Extending the drawing distance for fading objects

[Nicholas Bell 117]

Before I go nuts editing didn't I read somewhere the program restrained limit is 11,000 meters?

[+streakeagle 871]

streakeagle, do you have the replacment pit that fixes the shadow issue? If not try dropping everything in the attachment into your SEA terrain folder.

 

PIT1.7z

No I do not, trying it out now... That doesn't fix PIT8 or PIT16, which are what I am seeing on almost every base.

ok, I see now. The INDIVIDUAL object's ini

 

that would be an awful lot of work, extracting all 100 and something ini, and tweeking them. But it wold definately do the trick, as the individial ini, irrc, can take precedence over the _types entry

 

As my Vietnam terrain is already extracted... I edited every object to 60,000 for both the last lod and the max visual distance. Didn't take that long for Vietnam.

Edited March 22, 2016 by streakeagle

[Wrench 9,848]

iirc, it was only the Pit1 that cast the 'shadow beam'. the other 2 are ok

[+mue 715]

Everything looks great... except the pits (where aircraft park--open revetments) and hangars which give me some issues with flickering at any useful distance.

 

Are those pits and hangars positioned on top of the airfield lod object? Then they "z-buffer fight" with the underlying airfield object. The airfield object has the following entries in <terrain>_types.ini: FlatObject=TRUE and ZBufferOffset=6.0. Those entries prevents the z-fighting of the airfield with the underlying terrain (otherwise the airfield would flicker) Unfortunatelly the side effect is that the airfield is "elevated" if you look at some distance at the airfield. And this induces the z-fighting between the airfield and the objects on top of the airfield. You can see it easily if you are with your aircraft on the runway: switch to free view, look down at your aircraft and move up (away from the airfield): The aircraft seems to sink into the runway (or the runway seems to elevate).

[+streakeagle 871]

Z-fighting is exactly what I am seeing. It is only objects on the tarmac that do this. Now: what is the solution to have the terrain not show through the runway and the objects sit securely on top of the runway?

[Wrench 9,848]

a new, better terrain engine? (not the lod-based failure one, either)

[Fubar512 1,350]

a new, better terrain engine? (not the lod-based failure one, either)

Like this?    https://www.microsoft.com/Products/Games/FSInsider/developers/Pages/GlobalTerrain.aspx

[+mue 715]

Z-fighting is exactly what I am seeing. It is only objects on the tarmac that do this. Now: what is the solution to have the terrain not show through the runway and the objects sit securely on top of the runway?

 

I modified the terrain shaders to decrease the z-fighting between terrain and lod objects: http://combatace.com/topic/85970-shimmering-tods-and-target-objects/

I hoped this would be sufficient so that I could set FlatObject=FALSE for the airfield. If I remember correctly it actually worked if I looked at the airfield from a distance but not if I'm on the runway. Maybe the zOffset variable in my modified shaders must be increased further.

[+malibu43 142]

First of all Mue, thank you for all your excellent work!  It will be great to breathe a little more life into this sim.

 

I just wanted to follow up on the clouds question - is there a shader that can be modified to extend the draw distance (and maybe density/qty) of clouds?  This is one of the things I miss the most from the SF1/early SF2 days...

[Stick 773]

First of all Mue, thank you for all your excellent work!  It will be great to breathe a little more life into this sim.

 

I just wanted to follow up on the clouds question - is there a shader that can be modified to extend the draw distance (and maybe density/qty) of clouds?  This is one of the things I miss the most from the SF1/early SF2 days...

I swear! I will share my environment.ini later this eve. Its not the same but it does well for the screenies. 

[Stick 773]

This what I have managed to tweak

ENVIRONMENTSYSTEM.7z

[stingray77 4]

Okay, I am about to dive into this...

 

Just to recap:

1) drop mue's two FX-files into every terrain in my Terrains-Folders

2) make sure to increase the DetailMeshSize in the Flightengine.ini to a higher value (in all DetailOptions in the Flightengine.ini or just the Detail I am using? high or unlimited in my case)

3) set ObjectsFade=FALSE in the Options.ini

 

I understand I may have to reset the values for fadeStartDistance and fadeLength in mue's FX-files if I'm getting CTD, correct?

And can I use my SF2V Flightengine.ini for my SF2NA as well (just copying it over there)? Looks like I never extracted that one for SF2NA...

 

More questions may come up during my trials... Sorry...

[stingray77 4]

Okay, looking COOL so far - great not to see objects appearing out of nothing anymore... And especially cool to see aircraft carriers from way distant before landing on them...

 

Using the SF2V-Flightengine.ini seems to work fine in SF2NA - and for now I set DetailMeshSize to 12 on Medium and 18 on Unlimited...

I am just seeing GameLoops of more than 1 on SF2V again, indicating somewhat of a slowdown. I don't recall where to fix that to 1. Wasn't it in the nvidia control panel? it is set to 1 for my merged SF2... So, what else shall I look at?

Would reducing the DetailMeshSize have much of an Impact?

[stingray77 4]

Answer to my own question: yes, better fps! I found a nice balance with DetailMeshSizes of 10 at Medium and Unlimited...

And nvidia seems to loose the pre-render-setting from time to time, which can be "reset" and stored....

 

Something different (which comes apparent again, now): anybody found a solution to the shimmering/flickering - especially on the steel structures on bridges in SF2V (eburger's pack that is)?

[KJakker 901]

Have you checked out Mue's other thread, "shimmering TODs and target objects"? That has a fix for some shimmering issues.

[stingray77 4]

Whoa, that's GREAT! I wasn't aware of those, or - more probable - too shy to apply as they mean a lot more tweaking to the machine that I felt comfortable with (until now)...

But as I started with the drawing distance already, I will also dive into that as well...

Thanks so much for redirecting me there!!!

[KJakker 901]

 I have notice that new SF2 players are often unaware of this threads existence.

Could both the Extending the drawing distance for fading objects thread (this thread) and Mue's shimmering TODs and target objects thread be pined or moved to the Knowledge Base?

[jeanba 1,920]

I agree, they are very important