Shadow line from plane to ground?

[33LIMA 972]

Anyone know likely causes of this dark line which links my plane to its shadow like a control line model? Seems gone at height but persists around 1000 feet or so. Not visible from every angle but affects multiple plane types, all I have checked so far. Vaguely recall seeing it years ago but can't recall of find anything on it.

Only thing I can think of is that have noticed it since changing to Geezer's new pilots, but that is probably just a co-incidence, since I did not notice it playing two new Alb D.III campaigns on the Flanders map.

 

 

 

[+Trotski 936]

try turning of the has
CastShadow=TRUE command for the pilots , its usually that or the shd file for whatever aircraft you are using, most likely the pilot file in this case,  pointless having the pilots cast a shadow anyway truth be told, I default turn them off for any and all pilot models, in FE and SF 

Edited December 3, 2018 by trotski00

[Wrench 9,883]

which plane and what modder built it?

I've never seen a pilot figure cast the shadow rope; it's usually (almost always) cause by faults in the aircraft model itself. Open or flipped meshes, etc. There is no cure

[33LIMA 972]

Many thanks Trotski, that was spot on, took a bit of time tracking down all the offending pilot .ini files, but once amended, problem solved! 

Hi Wrench. These were stock FE2 planes (Camels, Albatros D.V etc). When I temporarily renamed the mods/pilots folder to prob-pilots after reading Trotski's post, the stock pilots were defaulted to and re-appeared, and those shadow ropes disappeared. So I edited the pilot .ini files in the Mods/prob-pilots folder and after restoring the subfolder's name, Geezer's pilots were back less the shadow ropes. Haven't checked every affected plane yet but seems that was the problem. Like I say I do recall seeing it before years back, that probably the problem you are describing. 

[+Trotski 936]

You are welcome mate, however as Wrench said it is usually caused by aircraft models, however I guessed you were using stock aircraft so I ruled that problem out, the major issue I have with pilots casting shadows is sometimes they do just that and you end up with a shadow of a pilot underneath the aircraft , which looks really weird !! 

[Crawford 570]

On 04.12.2018 at 12:06 AM, 33LIMA said:

Anyone know likely causes of this dark line which links my plane to its shadow like a control line model?

It's a LOD problem and not repairable without the MAX files - the engine doesn't interpret them properly when processing shadows, unless the author finds the max file and puts a few stitches on it.
It is the result of a "flaw" in the 3D model and can't be fixed by an .INI change. This is not a "bug" of the engine, or a fault of the modders, 'cause in the early days of SFP1 the shadow system was rudimentary, buggy, required to create a separate 3D model for the shadow.
So, most players played without shadows, and most modders couldn't test their model properly (as they couldn't determine whether the fault was one of some parts of their original 3D model, or of the shadow 3D model).
An easy way is to just change the "CastShadow=" to FALSE  also eliminates the problem for that aircraft. However, I never had a similar problem with stock Camels!

Edited December 5, 2018 by Crawford

[33LIMA 972]

Thanks Crawford; as I mentioned I think the problem was introduced with Geezer's replacement pilots (like the one seen below, sandwiched between two stock air gunners in the AEG), which all had their shadows set to TRUE. I eliminated the 'shadow rope' when either I set that to FALSE in each new pilot's .ini file, or disabled the new pilots altogether, so the sim defaulted back to the stock ones.

The AEGs seen here are at about 10,000 feet because I recently hand-edited most of the default mission height settings in MISSIONCONTROL.INI (as well as dropping the cloudbases a bit, tho I'm not sure if this edit works in FE2 as it reportedly doesn't in SF2), so that I am now getting some missions well above the maximum of about 3,500 feet I usually got before.

[+VonS 1,424]

2 hours ago, 33LIMA said:

tho I'm not sure if this edit works in FE2 as it reportedly doesn't in SF2), so that I am now getting some missions well above the maximum of about 3,500 feet I usually got before.

Hello gents', can confirm that it works just fine in FE2 - cloud height/base toggles in the environsys file, also average altitudes for missions in the missioncontrol file, per theater and per period (relevant tweaks included somewhere around ver. 9 and 9.1 of my FM update packs).

Also works in my install of the regular/vanilla SF2 - can toggle cloud heights...in fact I'm using my tweaked environsys files from FE2 in SF2 and they work fine, giving me the same clouds and cloud heights across both sims - one of these days I will get to uploading the relevant, tweaked files for SF2 - but FE2 is my priority. 

Happy flying,

Von S