Yesterday I decided to fly out from a default airport in P3Dv5 instead of only using my payware ones. I started at a small military field in southern France LFTH for a short flight to Nice.

The default taxiways were obscured by grass so after much investigation I discovered the UTX layer Europe Airports was responsible for this problem. Deactivate it and all taxiways return. But that layer includes many AFCAD files for airports that include additional parking positions so it's useful.

I posted my findings over on the Flight 1 UTX support forum and I'm still awaiting a reply. The same problem exists at LIMJ - Genoa and you can see in my post the problem doesn't occur in P3Dv4. So something is different in v5 and I suspect it's altitudes of many airports is different. LATER: The problem also exists in v4 and even in P3Dv3.

I even went as far as deactivating all 3rd party scenery and add-ons leaving UTX Europe as the only extra scenery. Still the problem exists.

Could those of you with UTX Europe place your aircraft at LIMJ and switch to an overhead map view please. Can you see the taxiways?

If you can't I'd appreciate you posting on my topic to reinforce my belief there are problems with this addon in v5.

https://www.simforums.com/forums/topic64378_post412200.html#412200

Am I alone in using UTX Europe in P3D v5? This problem is also there in v4.

Surely there must be someone who can try this simple test?

Give me time to crank things up Ray - I can check it 😇😇

2 minutes ago, FOD said:

Give me time to crank things up Ray - I can check it 😇😇

Many thanks. No reply from Flight 1 support yet. But if you confirm the same problem that adds weight to my argument that this hasn't been tested in 64-bit P3D.

Hi Ray

Never noticed that - because I always have UTX Europe airports "off" as they can interfere with payware AFCADS.  Back "on" and the LIMJ taxiways disappear.  Not sure its anything to do with the grass as the apn is stll there - suspect its something in those LIMJ files in the UTX scenery folder.  I'll look into them when I have some time later.

John Rooum

PS Try renamimg the  LIMJ exclude file

 

Edited April 20, 20215 yr by FOD
update

Thanks John. Glad you’ve been able to replicate it. I also have disabled many of the UTX airports where I have a 3rd party equivalent. But flying into default airports is still acceptable to me as there are hundreds of them.

I did disable the exclude file but no difference. I’m about to try something else and will report back shortly.

You can add P3Dv3 to this as well. Same problem exists at LIMJ and also KBUF in the US. Many others too probably.

It looks to me that Flight 1 have never bothered to fix this problem with the release of P3D.

There are four BGLs for each UTX airport. The AP one is the AFCAD and the EX one is probably the exclude. No idea what the BG and FL ones do. Also, there is another associated file in World\Scenery\Scenery named UTX_LIMJ_EUR.BGL.

I have renamed all but the AP one. Loading P3Dv5 still shows no taxiways at LIMJ even though the associated AFCAD is at a higher layer than the default. In all my years of working with AFCADs I've never know as situation like this. I hate being defeated on things like this but unless Flight1 support respond I suspect the only solution is to disable the UTEurAirport layer.

If you can find a solution John I've be very appreciative. The extra parking spots are very useful.

Hi Ray,

I noticed same problem in LFMN in P3DV5. I switched off UTX airports.

Regards

Ray,

Seems to be random - tried a selection across Europe - most have the taxiways but I found a couple with none or bits of taxiways. Guess it depends on who produced the afcads for the developers.

Have you tried a new afcad for the defautt LIMJ - check the AVSIM library.

 

John

Hi John. Thanks for your feedback. I searched for a replacement in the Library but nothing there.

The UTX AFCAD loads fine into AFD and the only reported faults are jetways too far from the parking positions. Otherwise it's clean. I may try editing it again and I'll place it in a separate folder with top priority. I'm not confident though.

John,

Loading the LIMJ AFCAD into AFD I notice a lot of the buildings are black. When I choose the Compile option a warning appears saying "ADE has found one or more 'black box' library objects. These are objects that are not in the Library Object Manager".

Although it can be compiled those objects don't show in P3D. I wonder if that is part of the problem?

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

No idea what the BG and FL ones do. Also, there is another associated file in World\Scenery\Scenery named UTX_LIMJ_EUR.BGL.

My guess is that BG provides the Buildings and FL is a "flatten" (like an exclude but different?). And I think the added files in the World scenery folder are usually related to altitude or mesh adjustments. 

Pete

 

Hi Pete. Thanks for that. I’m going to post the question in the AFCAD section on the AIG forum. I can’t see why the taxiways would not show when no faults relating to them are shown in the fault finder.

It looks like these files were designed for FSX and probably worked fine in that sim. But P3D has broken many of them.

I don't have UTX installed, but when I was porting over FSX airport sceneries to P3Dv4, I had the same problem, no taxiways showing in the ported over sceneries. I solved this by using ADE to reset all the draw flags to on (there's lots of tutorials and threads around about how to do this). It was fairly simple. Apparently the FSX SDK doesn't require the flags to be on for it's bgl's to work, but the P3D SDK is more stringent. 

I don't know if that's any help at all, but just a thought.

-Bob

Ray

Being an old fogey, I don’t like chucking anything away. So I still have a full FSX install on my PC inc UTX etc etc. Checked LIMJ and all the taxiways are there along with all the parking spots.

Scenery files are the same FSX and P3D and from what I have seen between airfields showing taxiways and those not, I suspect a texture problem in the move fro FSX to P3D

...........?
 

John