Ground2k NightLight in Crops Texture

[Guest mtom]

Hi again.I've placed all the BGLs into seperate scenery folders. Custom LinesDefault LinesLWM PolysNight Masks CustomNight Masks DefaultNo Night MasksNo changes I'm afraid. The night-lit backgroud LC continues to show where vector ground polys have been placed. I should also note that the effect is apparent for default ground polys without night masks and custom polys with night masks. I have noticed an inter-relationship between lines and ground polys. When the custom lines folder is active (and the default lines are de-activated), the custom ground polys fail - that is, the night-lit background LC shows at night. When the default lines are active (and the custom lines are de-activated), the default ground polys without masks fail. Holger, can you please explain a bit more what you mean by 'polys with and without night lights need to be assigned different layers'. Do you mean they should not be the same layer in the seperate working files, so that a polys without night lights have a higher later than those with night lights? I think my problem is with background LC showing at night rather than night-lit ground poly layers. Have I missed something here?Cheers,Matthew.

[Holger 0]

Hi Matthew,that's an interesting observation about the impact of custom lines on the custom ground polys. I've never noticed that before. Do your custom lines include _lm variants? Maybe the issue is that FS can't properly blend custom VTP polys and/or lines that differ with respect to night lights. Perhaps both need to have _lm variants (or neither)? In that case you should be able to create a dummy (black) _lm file for your custom lines.Over the course of the past years I've developed my own systems of setting layers for my landscape enhancements. It tends to change a bit for each project but the basic version goes like this:========================VTP2 lines 3 - invisible road and railroad cuts4 - invisible shorelines with wave action16 - utility corridors 17 - shorelines I 18 - shorelines II (e.g., piers) 19 - streams 20 - railroads 21 - trails22 - minor roads (mostly dirt and gravel) 23 - minor roads 24 - primary roads 25 - highways 26 - road bridges 27 - railroad bridges VTP2 polygons 5 - various texture types without night lights that overlap water bodies 6 - various texture types with night lights that overlap water bodies 10 - industrial areas (night lights) 11 - settlements (night lights) 12 - golf courses and forested parks 13 - forestry clearcuts and airport grassy areas and ski slopes14 - gravel pits and hydro dams concrete textures 15 - muskegs16 - glaciers and snowfields 17 - islands in rivers and lakes and ski area forest "islands" 18 - airfield areas with bare soil or rocks 19 - airfield areas on top of layer 18 (e.g., grassy spots) 20 - industrial or airfield areas (w/ night lights) on top of layer 12+=======================The main points are to avoid default layers as much as possible (to prevent conflicts with my own default exclusions or those of other add-ons), keeping thematic line/poly types separate, and differentiating between VTPs with and without night lights. Of equal importance is that I keep different layer types in separate project files, for example:_base:3: bridge and airport flattens5: industrial areas (VTP2 custom textures)9: utilitiesalso LC and WC_roads:3: land masks5: cutblocks, golf courses, forested parks, airfield grassy areas9: roads_urban:3:5: urban settlements with landclass textures9: railroads_water:3: lakes and rivers5: dams, dikes, islands9: shorelinesalso excludesSometimes it's easier to create the project as one file and separate the themes later on; it depends on the complexity of the project.For the installation I separate the compiled bgl files into a lower priority folder (_base, _roads, _water) and a higher priority folder (_urban and excludes).Cheers, Holger

[Guest mtom]

Ta Holger.A wealth of knowledge there. Really appreciated. I hadn't made a LM file for the custom lines. That may well be having an effect. Will get on to that. Ta for outlining the layer system. Will look more closely at that soon and pay attention to the three priciples you note. Thanks again.Cheers,Matthew.

[Guest mtom]

The custom lines with the 'night' suffix solved the problem with the custom ground textures. It has to have 'night' suffix as per the the Ownline listing in G2K4, rather than a LM suffix. Will report further results.Cheers,Matthew.

[Guest mtom]

Hey Holger. Thought it best to clarify things here for other to see. Initially, I gave the night mask the title 'mycreek01LM'. However, this did not fix the problem. Background autogen still showed though/in the location of the custom vector polys. G2K OwnLines text file requires the listing of all season and night mask files for custom lines to be used by the utility. The instructions stipulate, I think, that the night mask should be titled using the suffix 'night'. Certinly, the default lines are listed with this suffix. So, I renamed the file to 'mycreek01night'. Problem solved. The background autogen no longer shows though/in the location of the custom vector polys. Cheers,Matthew.