[Guest]

Yes, keep us updated on progress, please, low.... :wink:

[lowfighter]

I experimented more so up to now:

1.If you modified the popup distance for an object, and place the object in a mission the object will pop up as you expect, at bigger distance, say 10 Km, that's what i set for now.
2.However if that object is embedded in a map (actors.static) it will pop up at much smaller distance maybe 3-4 Km. So then it seems there is yet another "ini" which overwrites the msh popup distance for the objects embedded on the map
3. There is an exception to 2, namely when objects embedded on the map are close to railway plates, in that case objects around the plate(s) pop up again at msh popup distance, crazy isn't it :lol:

About the mshconverter:
Say you load a msh and save to text mesh which you then place in the corresponding folder in il2/mods. Now you open it with notepad and change the popup distance. The distances before you change are always very small, I don't know if this is a bug of the mshconverter. For example you can find with the just saved text mesh

[LOD]
120
280
400

If you let it like this the object will really pop up at 400 meter! But we know that with the normal msh it pops up at larger distance so maybe there;'s something wrong with the converter I don't know

I changed to

[LOD]
120
280
10000

and object pops up around 10 Km

120 is distance up to which the highest level of detail (LOD)is showed
280 is the distance up to which the intermediary LOD is showed
So it's good to fiddle with all 3 numbers, with 120, 280, 10000 the LOD will be the lowes most of the time (from 280 meter to 10000 )

[lowfighter]

Until someone knowing java would look into it to I found a few simple instances where changing the LOD1,2,3 distances are beneficial (even for embedded objects)
For example the city houses which came with Kiev map, there are 5 of them, quite nice but when viewing distance increases they assume a triangular shape, I hated that, so it was a simple matter of increasing LOD1 distance up the point that LOD2 (which has the triangular mesh) was not anymore harming my eyes :lol:
I thought about another one, the large Japanese buildings (the two pagodas etc), they have too a ridiculously small LOD1 and 2 distances and LOD3 has a FLAT mesh, picture that having in mind the tall pagoda :mrgreen:
So again now increasing LOD2 distance will do the thing...

[Neil Lowe]

Perhaps this technique could be used to solve the problem of the Stuka's, that expand and contract as you approach them.

That, it certainly can

I've just used this method to stop the Spitfire MkVIII (and variants) prop from disappearing at short distances in flyby view. Marvellous stuff

Thanks again for the info.

Cheers, Neil

[lowfighter]

Looked closer focusing on the german buildings (such that you find on Berlin, Normandy, Ardennes)

These buildings have a "native" (written in the default or modded msh) default popup distance of about 2 Km. Now as I said there must be somewhere an instruction which cuts all native distances to about 4 Km (I measured) if the object is embedded in a map (actors.static). But the German buildings have a smaller native distance, so that means if you modify the msh you can reach at least the 4 Km cut distance, and that's like doubling it. So there's improvement even with the 4 Km restriction..Many other buildins have native popup distance around 2 Km or even less so this 4 Km boost can be done for all of them. Needs testing, I'll upload some soon, if you wish to look at it. Needs testing how it affects performance especially..

[Guest]

If you need a hand with testing, just say the word.... :wink:

[Bee]

Interesting. I wonder if this LoD information is inside the static.ini itself?
One object that could really benefit from this is the Plam trees. Those little buggers completely break any would-be Pacific experience.

[lowfighter]

No it's not inside static.ini, and I can bet 10 pints of Paulaner dunkel that it's inside a prog (class) file, needs help from Java experts to get it moded..There's one who knows
The palms, hm I'll look into it, it's a good idea, at least you can boost the popup to 4 Km for now, I think the palm popup is now less then 2 Km. Hopefully the mshconverter can handle the corresponding meshes, it looks like it can't handle all, for example I converted the 4 town house types which are present in all eastern front maps in towns. But when I loaded in game, I had big stutters in FMB and moreover those houses were not showing on the map. So that's why I'm saying the converter is not handling well all the meshes.. Another example, when i wanted to convert the msh for the treeline the mshconverter crashed..

@Bigboss, nice you want to test, I'll be uploading it these days after more work (on Normandy for example you have some other buildings besides the German ones, I have to do those too such that popup is consistent on one map)

Interesting. I wonder if this LoD information is inside the static.ini itself?
One object that could really benefit from this is the Plam trees. Those little buggers completely break any would-be Pacific experience.

[MajorMagee]

One thing to keep in mind about increasing LOD distances. Any increase in distance increases the number of objects to be rendered by the sqare of the disance.

At 2km you have 3.14 sq km of area, at 4km it jumps to 12.57 sq km, by 5 km you're at nearly 20 sq km. At some point you're bound to overload your system with too many objects to render. 8)

[Guest]

I guess we're just trying to find the 'sweet spot' between what our rigs can handle, and the game itself... :wink:

[lowfighter]

Yes, it needs testing and adjusting...
And i need now badly to find the meshes for the random trees...if they exist :lol:

[lowfighter]

I'll upload today or tomorrow a Pacific popup pack, I hope Dr Jones can fix the treeline object conversion soon, at least with forest=2 we will have consistent popup distance in towns and villages.. Airfield hangars etc are visible now from about 7 Km distance 8)
Objects in towns and villages or industrial areas are visible from about 4 Km.
It's a mess in my head and i don't understand well how the game does things but anyway it's good to test...

[gflinchbaugh]

Not to get too off track here, but this bring up something interesting pet peeve of mine. Clouds, they always seem to hover around a 10km (just a off the wall guess), I have never seen an instance on my rig or any screen shot where a 'cloudy' day clouds are not visible much farther, just more of them in the local to your plane.

Now I am sure this IS an FPS issue but it would sure be nice to play with. In real life you can see puffy clouds to the horizon.

Is there a LOD setting for clouds?

Sorry if this has been discussed before, if so, please point me to the thread.

Thanks

[lowfighter]

I have no idea about clouds, I don't know if there's a mesh for them...probably not

[Neil Lowe]

G'day lowfighter,

Tried out the modded objects, but noticed a problem.

Hangar_PBY seems to have an error. It still appears in the FMB list but the 3d preview doesn't work and the object can not be placed on the map, also any PBY hangars already on the map (embedded or previously placed) does not show up.

I extracted the original Hangar_PBY folder from the *.sfs file and edited LOD values and it had the same problem.

The way I found this out was that after installing your mod I was no longer able to save a mission. If I removed your mod i was able to save missions again. I'm not sure if this is the only object that has this problem.

Cheers, Neil