi, In addition to the strange runway flashing black blocks at Airdire Airpark CEF4 (reported by other users in other threads), I am seeing black streaks coming from downtown Calgary buildings, as well as some buildings south of downtown. Turning off ground shadows removes these effects, but that is a less then optimal solution, I do have all the latest libs, and have installed the FTX products in the proscribed order. Any help removing these distracting effects would be appreciated. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dow Posted September 21, 2014 Share Posted September 21, 2014 I might be wrong but I believe that since enabling ground shadows causes such a performance hit for very little realism, and the way photoreal scenery often has fixed ground shadows, that FTX products are tested with ground shadows off. Devs might have a different view but I would suggest that turning off ground shadows is the recommended option in FTX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Harris Posted September 21, 2014 Share Posted September 21, 2014 Orbx has always recommended switching off ground shadows in FSX, why? the shadow system in FSX was/is terribly implemented and eats a ton of performance, plus we bake our own shadows into the ground, and most if not all photoreal has its own natural shadows If you want awesome object shadowing, get into P3DV2 Cheers Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Banks Posted September 21, 2014 Share Posted September 21, 2014 Orbx has always recommended switching off ground shadows in FSX, why? the shadow system in FSX was/is terribly implemented and eats a ton of performance, plus we bake our own shadows into the ground, and most if not all photoreal has its own natural shadows If you want awesome object shadowing, get into P3DV2 I have to say I [reluctantly] agree with Tim. I've always desperately wanted ground shadows to work properly in FSX and just can't see it ever happening with ORBX scenery: a massive amount of additional work for them to benefit just a few of us ... and only for a short while until we migrate to P3D anyway! It's not so much the ground shadows (as Tim says - they're "baked in") - it's decent shadows around airport buildings that I miss the most. I suppose I need to look to the future (ie. P3D) and keep saving for my new rig - which will be P3D *only*. Adam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Harris Posted September 21, 2014 Share Posted September 21, 2014 To enlighten further.. The problem with FSX object shadows is how the engine reads the shape, in FSX it requires all buildings/objects to have a solid 'bottom', it then reads this 'bottom' shape and projects the shadow accordingly, when an object does not have a bottom (and most of ours do not) it does not cast a shadow (or a correct shadow), then there is another issue with how some models are constructed (even the default FSX models) causing the 'black tractor beam'. In P3D the shadows are more direct and true, in that the entire shape is cast as if a light there was a light (or sun) shone across it causing a shadow to be cast, the real corker with P3D is it recognizes alpha channels so objects like trees show a proper shadow, and not just two black squarish shapes I hope that helps with understanding why we (Orbx) choose to not use the internal object shadowing system in FSX, and instead bake the shadows in manually (in quite a few different ways too, each developer has a different way of doing it) Cheers Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallard Posted September 21, 2014 Share Posted September 21, 2014 Hi Rianur, These lines and artefacts only appear at some airports (Orbx and non-Orbx) and only at certain angles. I'd stick with leaving them on, if you want the effect (I have it on - without any noticable effect on performance at all). As stated by the devs, the baked in shadows around the airports will, however, make for some strange observations when the shadow cast by the building points the one way, and the baked in shadow indicates another time of day and season. And P3D ain't going to get rid of that either, unless all of the shadows you can see at the airports are erased by hand from all of the buildings and from all of the aprons. That would be quite a task indeed... Cheers Mallard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlad Maly Posted September 21, 2014 Share Posted September 21, 2014 Hi, In addition to the strange runway flashing black blocks at Airdire Airpark CEF4 (reported by other users in other threads) Hi there: Same issue discussed here: http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/76778-cef4-flicker/?hl=cef4 Try to mess with the "shaders" whatever they might be... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Banks Posted September 21, 2014 Share Posted September 21, 2014 To enlighten further..Thanks for taking the time to explain this, Tim. Without knowing the technicalities, I guessed it was something along those lines - particularly after having seen trees cast totally square shadows. I'd have thought P3D has to work with more than just the *base* of the object. What about a control tower "on a stalk", for instance - how would that work? Not having P3D yet, it's impossible for me to say . Adam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rianur Posted September 21, 2014 Author Share Posted September 21, 2014 Thanks to all for your replies. I was hoping there might be something with my configuration that I could fix, since I'm sure not everyone experiences this issue. I will turn off ground shadows for now. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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