Ground Effects for Taxiway and Apron Lighting is Askew in P3Dv2.3

[garrettprs]

Hi there,

I went on an FSDT shopping spree the other day and purchased KFLL, which is a fantastic rendition of an airport that I've traveled a lot through.

However, I noticed two things. The first thing is essentially just a confirmation since I think I found a relevant forum thread already but I notice cars driving off the I-95/I-595 interchange and also below I-595 (which is an elevated highway). Based on what I've read, this is merely an issue with FSX/P3D automobile traffic and the only way to fix it would be a custom--and FPS-unfriendly--road set? Or is there some other issue at play here?

The other issue--and one that I did not find anyone else reporting (I try to be diligent before posting an issue) is that the ground mappings for the taxiway lighting is askew (see picture). As I've said, I bought two other FSDT airports (KIAH and PHNL) yet they do not have this issue. Certainly not a major issue by any means but am curious about it.

Thanks so much,
Garrett

[virtuali]

I think I found a relevant forum thread already but I notice cars driving off the I-95/I-595 interchange and also below I-595 (which is an elevated highway). Based on what I've read, this is merely an issue with FSX/P3D automobile traffic and the only way to fix it would be a custom--and FPS-unfriendly--road set? Or is there some other issue at play here?

The road IS custom, but default road traffic drives on it. Which means, sometimes it might not catch the elevated road and will go under it, it's one of the many FSX quirks. But default road traffic is way more fps friendly and less memory-consuming than a 100% custom road + traffic solution, so we chose that one.

The other issue--and one that I did not find anyone else reporting (I try to be diligent before posting an issue) is that the ground mappings for the taxiway lighting is askew (see picture).

I think that's might be an added problem with P3D sometimes adding a small offset to sceneries made using some FS8/FS9 SDK methods for ground, and KFLL is still using them. Do you have FSX too ? Do you have the same issue in FSX ?

[garrettprs]

Update: to check on the lights issue here at KFLL (and some issues I reported re PHNL), I reinstalled FSX after a long hiatus and confirmed that this issue is present in a vanilla FSX installation (see attached photo).

[virtuali]

I reinstalled FSX after a long hiatus and confirmed that this issue is present in a vanilla FSX installation (see attached photo).

Then there's nothing you can do, the ground scenery is just made that way.

[garrettprs]

Hate to rehash that since it's been a while but I've been doing a good bit of flying into South Florida (lots at night too) and this issue is really getting at me because of how distracting it is, especially when hand flying approaches. I can't reiterate enough the fact that this issue hasn't arisen with any other airport, including multiple others from FSDT (CYVR, KIAH, PHNL).

Are any other customers having this issue (especially in P3Dv2.4)? I'd be very curious to know...

[virtuali]

Are any other customers having this issue (especially in P3Dv2.4)? I'd be very curious to know...

Nobody has reported it before, which means it doesn't seem to be a big issue for most of the users. In addition to that, there are some posts on LM site from other developers reporting slightly misplaced ground scenery with their products, WITH P3D ONLY so no, it's not something that happens with just KFLL, more likely you don't have other sceneries that have this issue.

Interesting enough, CYVR and KIAH are made using an entirely different method, and rely more on our custom modules to do and position everything, while KFLL is a bit more "standard SDK", although it's no 100% FSX native code, and I guess this might have something to do with it, because support for pre-FSX stuff in P3D is decreasing over time, with each new version.

Do you have FSX installed too ? If yes, try to compare if it looks more correct in FSX.

We'll eventually have to remake all our past sceneries that are not 100% FSX code like we did for JFK, and this includes KFLL, but we don't have a timeline for this right now.

[garrettprs]

Ah, thanks Umberto again, for the quick and thorough reply. That's some interesting info for sure.

If you go back up to my second post on this topic, you'll see that I reinstalled FSX and had this issue in FSX as well. So that makes this all the more puzzling...

[virtuali]

you'll see that I reinstalled FSX and had this issue in FSX as well.

Do you see exactly the same amount of misplacement between the 3d objects and the ground texture ? A 100% perfect placement is very difficult to achieve, but I was wondering if you noticed any difference between FSX and P3D.

[garrettprs]

Sorry for just now getting back to this. Very similar misplacement in FSX (see screenshot). Doesn't make any sense why this happens at this airport... No other FSDT or any other payware airports have this so I think it's time for a fix...

[garrettprs]

Figured out what it is: the blue light reflections are baked into the ground poly which is, itself a series of large photo tiles. All someone needs to do is shift the ground tiles (e.g. "KFLL_Tile_T10_LM" in the texture folder) ~ a meter or so get it to line up. Can this be done? I could almost do this myself if I had the knowledge of adjusting the tile placement...