autogen and photoreal: FS2002 vs FS9

[Holger 0]

Me again:photoreal seems to be a popular topic these days ;-)I have found a suitable compromise for using photoreal and (partial) autogen in FS9 but can't get the same setup to work in FS2002 (I'd like to keep backward compatibility). Any ideas what might be the issue?Here's how I do it in FS9: placed custom slices on the ground via SDK resample (with alpha-masked water; all files in local scenery/texture folder); VTP2 polys (layer 20, texture #253) in several areas where I wanted to have autogen (no custom texture slices, just the custom-tile named .agn files made with Annotator, placed in FS9SceneryWorldtexture); also LWM polys with fixed elevation that roughly trace shorelines to flatten the lakes where needed.I use this particular setup as it keeps the big .bmp files out of the FS9SceneryWorldtexture folder, doesn't require flipping the custom slices, avoids the 'bleeding of tile seams' I described in my previous post, and keeps me from having to redraw many lakes with convoluted shorelines. The tradeoffs are lack of beaches/surf and inability to place VTP polys or lines on top of the photoreal.Works beautifully in FS9 (see below) but I can't get the autogen to show in FS2002. I tried placing the .agn files and VTP2 .bgl in different places (local, Scenedb, etc) but none of them seems to work. Any pointers are greatly appreciated.Cheers, Holgerhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/40168.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/40169.jpg

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Holger.I think FS2002 needs the CUSTOM textures in the SCENEDB/World/texture folder, along with the autogen. You could make a generic transparent texture and just copy it with the appropriate names. It needs to be 8-bit mipped with an alphachannel. This makes it transparent in FS2002.Ther may be memory leak problems with not using the CUSTOM bitmaps in FS2004... not sure, but possible.I'm attaching a zip file with an 8-bit transparent texture.Dick

[Holger 0]

Hello Dick:thanks for the transparent texture, I'll give it another try!"Ther may be memory leak problems with not using the CUSTOM bitmaps in FS2004... not sure, but possible."How would this memory leak problem establish itself? I've been flying and slewing around above my photoreal area for up to an hour and never noticed any drop in frame rates.Interestingly, FS9 crashes if I activate the VTP2 polygon with only the autogen files in the World/Texture folder. However, if I have the corresponding set of custom textures in my local folder activated (including the SDK resample bgl) it loads without problems and with the custom autogen. That indicates to me that the VTP2 bgl does a complete search of the FS9 folder for the custom texture bitmaps but without actually using them; they are not flipped so I would know if the VTP2 poly would 'grab' the textures out of the local folder. Very strange!?!In contrast, FS2002 loads without problems in either setup but doesn't show autogen anymore as soon as I activate the resample bgl. I'll check out the 'dummy' transparent textures and get back to you. Cheers, Holger

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Holger.I just am suspicious, because we found the landclass textures will show in FS2004 with a local texture folder... but a memeory leak develops. That leads me to believe that FS2004 is quite "forgiving" in displaying illegal combos of BGLs and textures. But they could still cause problems.FS2004 is different in how it finds textures. I think most of us are interested in FS2004, so anything you find out about it's quirks is very helpful.Dick