Okay, I'm sooooo close to releasing my humble little bush scenery. I've got a set of techniques that works for me, and which includes making all my buildings (and placing them) exclusively in gmax. I was a little miffed to see that when I placed my entire compound, including buildings around a runway and a nearby cabin near the coast with a float plane dock, the autogen had been scared out of the entire area bounded by the scenery. I was miffed, but hardly surprised. So I went ahead and started planting some of Gerrish's trees to get the greenery back in. I placed two single trees just for testing and loaded the sim. Here's what happened:1. I loaded the sim for the first time. No surprises -- the open field around my airstrip had the two trees standing proudly on their own.2. Just for fun, I changed the season to make sure my ground polys still looked right. What the?!?... the autogen trees were back, all over my scenery! 3. Cycled through all the seasons and the autogen forest remained in place. Could this mean that I don't need to plant all those trees by hand?4. Quit and reloaded the sim. sigh. The autogen trees are gone again. If I didn't know that FS2002 was perfect, I'd say this was a bug. Anyone else sympathize with this particular problem?

Hi Bill.We're all, just now, trying the newer techniques for terrain design. And we're all, just now, finding the bugs the design tean should have found!Just today, I verified that VTP Method1 polys should NOT be used in FS2002. They will crash the sim, and in the case of Windows98, eill crash the system ( possibly leading to some serious harm for '98 users ).The loss of Method1 is staggering. We cannot use mesh-clinging custom textured polys with any orientation. Terrible.Now, you've found we need to "work-around" autogen problems. Terrible.Chris Wilkes is on the edge of abandoning his design efforts due to the terrain engine limitations. Terrible.:(Dick

I read your post about Method1 polys, Dick. What can I say? I feel like we've all lost a member of the family. I'm only thankful that I had just started researching how to do them, and hadn't spent the oodles of time that you have trying to crack this nut. This whole fiasco reminds me a lot of my early days of doing web design. I started off all wide-eyed and optimistic about the "possibilities" lying before me, only to be repeatedly slapped down by the technology and all its many flaws. I went through a period in which I just wanted to scrap it all and go be a farmer, but somehow I got through it and emerged on the other side with my enthusiasm intact, albeit somewhat tempered. It's like I told someone at work recently who was having trouble with a tricky web design... just give up hope, and you'll feel a lot better. And he did. And so do I. And BTW, I'm sure that everything that's been discovered by hard-working enquiring minds such as yourself will work in time. It's the waiting that sucks!

I have not experienced this autogen problem, but I have had a different problem....perhaps they are related. In my case sections of autogen would not display. perhaps the season switch would bring those sections back, and perhaps there is somthing about the landclass or mesh along the section line that provides evidence that may help.Bob B