Weird Grass

[Darwinian 0]

Hi, I poseted this in the PMDG forum but noone got back to me so i thought id try here. Since installing the NGX my grass texture have gone crazy. Does anyone have any idea whats wrong thanks

[ryanbatc 12,833]

It's an unfortunate side effect of those lotus style landing lights... I don't know the technical reason for it. Nothing can be done.

[Darwinian 0]

That's unfortunate, thanks for replying mate

[Brittfrog 3]

sorry thought this was about a different subject :)but havent had the same problem since installing ngx

[anthony31 63]

It's an unfortunate side effect of those lotus style landing lights... I don't know the technical reason for it. Nothing can be done.

Ryan's right. The technical reason is this: The lotussim landing lights use special conditions to blend with the existing pixels drawn on screen. If you are looking at FSX default runways and aprons then FSX, at night, will darken these when FSX draws them. The lotussim landing lights will reverse this effect and make them bright again. The lotussum landing lights use a very different blending technique than the usual FSX landing lights. However, when you are looking at the grass, this is using a night texture which is already pre darkened. If you have ever created photoreal scenery you will now that you need to create a night texture which is almost completely black as FSX will not automatically darken the day texture like it does with the default runways and aprons. Now, when you create a night texture that is mostly black then you will naturally lose a hell of a lot of detail. When the lotussim landing lights shine on this texture the result is like what you are seeing. The landing lights are trying to brighten a low res picture with not much colour or detail in it. In summary, if there is a nightmap on the ground texture then you lose detail in the nightmap which the lotussim landing lights simply cannot restore (the lights can't put back what isn't there anymore). FSX aprons and runways do not use nightmaps so lotussim landing lights can restore the detail. For those interested in the real technical details Lotussim landing lights use framebuffer blend conditions of DEST= InvSrcAlpha, SOURCE = DestColor while the FSX landing lights use the more usual transparency conditions of DEST = InvSrcAlpha, SOURCE = SrcAlpha. In the last few days I have been testing various other lighting styles for an airport scenery. One of the problems I have found with using lotussim landing lights for scenery is that in fog they don't work so well. I've been trying some scenery lights using DEST= One, SOURCE = One.