Version: 1.1.7.0
Frequency: Consistently
Severity: Blocker
Marketplace package name: CYSH Smiths Falls
Context: When loading the 2020 version of the CYSH Smiths Falls airport using Community Folder in 2024, snow appears inside the main hangar on the floor. This floor is specifically marked as a “no snow” object in the 2020 SDK so that it does not snow inside during winter. It seems to have the opposite effect in 2024, it’s snow covered all year round.
Bug description: This happens consistently in that main hangar, but there’s another small hangar starting spot that uses the same method of splitting the floor as a separate object with “no snow”, and that one does not have the snow issue.
Repro steps: Spawn at the airport, look at hangar floor.
So after a lot of digging I found this was caused partly by the CGL. It had a picture of the white roof of the building, and that was causing a snow-like bump to get generated all year round despite having an apron with a different texture covering it. Can we get a fix for that?
The second (and currently unsolvable) issue is that even after coloring the CGL, there is still a smaller bump (now dirt color) sticking out and covering about half the hangar floor, despite a terraform rectangle being under the entire surface and making it perfectly flat in 2020:
The only way I can fix that is by taking the airport into the 2024 SDK and using the “exclude secondary height maps” option on the terraform polygon. However, building that project makes the airport a 2024 airport, which has the very aggressive LOD options, and making several more LODs for 60 different hangars for a niche little rural airport would be weeks of work for so little payoff and no noticeable performance gain. And building a 2024 project does nothing for Marketplace customers who can’t yet download any 2024 version for now, nor does it meet Asobo’s goal of making 2020 airports “just work”.
Yet another issue with this airport is that the DEM has changed between 2020 and 2024, and now the base ground level is about 1/2 m lower in 2024, and all terraform rectangles are too high (and so are all objects that are not “snap to ground”). Again, there is no workaround for this that would allow the same 2020 airport to “just work” in 2020. I know eventually Asobo plans to put the new DEM in 2020, but what can we do in the meantime? Can we have the new DEM and aerial imagery much sooner in 2020? Without that, I don’t see any way to fix this other than issuing a completely new 2020 version that tweaks all terraform rectangles to expect a lower DEM, and not have any objects that have “snap to ground” off. Again, a full 2024 version is beyond a reasonable scope in the short term. And once 2020 gets new DEM and aerials, we will have to update those 2020 airports yet again.
So given this situation, can you please consider backporting the “exclude secondary height maps” option to the 2020 SDK so that we can issue quicker and far, FAR easier fixes to our 2020 sceneries to make them 2024-compatible? I think having a handful of these forward-compatibility flags to allow us to make simple tweaks in existing 2020 scenery and make it 2024-friendly would speed up adoption of 2024, since people would be able to use it with their favorite sceneries much sooner in the new sim. The difficult 2024-native ports could come later, as developers have to put a lot of effort into making them, but helping faster user adoption of 2024 would also encourage developers to do the native 2024 versions sooner.
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Hello @Nettework
After review by the engine team, there is no possibility to fix this behavior on 2020 packages.
The only possible fix is what you did: adding a polygon with secondary height maps exclusion in the MSFS 2024 Scenery Editor.
I get your point but backporting some 2024 options to 2020 to help transition is not an option.
Regards,
Sylvain
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Hi Sylvain,
Any thoughts on his comment on bringing the new DEM back to 2020?
What about his comment on loosening the LOD requirements for smaller packages and objects that have very few vertices? Not all airports have huge amounts of detail, and those are the vast majority of airports I fly too and create.
Thanks,
Tom
Hi @FlyingRaccoon,
I did find a partial workaround in 2020 for getting rid of the secondary height maps in 2020: put an Apron with “Taxi_Asphalt” surface on the area where I want to get rid of the bumps and rocks.
This is OK to use under structures, but I have not found a way to do this for grassy surfaces where I want to get rid of the bumps. Can you let us know if there are any Apron textures that produce the same bump-removal effect but have a dirt or grass texture? If you use a Taxi_Asphalt Apron under grass, even when it’s transparent, it removes all grass in 2020 and looks really ugly, so it’s only a valid workaround for actual asphalt surfaces or ones that you don’t see.
Unfortunately for this CYSH airport the DEM is still making it unusable in 2024, unless I get rid of the terraform polygons altogether. Another alternative would be to make a dedicated 2020 build where the terraform polygons are artificially lowered to accommodate the 2024 DEM, but that’s a stop-gap measure and I don’t believe this 2020-built airport would be allowed on the 2024 Marketplace.
Any word on when the new 2024 DEM will make it into 2020? I think once that happens I would be able to issue one 2020-built package that works in both 2020 and 2024.
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