Texture bleed through **HELP**

[gavi25 2]

Good evening,

I posted a topic last week as I have a problem with textures in FS9 for Taxi2Gate Mexico City MMMX as I was getting texture bleed through on the taxiways.. I uninstalled the whole sim, reinstalled everything (I do not have any mesh installed whatsoever).

After extensive testing, I looked at the terrain settings in my FS9.cfg and the last three entries were as follows:

TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=0.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=0.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=0

I changed them to the below as per a post I read online somehwere:

TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4

This seems to have solved the problem with T2G Mexico City. But I have a problem with Imaginesim VIDP and bleed through (I had this problem before with VIDP and nothing fixed it until I did a complete reinstall of the whole sim)

I am at my wits end with FS9 and these texture problems I keep getting, one airport fixed and another problem somewhere else, and I have changed the elevations in the AFCAD numerous times but doesn't fix it.

I seriously feel like throwing my pc out of the window right now, it's really getting to me and spend most of my time not actually flying but testing and trying to fix texture problems that don't get fixed. I don't even want to try flying at the moment in case I end up with another texture problem somewhere else.

I have no idea what the terrain settings in my FS9.cfg should be.

I really need some help on this. I never had this problem on my old pc (I have had my new pc just over 2 years now). I don't know if its the FS9.cfg, scenery problem, or Nvidia drivers or settings? I'm really stuck and its getting me down and can't enjoy simming.

Link below to the Imaginesim VIDP texture problem:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hh3io7be2fa7o2u/Imaginesim%20VIDP%20Bleed%20Through.jpg?dl=0

Look forward to hearing from anyone and some help.

Kind regards

Gavin Moss

 

[hjwalter 25]

Hi Gavin,

T've had similar bleed through problems myself and in my experience these are mainly caused by (small) elevation differences between the default airport's elevation in it's APnnnnnn.bgl file and that specified in the addon airport's elevation. These differences can be very small but must be exactly the same. Mesh scenery added later for the same area, can also be a cause.

.After finding your exact addon taxiway/runway elevation in your addon airport, you should convert it to meters and then use that to edit the related default APnnnnnn.bgl file. If you find that your addon airport's terrain has any (slight) undulations, a flatten bgl at exactly the same elevation and for the whole airport area, may also be necessary.

Finally, the Afcad (or ADE) file's runway and header data must be edited to the same elevation.

I hope this helps.

Good luck.

Hans

 

[gavi25 2]

4 hours ago, hjwalter said:

Hi Gavin,

T've had similar bleed through problems myself and in my experience these are mainly caused by (small) elevation differences between the default airport's elevation in it's APnnnnnn.bgl file and that specified in the addon airport's elevation. These differences can be very small but must be exactly the same. Mesh scenery added later for the same area, can also be a cause.

.After finding your exact addon taxiway/runway elevation in your addon airport, you should convert it to meters and then use that to edit the related default APnnnnnn.bgl file. If you find that your addon airport's terrain has any (slight) undulations, a flatten bgl at exactly the same elevation and for the whole airport area, may also be necessary.

Finally, the Afcad (or ADE) file's runway and header data must be edited to the same elevation.

I hope this helps.

Good luck.

Hans

 

Hi Hans,

Thank you for your reply, this is very handy to know and have copied your reply to notepad and saved for me to refer to.

The only thing I am not sure about is the runway and header data that needs to be edited, I have no idea where to start with that.

Thanks

Gavin

[John Hinson 22]

19 hours ago, gavi25 said:

I changed them to the below as per a post I read online somehwere:

TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4

Unfortunately, what you read somewhere is mis-informed.

The maximum valid figure for the first two is 4, using any higher figure is pure fantasy. The entry for the last line is only relevant of the middle line is set to lower than 4. Entries like this will get you the best results that FS2004 is capable of.

TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=4
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=0

More information here - see Harald G's translation of German documentation about halfway down:
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS - The FS2004 (FS9) Forum - The AVSIM Community

John

[hjwalter 25]

Gavin,

In the old Afcad program, where an addon airport's taxiways, parking positions, runways, etc. are drawn/mapped and adhered to by both AI and flyable planes, you will always find a small red circular symbol, which when klicked, will display the basic ("header") data of the airport concerned, also it's elevation, which must be the same as that in it's default APnnnnnn.bgl file.

When klicking on the Afcad runway itself, you will, amongst others, also see it's elevation, which must be exactly the same as well.

The freeware ADE program is far more detailed/complex than the old Afcad program, while basically being the same but a lot more detailed and critical.

I also have the Mexico City airport as an addon scenery and have had it for years but am not sure if it's the Taxi to Gate version. Tomorrow I will therefore take a look at my own MMMX and especially at it's elevation data, to see if it was necessary to edit anything all those years ago.

I would, like John, also want to advise you to not edit any basic and/or general FS9 values as you seem to have done, as this has the potential of causing far greater problems elswhere within your FS9.

Good luck and I hope this helps to NOT throw your PC out of your window, at least, not yet !! LOL !!

Hans

 

[hjwalter 25]

Gavin,

I think I have the "Taxi to Gate" version of MMMX as well and have in fact had it for many years. It has a nmber of animated vehicles moving around the airport and is very well made.

When checking my own MMMX setup, I found that it's terrain elevation is 7316 feet, which when converted into meters is 2229.94. However, when checking MMMX's default elevation in it's AP921250.bgl file I found that I had previously edited it's original value from 2229.92 to 2229.94 meters, most probably also due to bleed through problems but that was many years ago.

The difference is very small indeed but could quite easily be the cause of your bleed throughs, so that editing your AP921250.bgl file would be the first thing to do. Also check any parked AI aircraft to see if their gear wheels are actually touching the apron surface and not floating above it or sunk into it. Check more than one of your parked AI aircraft becuase  contact point errors in their "Aircraft.cfg" files can also cause them to either sink into the apron or float above it.

As a last resort I would want to recomend a "Flatten" entry at 7316 feet for your whole airport area.

Good luck and cheers.

Hans

 

[gavi25 2]

1 hour ago, hjwalter said:

Gavin,

I think I have the "Taxi to Gate" version of MMMX as well and have in fact had it for many years. It has a nmber of animated vehicles moving around the airport and is very well made.

When checking my own MMMX setup, I found that it's terrain elevation is 7316 feet, which when converted into meters is 2229.94. However, when checking MMMX's default elevation in it's AP921250.bgl file I found that I had previously edited it's original value from 2229.92 to 2229.94 meters, most probably also due to bleed through problems but that was many years ago.

The difference is very small indeed but could quite easily be the cause of your bleed throughs, so that editing your AP921250.bgl file would be the first thing to do. Also check any parked AI aircraft to see if their gear wheels are actually touching the apron surface and not floating above it or sunk into it. Check more than one of your parked AI aircraft becuase  contact point errors in their "Aircraft.cfg" files can also cause them to either sink into the apron or float above it.

As a last resort I would want to recomend a "Flatten" entry at 7316 feet for your whole airport area.

Good luck and cheers.

Hans

 

Hi Hans,

 

Thank you for your reply and previous reply. I did what you suggested yesterday and changed the units in AFX to metres instead of feet and changed the default AP bgl (backing up the original of course) to the same as MMMX bgl. I did a test flight and all seemed fine so far with no bleed throughs.

I had read other posts from the past where people have made an addon AFCAD higher in elevation than the default one. In most posts I have read, this seemed to be the case that people were suggesting to do an addon AFCAD higher in any bleed through problem.

I had no idea that they had to be exactly the same elevation to fix bleed throughs, so thank you very much for this advice, this is the first time it has ever been suggested so its very much appreciated.

Hopefully if I encounter with any other addons, I can apply the same thing.

Thanks

Gavin

[hjwalter 25]

Gavin,

I have no direct experience with AFX but it does soumd logical that it would have some kind of built in "flatten-type" function to "iron out" any slight airport terrain undulations or so called "spikes/holes" caused by underlying mesh scenery errors. However, the default airport's terrain elevation and that of it's runways, remain the most important while all the rest should be based on those and especially in order to avoid unpredictable other problems when one least expects them.

Anyway, I'm happy that you were able to solve your problems.

Regards

Hans.

 

 

[John Hinson 22]

10 hours ago, hjwalter said:

I have no direct experience with AFX but it does soumd logical that it would have some kind of built in "flatten-type" function to "iron out" any slight airport terrain undulations or so called "spikes/holes" caused by underlying mesh scenery errors.

Hi Hans,

The underlying issue (no pun intended) isn't with the way AFCAD, AFX or ADE work but with the way FS2004 works (I think FSX is the same, and maybe later equivalents too). For some reason, taxiways and aprons "self-flatten" the terrain underneath then, but runways do not.

The solution is to either create a separate flatten file (ADE will do this from inside the software) or to cheat and place an apron area under the runway. The only time this doesn't work is if the add-on scenery has a file that over-rides this.

Add-on sceneries should come with an appropriate flatten file if it is required, and these issues should not occur unless either a) the developer has omitted it, or b) another add-on is interfering with things.

As to changes of altitude, you shouldn't ever need to edit AP* files, the easy way to do this is to place a copy of the airport in a scenery layer that loads before the AP file - because FS bases its airport altitudes on the first file it encounters. Many use scenery/world/scenery or you can create your own scenery layer for the purpose. ADE will do this automatically (with a cut down version that only includes the critical information), AFX does in FSX but not (from memory) in FS2004, and AFCAD2 does not cater for this at all. There's nothing to stop you doing it manually, of course.

John

[hjwalter 25]

Hi John,

Yes, I agree with you that there are almost always other ways of correcting visible elevation errors at addon airports, correcting "bleed throughs" being just one of them. However, I see no problems whatsoever when editing default elevations in APnnnnnn.bgl files and I've been doing this without issues for many years. The only important thing one needs to take care of is to not only edit the elevation in the airport's header data but also those concerning the runways. So John, what type of mortal sin do you think I've been comitting during all those years ? LOL.

However, default airport elevations are, strangely enough, always specified in meters instead of in feet and converting them back and forth, e.g. by addon scenery developers, can quite often lead to very small rounding off differences ..... and therefore, "bleed throughs", especially on addon taxiways and airport terrains.

Anyway John, these types of technical issues have kept me off the streets and out of (sleezy) bars for as long as FS9 has existed and believe it or not, I also fly a lot as well. LOL.

Cheers

Hans

[John Hinson 22]

Ha ha, not a mortal sin at all, Hans.

Just that I have seen it said many times that it is best not to modify default files because they cover multiple airports. Not an issue for personal use, of course, but when developers start distributing "replacement" default files they may change one airport and reset another on one's setup at the same time!

I would also venture to suggest that the method I suggested is both quicker and easier to remove/change whilst testing.

I don't frequent sleazy bars either, but I do find a couple of sherries during a flight improve my landing ability. At least, so it looks through my eyes. 🙂

Take care,

John

[gavi25 2]

Hi everyone,

After a second flight test, the problem was back with bleed through. I had a look at what I had installed after installing MMMX and everything was fine until I installed Aerosoft AES.

After looking at the AES folders, I discovered that there is an AFCAD folder in Aerosoft AES and indeed it had added a AFCAD for MMMX (must have been part of their installer)

So after deleting this AFCAD in the AES folder, did another test flight and the problem was gone, so it seems it was this AFCAD that I didn't even know about that was causing the problem.

Kind regards

Gavin Moss

[hjwalter 25]

On 11/22/2022 at 2:40 AM, John Hinson said:

Ha ha, not a mortal sin at all, Hans.

Just that I have seen it said many times that it is best not to modify default files because they cover multiple airports. Not an issue for personal use, of course, but when developers start distributing "replacement" default files they may change one airport and reset another on one's setup at the same time!

I would also venture to suggest that the method I suggested is both quicker and easier to remove/change whilst testing.

I don't frequent sleazy bars either, but I do find a couple of sherries during a flight improve my landing ability. At least, so it looks through my eyes. 🙂

Take care,

John

John,

One of the ancient ten commandments for pilots is:

Thy shalt not drink sherry during your flights, lest the earth shall rise to smite thee.

Regards

Hans

[John Hinson 22]

Hans, you have made my day!

Gavin - really pleased you have got to the foot of the problem. Sometimes these things take a little time, but the effort is always worthwhile.

John