In 2024 SDK, will we be able to control the displacement mapping which is generated for all parts of the ground in our scenery?
i.e Can we create an apron or polygon which states “does not generate displacement mapping here”? Or maybe control the intensity of the displacement too. Most grass runways are solid enough that light aircraft do not create massive ruts.
I know its only a tech alpha, but ALL custom scenery is broken by the new displacement mapping. Grass areas which were previously 100% accurate to the DEM are now a bumpy mess and there are steps between grass and asphalt that just shouldn’t be there.
I’m hoping we don’t have to tell our customers they can’t use displacement mapping as its clearly a feature that Asobo has worked hard on.
I’m not in the tech alpha, but have had plenty of screenshots sent to me showing major elevation differences, even in areas where I have added custom terraforming based on a 1-meter DEM. And I’m not just talking about surface-level ground displacement, but very noticeable dips in elevation which are taking priority over the DEM.
Large differences like this are definitely going to be an issue as the terrain and even object elevations around the scenery (powerlines, etc) are going to vary greatly based on if the end user has displacement on or off.
Though, I know this is a tech alpha and might not represent the release version. I’ll be curious to see how it looks in the dev copy later this month.
But still, it’s worth mentioning because this has the potential to be a day-one blocker.
I have experienced the same issues in regards to Height Maps with terraforming. It’s as if terraforming was switched off in Tech Alpha? Not sure if this is the case but in almost all my sceneries there are issues where a heightmap/terraform polygon was placed. In this example (Niagara Falls) you can see that the heightmap has defaulted to a higher elevation than it should be.
Check out this video for the next 20 seconds. (1:22 - 1:42)
It shows how bumpy the grass area is. This grass should be almost completely flat. Turning off Displacement Mapping removes all the bumpiness and returns it to the correct flatter terrain which is based on the accurate DEM.
As long as we can control which aprons/polygons receive the displacement mapping with the SDK, then it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
If we can’t control it, then all custom scenery will be broken in 2024. (Even scenery developed in 2024, developers will have to choose to make it work with Displacement Mapping on or off, as they are not compatible with each other.)
Adding to the above (guess the issue related to BurningBlue scene could be because custom height map aren’t correctly loaded/implemented in the beta)
The displacement is causing hard time when taxing on soil/grass, leaving deep hole behind the aircraft wheels.
We really need a way to have an option to harden our materials (so not only concrete /ashpalt that are hard by default).
E.g. A grass airfield may have been in use for such a long time that the terrain can’t deform so much under normal condition
Soil parking in front of an hangar, see the deep trenches on the left
As a side comment to your concern (which I’m in total agreement with), I’m curious if there will be an additional aircraft attribute for tire width (or contact area) for each wheel contact point and if aircraft weight will affect the displacement depth and friction coefficient. Heavier aircraft / smaller contact area should sink-in (to the point of getting stuck), lighter aircraft / larger contact area should “float” more and not be overly affected. Consider a bush aircraft with tundra tires which should be much less affected by terrain type.
The effect brings another element of realism to the sim, but appears generic in nature as demonstrated in the tech alpha (if that is, indeed, what the production release will be like). I would suggest that it should be affected by the aircraft attributes, and most certainly adjustable by a scenery developer through a displacement map overlay or “hardness” attribute, as has been mentioned.
Edit: From what I heard in the recent dev update video, weight should play a role in displacement, but nothing mentioned about tire width/contact area.
This is an ongoing discussion on our side.
We will likely introduce some new options in the polygon object to give you some control over this new system.
Please consider some of the following scenarios which we need to control in the SDK:
Grass to Apron transition - Ability to define when there is a “step” and when it is smooth/flat.
Grass bumpiness - Ability to define height variation of displacement bumps (zero would be default DEM)
Grass hardness - Ability to define how much wheels dent the surface
I’m sure I’ll find more when we get access to the alpha tomorrow
As a side note, if you want to see how bad Displacement Mapping affects custom grass strip airfields, load up Burning Blue Design Popham (EGHP) in 2024.
Here’s a good comparison in one of my addons with the displacement on vs off. You can see that there is a pretty big difference in the terrain. At a few of my airstrips, this has made the runways pretty much unusable as well. This goes for the 2020 package in 2024, as well as a native 2024 package.
Is the package you are using to take the screenshots available on the Marketplace? If that’s the case, could you let me know (here or in private, as you prefer) the name of the package?
Hi Eric,
Both of the pictured packages are available on Marketplace.
The top photos of the shed is a part of Emerald Scenery Design - RN25 Twentyfive Mile / RNLL Limber Lake Airstrip, taken at RNLL. (Note: Emerald Object Library is required to see everything)
The bottom two are taken at Emerald Scenery Design - 67FL Bald Eagle Airfield- Myakka Head, taken near the large hangar on field. This package also has really overgrown grass on the runway that I can’t seem to control. (Was going to create another thread for that after trying a different idea) There is a secondary airstrip just over the tree line kind of behind and to the South of the large hangar (you’ll find some parking spawns there). This is a good reference for a runway that is fairly unusable due to the elevation changes. It also shows a lot more of the tall grass over what should be an area of mostly dirt/sparse grass mix.
The main grass runway is also a bit bumpy, from what I can tell.
Both airports use their own custom terraforming DEM. RN25/RNLL is roughly 3m, and 67FL is 1m.
In the third photo, where you see the step-down from the hangar, there is an apron under this used in 2020 to block grass from showing through the cement floor. It seems that whenever an apron of cement or asphalt type (maybe more, but untested) is used, it doesn’t blend with the surrounding displacement. I’m guessing some form of forced smoothing/flattening if a displacement is not defined for that material? Grass aprons seem to be unaffected. Possibly dirt and gravel as well.
Correction: The material for the underlaying apron is “Groud_sand” which is actually classified as Dirt.
Hello all,
on maybe a related issue, i’m getting weird sloping inbetween my DEM tiles. this worked fine in 2020 but in the tech alpha i’m getting strange lines such as this.
also for some reason even though my terraformers work in the project editor, when i compile in the actual game there is some sloping /averaging now occuring, sinking my entire geometry (the holes were just squares in the ground to account for scenery related issues; i have stairs that go to a basement levels so i needed these holes… now it’s sinking my entire airport)
anyone? @FlyingRaccoon@Yasmine are these issues related to the new terraforming or what’s going on? as you can see the terraform rectangles have much more aggressive sloping, sinking my whole building to a degree that i can’t release it. also the regularly injected DEM tiles have these weird borders. please help as i am seriously stuck :s
why is no one replying to this? it’s now literally unusable.
even the decals are now creating tesselation bumps and the regular terraforming is completely broken.
i can’t release my scenery for launch then it seems.
Does turning off Displacement mapping fix these issues? If so, i think they said we’ll have the option to turn it off in specified areas in the next build if i’m not mistaken. If its not Displacement map related then I don’t know. I was hoping the light nodes in Light preset would be work for this build. We’re a week away from release.
It’s looking pretty certain we’ll need to advise our customers that they need to turn Displacement Mapping off to run any of our 35 sceneries.
The supposed polygon tool coming won’t fix 2020 > 2024 compatibility issues with terrain and we simply won’t have time to update sceneries to 2024 mode as the release is so close.
2020 packages in 2024 need to have identical terrain regardless of the user’s settings.
