Context: 2020 package placed in 2024 community folder
Bug description: Terraforming is completely messed up and looks nothing like it does in 2020. Random artifacts everywhere and it is completely inconsistent. Disabling displacement mapping has no effect on it.
Repro steps: place 2020 package with complex terraforming in 2024 community folder and compare the terraforming
At this point I don’t even want to mark this upcoming project as 2024 compatible as I don’t want people to buy something that broken. It is really getting frustrating Everything works fine in 2020 and I spend hours perfecting it. Then half the airport either looks worse or is broken in 2024. I sometimes really wonder why I put myself through this.
Hi,
It might be conflict with terraformers from other packages ? Or the “apply flatten” option has been enabled for this airport in FS2024. What is the airport ICAO ?
You can try the “debug terraforming” option in the “DevMode > Option > Ground options” menu to see other terraformers.
My 2024 community folder is completely empty apart from the package in question.
There are no first party packages available for this airport or the surrounding area
The “apply flatten” option is disabled in 2020, therefore it should also be in 2024 as it is a 2020 package. So I wouldn’t really know how it should have been enabled in 2024.
If you allow me to, I will send you a PM with the ICAO. I will post a screenshot with the Terraforming debug as soon as I am in the office again.
But the whole point is that it looks completely different (in a bad way) compared to 2020. The whole goal of backwards compatibility is that it should look at least equal to how it does in 2020. And, for a minimum, function correctly. So even if there are other terraformers messing with it in 2024 how can I get rid of them in a 2020 package? How do I have control over other 2024 terraformers when not working in the 2024 SDK?
It looks like that area has Photogrammetry which will cause terrain mesh triangulation and bad resolution. It’s likely that this area wasn’t covered by pg in FS2020.
Well obviously PG causes issues. Just like it does in 2020…
The 2 sims share a world and its data. What’s PG in 2024 also is in 20 and vice versa. So no, this airport is not covered in PG in 24 only and as you can see in the screenshots provided, it looks perfect in 2020 because I spent hours tweaking it there to get rid of said PG artifacts.
So, coming back to the point. It should not look different in 2024 compared to 2020 because everything is the same. Both have PG both have the same stuff in the comm folder and the package is, obviously, also the same.
Unfortunately, looks like this is all worthless in 2024
In addition to that, I just found another report from a user having issues with that in the 2024 SU1 Beta.
This does not happen in 2020 and did not happen before the recent BETA updates.
I looked into it a bit more and found this in the patchnotes from 31.01.2025:
I suspect this has something to do with all that.
Something else I noticed is that TIN looks considerably worse overall now in 2024. Just take a look at this field, for example. The tractor tracks are like 2 metres deep. this wasn’t the case in 2020 and it looks way better in 2020. And also the triangulation of the TIN is just not acceptable and looks, in my opinion, absolutely atrocious.
Here as a reference is 2020. Yes, I know just grass because it doesn’t have the dynemic fields, but it look 1000 times better there because it has no weird artifacts.
Displacement mapping has been turned OFF in those examples to eliminate that as a potential cause. It looks exactly the same with that on or off anyways, but for those it is turned off and this is only TIN.
I don’t think this is a terraforming or terraformer issue, I just think that TIN, and how it is rendered, is completely broken in 2024 and now started to affect airports too. And as you can see in the example I provided, it is not only affecting our sceneries.
I would greatly appreciate if you can look into this because as mentioned in the initial report this is an absolute blocker when it affects airports and overall it just looks bad, especially the fields, for example.
To follow up on this one: The triangulation of TINs in SU1 beta isn’t highly problematic cases like the above but also MSFS2024 native terraforming polygons.
The create an alternative to the known problem with bumpy TIN runways (see here: ) I figured it would be best to remove heightmaps altogether and use terraforming polygons instead. Not an option neither I’m afraid.
Sadly SU beta seriously messes with the falloffs around polygons. In this instance here I needed to create a terraforming polygon around a huge terminal that was previously done with heightmaps (as the TIN slope displayed from one end of the terminal simply doesn’t exist in real world as official DTM datasets show):
These are the results from a 250 meter falloff. You can see it simply doesn’t work as intended with TINs as they falloff way too soon following the triangulation of the TIN instead of the edge of the terraforming polygon:
Everything works fine in 2020 and I spend hours perfecting it. Then half the airport either looks worse or is broken in 2024. I sometimes really wonder why I put myself through this. 
