Lake causing crash in map view

[Guest hefy_jefy]

I have never come across this before.Still using Ground2K...I created a rather large Lake (Yellowstone) attempting to improve the outline - all seemed well until several weeks down the line I found that going to map view was causing a crash - sometimes.By this time of course I had put in new airstrips, worked on other areas and so on, so when I eventually decided to figure what was causing the crash, it took a while. I eventually narrowed it down to one .BGL which is I think the lake, if I remove this _3.BGL I have a lousy-looking Lake but the sim doesn't crash in map viewSo I guess the advice is check map view frequently to make sure its OK!But does anyone have a solution? Its a large lake of course (20miles x 20 miles) but didn't think there were any limits to polygon size, its a poly with shore with the correct height.I did follow a thread from a while back where rhumbafloppy was discussing a simlar problem - but being strictly a button pusher I didn't understand the fix (I am not even sure if it was the same problem)On balance I think I can live without map view - but it would be nice to know if there's a way around the probelm.Geoff

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Geoff.The crash is probably caused by using LWM AreaFill commands. I think there is an INI fix for Ground2K4 to force drawn polys instead of AreaFills. SBuilder certainly has this option.AreaFills can only be used if you are replacing the base LOD5 watermask BGL. Otherwise a crash in mapview results.Dick

[Guest hefy_jefy]

Thanks Dick,Yep I am sure you are right. I used the cell attributes modification in Ground2k because the shape was so wrong, and then put my lake on top.I remember that there were some areas that I simply could not persuade to be land - so I kinda fudged around them.I usually (for smaller areas) make small land polys and carefully match them to the water polys - so I guess I never came across this before.Geoff

[Guest hefy_jefy]

I worried about this for a while then decided that I had to fix it. Re-drawing the whole Yellowstone lake area with all its rivers etc was not an option (after all this is supposed to FUN!)I tried SBuilder but found that I was so used to G2K4 that again it stopped being fun, (I use Sbuilder for other stuff but found the polygon drawing tricky) so back to G2K4. I read many posts by Dick, Luis and others on the problem and while many gave good background on why the problem occurs I have to say for a simple button pusher like myself there didn't seem to be a simple solution.So I tried a few things and came up with this, and I pass it on for other G2K4 users.Remove the Area Fill stuff (the square icon on the G2K4 toolbar called "creation") and simply draw a large polygon around all the other polygons (water etc) be careful not to cross any polygons. Make this polyogon be an LWM, "Land" with Altitude -9999, and that seems to fix it. The water polys all apear on top. The only other modification I needed to make to the original was to change the islands in the rivers be VTP texture polygons but with a layer value of 8 and I needed to assign a suitable texture.This may not be an elegant solution but it was quick and so far its worked!Geoff

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Geoff,You have come up with a creative and intelligent solution. It is exactly the best way to solve this problem.As Dick mentioned, Area Fills will crash Flight Simulator the moment that either the Map view or the GPS is launched. Hopefully, this will be fixed in the next version.Strangely, if you decompile the default HP file and place Fills there, then FS does not crash. Only in add-on scenery with Fills.Ground2K4 takes this into account and does not use Fills anymore, even when you think that you are placing a Fill. Instead, it replaces the Fill with a square L/WM that exactly fits the Area.So, if you had this problem, you may not be using a recent version of Ground2k4. Could you please indicate the version?Best regards.Luis

[Guest hefy_jefy]

Hi Luis,I did a quick check; the version reported is: 5.3.0.2 I think this is the latest?I did figure out that the .LWM file is the source and in the version of the project that causes the crash the last few lines are:0150 4 -9999 1 148 129 -9999 1 147 129 -9999 1 148 130 -9999 1 147 1300160 00170 00180 00200 2 0 0EndAs far as I can tell these were the lines that caused the problem (there were 4 fill areas). Running Windiff showed that these were the only difference from the version without the Area fills that did NOT cause the crash.I also saw in one of Dicks posts on the subject that there was an .INI file modification - I just found the Ground2K4.INI file here it is:[Ground2K4]Fl1Fois=1KeepSrce=0Language=US;DerApt1=C:Program FilesGround2K4Alpinealpine.LWMDerApt2=C:Program FilesGround2K4BuffaloLakeBuffaloLake.LWMDerApt3=C:Program FilesGround2K4Henrys2YellowHenreys2yellow.LWMDerApt4=C:Program FilesGround2K4HenrysLakeHenrysLake.LWM;DirFS=C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesFlight Simulator 9Editor=ShowVTP1L=0DerRefLu=VTPConcave=0LWMConcave=0Now I just thought of something else, the area I was working with is using the "Yellowstone and Grand Tetons Terrain upgrade" from FSGenesis. Would this make any difference?Geoff

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Geoff,I think that version 5.4 was the last, but as that is the problematic one that blanks out the lines selection window, I always use version 5.33.I do not believe that the FSGenesis package should have any influence on your project.Best regards.Luis