Stock airport buildings disappear with Megascenery V3

[JonP01 104]

Hi,

I have a strange problem after installing Megascenery Earth V3. What happens is that stock FSX airfield buildings repeatedly disappear then re-appear as I get closer to the airfield on a final approach. It seems to be "height" sensitive - so it does not happen if I overfly an uncontrolled airfield at 2,000 ft AGL to check the windsock before going into the pattern for landing. But it will always then happen when descending on final approach as I get closer to the ground. The buildings will even do this when I am merely taxiing around at the airfield. It can also be easily reproduced by going into spot view on the ground at the airfield and raising the camera perspective a little above aircraft height. At a certain height, the buildings completely disappear and then re-appear when I lower the elevation perspective once again. This problem occurs with all aircraft - stock or otherwise - and having tried dozens of different settings, nothing whatsoever changes this behaviour (including terrain mesh complexity as I thought it might have something to do with elevation relative to the ground). It obviously does not occur with the stock FSX terrain - it only happens when I am using the photoscenery.

I also tried it with and without the photo alignment "fix" files and it makes no difference. It seems that as soon as the photoscenery is there, this happens regardless. My guess is that it probably would not happen if I were to install a third party airfield "over" the photoscenery, but I am not using any third party airfields in any of the scenery areas I bought.

Any ideas at all please? 😊

Thanks

[fppilot 4,355]

This is a long running known issue with FSX and photoreal scenery.  I have encountered this for years.  Most FSX default airports use scenery objects that disappear with what I guess is autogen when used under photoscenery. And there is no way I know of to position default airports above photoreal scenery.  I have found only one solution.  Add-on airports, both freeware and payware.  They can be positioned above photoreal.

I got fortunate in that Orbx released a free set of Global Airports  https://orbxdirect.com/product/ftx-global-airport-pack which contains quite a considerable number of smaller airports around the world.  That included one of my two "home" airports, KESN Easton, Maryland, and quite a number of other general aviation airports I fly to.  The airports in that pack work just fine with Megascenery.  There is a map of those airports in the pack shown on a map at  https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1PE1hbOnyNuZ5ynpoNmYsEPDi6Ao&ll=38.64939910690829%2C-78.94655447806932&z=5 .

There is a list and map of most other freeware FSX/P3D add-on sceneries at: https://www.freewarescenery.com/fsx.html .  Just make sure you select a country first in the drop down list, then click to see the map.  The map that comes up covers the entire world, despite that you chose a country....  The map is very helpful as you can zoom and scroll it.

Finally, After years of frustration with my other "home" airport, KBMG, Bloomington, Indiana,  I used Airport Design Editor and some add-on scenery libraries I found and edited in new scenery  objects (buildings, hangars, vehicles, static aircraft, windsock, etc.) to replace those in the FSX default scenery.  That KBMG scenery is available in the FSX Scenery Library here on Avsim, and is compatible with FSX and up to P3D v3. 

For some reason one of the scenery object libraries I used contains some objects that from what I have been told do not display in P3D v4.

 

 

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by fppilot

[JonP01 104]

Thanks for the fantastic reply! Yes, in researching it in the interim I feared that it was what you said it was. Oh well. I've actually been considering building myself a new machine sooner rather than later - my current one is now  10 years old and finds most add-on stuff too challenging - so I have not bought many airports and have stuck with the default sim plus a handful of add-ons that I know are very frame rate friendly (which obviously includes photoscenery). But with a much faster computer , I need not fear most add-on airports, so I will probably go that route until I move onto the new sim (where third photoscenery will likely largely be a thing of the past).