Creating a dam and LWM polygons

[Sasa 0]

Hello Guys,My problem is the following:I have already created a 40m high dam at the end of a big lake. My problem now is that the water at the lake is 40m higher than the water of the small lake at the bottom of the dam. With mesh terrain it's impossible to change such steep altitudes in such a small area.Now my idea: Is it possible to implement the reflecting FS2004-water into a Gmax-Macro or whatever? Or is the reflecting water so strictly hard coded in FS2004 only allowing it to be used with LWM polygons?I could also do the area around the dam without reflecting water, but then the difference to the reflecting water would look really strange. :(Sasa

[arno 1]

Hi Sasa,No, it is only possible with LWM polygons. But I think Holger made a dam before with mesh techniques. If you use a rather high resolution mesh it should be possible to get a step there is rather steep. If you then place your dam structure over this step it should not look to bad.

[Guest luissa]

>Now my idea: Is it possible to implement the reflecting>FS2004-water into a Gmax-Macro or whatever? Or is the>reflecting water so strictly hard coded in FS2004 only>allowing it to be used with LWM polygons?>>I could also do the area around the dam without reflecting>water, but then the difference to the reflecting water would>look really strange. :(Hello Sasa,I must confess my ignorance but how can I see the reflecting water? Yesterday I was intending to post a comment to your question saying that if you use the right water texture in your object you would get a nice blending. At least I am using a photo scenery where I mix photographic coastal waters with the default ones. In order to "shield" the photo scenery against changes of the default waters (there are many replacement water textures around) I made a small water class scenery with a custom texture folder (thanks to Holger for the tip!) to make sure that the photo texture and the default water texture are precisely the same (NOTE: as discussed the other day here, the water photo textures must be 8-bit mipped and not DXT1 to get a perfect matching).When I read your post I get worried. I thought that my photo scenery could not match the default scenery when it comes to water reflections. I tryed all settings in the Display Options but I am not sure about what the reflections really are! So my initial question!Best Regards, Luis

[arno 1]

Hi Luis,I think they are under water details. I don't know what kind of video card you have, if I remember correct only cards that support DirectX 8 show the reflections. So that could also be a reason for not seeing them.

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Sasa.You wrote:"With mesh terrain it's impossible to change such steep altitudes in such a small area."That's the basic problem. The flattens you're using apparently can't change from one elevation to the other within the 40 Meter width of the dam.The sharpness of flattens is somewhat dependant on the underlying mesh resolution. If you were to take a small area and make a mesh at LOD10, the flattens may well then show the change. It may even be possible to make a mesh at LOD13. Even though that mesh won't show, it may still influence the LWM polys.Dick

[Sasa 0]

Hmm, mesh-terrain won't be the solution. Have a look at the attached screenshot. 40m is not the width of the dam but the height!Therefore I have to include the water into the macro. My idea was to overlay an effect for the water but as Arno already said that won't be possible.So what's left is how Luis does it. But there's a really large difference between new graphic cards (I see the difference every day in my job) and the old one which has been used for this screenshot. :(Sasahttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/102896.jpg

[Holger 0]

Howdy,one more factor to add to the consideration (and use) of LWM flattens or custom mesh is the Terrain_Max_Vertex_Level parameter in the FS9.cfg, which directly determines the horizontal resolution of the mesh grid. At the default 19, it's a 76-m grid, at 20 a 38-m grid, and at 21 a 19-m grid. However, your dam is not only thin but also curved so a fit with the mesh or flattens alone will be difficult, even with TMVL at 21. Also, the grid I mention is oriented N-S/E-W which means placing the dam in one of the cardinal directions would help with the fitting.If you include water in the macro, how about doing so at the base rather than the top? Most dams have concrete pedestals at the base and/or a zone of "white water" from the spillways, which would look different from the other water surfaces anyway.Cheers, Holger

[Guest pecrowther]

You might have some luck using a FSDS or GMAX object to create the dam and fill in the gap in the water. I did this on my Tinian airfield where I needed to fill in a sagging area in the SW corner of the runway. I laid a landable FSDS object on top of the gap in the terrain and extended it out so that it merged with the mesh.I am attaching a picture to show what it looks like at ground level and from the air. Pretty primitive, but it works.Philp.s. How do I show pictures with the email, instead of as attachments to the email?