Military AI Works

Hi All,
I could not find an answer to this checking the forums.

With the F-15's, T-38's etc Once I get towards the airfield perimeter the models turn to white.
I do not get this with H.T's C-130's, AIA aircraft or the PAI KC-135's which seem to remain in there colour scheme until you are so far away it does not matter.
Is this something to do with the LOD's or another issue ?

Regards,
Steve.

P.S. I am currently writing weekly plans for the F-15's at Mountain Home and will post them when complete.

Steve, I'm going to move this question into the "AI Aircraft Modeling" forum as I believe the answer does indeed have something to do with the LODs. Certainly the guys in that forum will know.

Hi Steve,

Mainly from experience, but also after reading some topics in FFDS in the past, I would say that it's not a LOD issue and there is nothing wrong with the models. It's is just the FS strange behavior. Some models are loosing their textures in closer distances comparing to some other models. I'll try to give you an example based on the models you just mentioned.

If you open the F-16 and the T-38 in Aircraft Container Manager or ACM if you like, you will notice that both models when in LOD 10 and 9 respectfully, which are the last LODs, are textured. That means that no matter what the distance is both models normally should not turn to "white".

Well, the FS has a different opinion and in order to reduce the load to graphics is choosing a specific distance for everything in the scene for removing the textures and thus save bandwith. The thing is that this specific distance is not the same for all the models (including scenery objects) and the most important is that cannot be controlled by the modeller!

Ofcourse, I accept that in some cases there are AI models on which modellers are choosing by default not to texture the far away LODs, but that's not the case as ACM I believe proves.

I hope that helps, Someone more experienced than me might knows better.

Chris