ANSWERED Spontaneous seasonal shift in portions of terrain & "jerkiness"?

[Jotayhen]

I have installed all of the Orbx "fat" terrain regions from NCA to Alaska together with numerous airports and I am enjoying them immensely!  I recently installed HD Trees (wonderful!) and, along with that pgm, FTX Central v2.  Yesterday when I flew from Skagit to Concrete (low & slow using a Super Cub) I noticed that several patches of terrain directly in front of me spontaneously changed from "spring" back to "winter".  These included areas along the valley floor and the sides of the mountains on either side of the valley.  Also, upon approach to the airport (3W5) I experienced several instances where the aircraft spontaneously banked right and left as though I violently turned my yoke.  These were intermittent and ceased once I touched down. 

 

I had "North America" activated at the time. The only pgms recently installed were "HD Trees" and "FTX Central v2".  The other Orbx regions and airports have all been on my system for years.

 

I landed at Concrete, shut down FSX and switched to "Global Hybrid".  I then restarted FSX and flew in the other direction back to Skagit and all the terrain features started out and remained "spring".  I also did not experience the "jerkiness" I described above.  Later in the day, while discussing this situation on-line with a group of friends who are also veteran Orbx patrons I attempted the same flight from Concrete back to Skagit while in "Global Hybrid" and the terrain once again started to spontaneously switch from spring back to winter just as it had done when I performed the flight in "North America".

 

I have not noticed this change in terrain anywhere else.  Just on this route.

 

Finally, I went to several small grass strips in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Northern California and experienced the "jerkiness" as I either took off or was on final approach but no spontaneous seasonal terrain patch switches.

 

I have cycled through the Global Vector Configuration Tool and it did not eliminate these episodes of "jerkiness".

 

I have not had these experiences prior to installing these two programs.  Might it be coincidence or am I now involved with some type of elevation/terrain.cfg file problem?

 

I would greatly appreciate any suggestions!

 

Thanks!

 

John

[Jotayhen]

Here's a picture of my flight this morning from KBVS to 3W5.  You will see what might be one terrain bgl file (maybe?) rendered seasonally as "winter" while the rest are "spring.  As I approached 3W5 I also noticed the terrain of the surrounding mountains was "winter" which might be correct due to their altitude and the time of year.

 

[Bruce Hamilton]

Try pausing the simulator, then go to time and season and advance the month to May, still have the issue?

[Alex Goff]

Hi John,

Are you using any weather addons or real world weather? It sounds like it may have been snowing when you loaded up. Regardless of season if the sim weather is snowing it will start to change the ground tiles to their snow variants.

As for the snowy mountains that is probably correct but again, check to see if the weather is snowy. Here's a link about how seasons work in FSX/P3D:

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/89258-seasons-in-ftx-norway/

It explains some of the ins and outs, particularly why the seasons change in such large chunks.

Cheers,

Alex

[Jotayhen]

Thank, Bruce & Alex, 

 

Bruce - I revisited that same exact flight and lo and behold, no snow.  Every tile along the way was depicted as "spring".  I was using Active Sky Next RW WX for both flights.  The only difference was the time of day and the temperature was higher during the second flight.  Either it something specific to my system or, as Alex pointed out above, Active Sky Next was influencing the seasonal depiction of some of the tiles..

 

Alex - that is great information, my friend!  I'm going to share your post with my fellow EVA pilots as we have all wondered at times about this phenomenon since we fly extensively in the Alaska/PFJ/NRM/CRM area.

 

Again, thank you both!

 

John