Indeed, it does not have to do with the DEM itself, but most likely with the way the lower levels of detail are compiled, which is why I was referring to the Norway DEM suffering more than the rest.
Although I’m not sure if higher-quality mesh is the answer, as the amount of polygons should be consistent according to the distance of the camera from the terrain. Mont Blanc which received 1m mesh I believe (with the France/Benelux World Update) is also morphing quite badly. Japan which is entirely covered by 5m mesh looked great after its update, but terrible after the USA World Update.
That looks like the typical morphing, mountain seams and other artifacts caused by the terrain engine, though I don’t think I’ve seen something quite as bad, especially with the Orbx Iceland mesh. Do you recall where this was? I could give it a test.
They should put a disclaimer, * maximum mesh resolution only available within 1nm of the camera.
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I tried another flight in Iceland (after leaving the game) and everything went fine this time.
Actually, I had a blast flying over the new ORBx Iceland mesh…I haven’t seen any morphing on this flight and everything is sharp even in distance.
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Actually other LOD problems manifest themselves much closer than this, right in the cokcpit:
LOD Problems - Distances revisited - #38 by CptLucky8
TL;DR: object visibility depends also on the viewing angle, it might be visible at 45 deg to the side and disappear when viewed directly at, while being at the same relative distance to the eye in both cases.
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Great video! This looks a lot more in line with my experience. I also thought that with the Orbx mesh, the more distant terrain textures looked sharper.
Why would you change the subject of a post and add a different problem and confuse everyone?
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That post was made back in December though, then lots of people confused this thread with the terrain spikes that appeared with Sim Update 2. Thankfully those are largely fixed by now.
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getting orbx is not the solution but. The fix should come from microsoft. We cant afford to pay for all other orbx regions.
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This issue has been bugging me for a while, but I only stumbled on this thread today. I tried the free Iceland Orbx mesh, and that makes a huge difference. If they can do it, I would think Asobo could as well, as the resolution isn’t that different.
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It is probably not as simple as using data of similar resolution, because Orbx are using a proprietary technique to compile the lower levels of detail in a more consistent way, but indeed they show it is possible to almost completely eliminate the morphing. The results are stunning. Asobo avoided answering whether they could license this technique, so hopefully they’ll find a way!
I flew towards White Cliff of Dover and they appeared in the proper shape when I was 500 meters away
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The Cliffs of Dover are a hand-made landmark I believe, and there is indeed an issue where they pop in too late. That’s because they are missing lower LODs, and they said in the last Q&A that they are working to resolve that on all POIs released in previous World Updates.
It is not exactly the same issue as presented in this thread, although you might have noticed that as you’re getting closer some POIs will shift up and down (this was visible in the UK trailer as well). That’s because of the underlying terrain that is constantly morphing.
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that’s what I thought, but I read somwhere that was possible to edit the cfg file and increase the distance of LOD.
Anyway, thanks for your reply
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Let’s take a closer look at the White Cliffs of Dover.
At longer distances, the landmark is almost completely submerged because of the morphing terrain. At closer distances, we can see it shifting up or down, again because of the underlying terrain completely changing shape.
The higher the Terrain Level of Detail slider is set to, the further away this transition happens from the camera. However, even set to 200, this popping can still be seen in the distance when the weather conditions are not too hazy. As EarthErduke noted above, forcing a higher setting can increase this distance further, but it would place a lot of strain on hardware and the connection. This specific issue affects all custom landmarks, even those on flat terrain sometimes, but this is the most extreme case.
In the end, brute force is not a real solution. As we saw with my Orbx Iceland video, the true fix would be to improve the shape retention and eliminate this shifting, and it would equally benefit everyone no matter the graphics settings.
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By their own admission their waterline fix was just till they can figure out better A.I. algorithms to handle tides etc… And Iceland is tiny compared to the whole world
Not sure if this would be the same issue, all landmarks are affected no matter whether it’s close to a coastline or not. I’ll try to get a video of one on top of a mountain soon.
As for Iceland being only a small part of the world, it probably doesn’t mean much as the coastline glitch that started with the USA World Update was a global issue. There is more to the interpretation of mesh data than just the way it is compiled it seems.
Just checking in. Wondering if there is any new info floating around about this issue? Maybe something in update 5 maybe?..
Anyways I’m just sitting here with my fingers crossed!
Thx
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Similarly, I’m patiently waiting for Asobo to make a new statement about the terrain issues. Sadly, there is no new information since the last time they talked about it in the May Q&A. The Feedback Snapshot (which does not seem to have been properly updated for a quite while) says it is still under investigation. If we learn anything new, I’ll try to remember and page you!
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Nothing new as far as I’m aware but we have crept up the “leader board” of bugs, so at least it is “under investigation”. I don’t believe we will see any improvement in SU5 unfortunately.
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