Unwanted night lights in G2K4 VTP2 polys: a work-around

[Holger 0]

Hi all:remember my post about "Christmas Glaciers" from a while back? If not, here's a pretty image of the problem:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/63195.jpgI had created textured VTP2 polygons in Ground2K4, in this case of a glacier, and, during dusk and dawn, those polygons without an associated night texture would take on a city-type texture. I figured it had to do something with the complexity of the polygon because most of those problems disappeared when re-compiling the G2K4 files with the latest version. However, several of those buggy polygons remained even then (I'm surprisd that no other G2K4 designers have had similar problems).Joachim, of the global CTD Patch fame, kindly offered to look at my files and, with his Sherlock Holmes hat on, has discovered a work-around.It's quite simple, actually: the problem occurs when both types of texture classes (with vs. without night textures) are used in the same project file. Plus, there might be a secondary trigger which depends on the complexity of the polygon or, rather, its compilation with G2K4. Therefore, the work-around is to split the project into one file of VTP2 polys with night textures and one of VTP2 polys without. According to Joachim, it doesn't matter which layer numbers are used or how the resulting files are sorted in the scenery subfolder.It would be interesting to find out why exactly this problem occurs but, for now, we know how to avoid it.Thank you very much, Joachim!!!Cheers, Holger

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Holger.MS might be aware of this problem. They have separated VTP line types since FS2002... perhaps for a similar reason.Were these polys using a texture number from the terrain.cfg, or landclass number, or were they named textures?Dick

[Holger 0]

Hi Dick:good point about the VTP line types!All those polys use landclass numbers for texturing. It didn't occur to me to try one of the other options instead; that might be another work-around.Thanks!Cheers, Holger

[Holger 0]

Me again...another interesting observation of Joachim's: while he was looking over my landclass-textured VTP2 polys he noticed that they suffer from the same issue as the #252 and #253 custom classes - the textures are flipped vertically and the autogen doesn't match with the ground pattern anymore. This appears to be true for the default airport (AB9*) and park polys (PK9*) as well but, with their limited or vegetation-only autogen, it's not as obvious. It's kind of logical that this issue would be the same for all VTP2 with LC textures, custom or not, but I don't remember it being mentioned here before.Cheers, Holger

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Holger.Yes, all VTP2 polys are vertically flipped... it has to do with the VTP2 being orientated to the upper-left of the texture... but the terrain "engine's" orientation for textures is the lower left.Go figure. :(Dick