Error???

[landnrailroader]

In 21 years of doing MSTS I have never seen this before. There is an area of a few kilometers square
just west & southwest of Knoxville, TN where the terrain has suddenly disappeared. Items like Forest
Objects are seen way------down-------low at I guess, sea level, while objects placed at a particular
altitude such as track & roads are where they should be.

This is seen in MSTS/RE which uses a quad-tree but it does not appear in TSRE which if I remember
right does not use the quad-tree, so I assume there is a corruption in the quad-tree. Would be nice
to fix it but as long as it works in TSRE and hopefully ORTS it will only be a curiosity. I just noticed
the issue today. Most of the objects seen were originally from the KDSub., version 1 which was used
to start this route, and which is in the library.

J. H. Sullivanknox-error.JPG

[charland]

Go to the tile(s), right click and select "Toggle Terrain" and see if that fixes it.

Paul :-)

[landnrailroader]

In which editor Paul? And by the way it displays correctly in ORTS.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

Paul,

I am not able to select the missing tiles in MSTS/RE and in any case I would only have the options to
draw or not, or turn on/off water. In TSRE, the terrain appears fine, everything nicely in place. I am
not skilled in TSRE but there is very little to be added in this area of missing terrain and I checked it
in ORTS. Most likely my routes in the future will be ORTS only, if for no other reason that I will use
signal scripts that have been created to fit a particular railroad's rules. These would also require me
to use TSRE in the latter stages of creating a route.

Jerry

[charland]

Hi Jerry,

In MSTS/RE, you don't select it, you just go to it and when you are near the middle (anywhere in the tile boundary), left click to select a sub-tile, right click and a menu will appear, select "Toggle draw" (had to open a route and do this to get the working correct!).

Paul :-)

[landnrailroader]

Paul,

Okay. When I am in the area of the tile, I right-click. When I do, everything is grayed out except setting the tile
floor, etc. but no window pops to allow making those settings. I have verified that the issue appears in both
RE and when running MSTS but does not cause a crash. In TSRE and ORTS, all of the necessary elevation data
shows up as expected. All that I need to do in this area is re-sculpt the terrain around the tracks & roads. I'll
have to study TSRE some more to see how to do that. I would assume that there is a issue in the quad tree or
a corruption that forces the terrain to sea level in the tile. This issue also appears to affect only one tile.

If you would like, I can send you the route via "WeTransfer". As it is "under construction" it is around 600M as
a zip. Just send me your email by a private message.


Jerry

[landnrailroader]

Paul,
Others that see this thread,

I found a post back around 2011 that indicated a similar problem. The solution was found by going into RGE where
the designer found a file location that was not checked but should have been. He checked it and then found that
there was no file to generate so he saved the quad tree.

I found 6 files (squares) where the error location was but which were unchecked. So I checked them and found that
there were no files to generate, so I saved the quad tree.

Went back into RE and the terrain appears normal. If any more are found like that, I will use the same procedure.

Jerry Sullivan

[charland]

Great! That was one of the things I was going to look at!

Did you add any new tiles to the route and maybe accidentally unchecked to missing tiles? I was wondering about that seeing as they worked at one point when you added tracks, roads, and trees.

Paul :-)

[landnrailroader]

Paul,

I could have. The area that had the issue was part of the original KDSub. route, i.e. version 1, which I started with
and then added terrain tiles to cover two areas of world files that I copied in from other route, the Hook & Eye, and
the CNOTP3. To do that I copy the world files & then generate terrain tiles to cover the new area, and then use
DEMEX to generate terrain, and if necessary, distant mountains. The only issue I have ever had doing this is with
dynamic track, so I go into the world file and physically delete all references to dynamic track, tile by tile. This
was particularly true with the H&E part which I had done nearly 20 years ago. Now, I choose to minimize the use
of dynamic track and often just use it to fit some odd curve in place and then use pieces to replace the amount used.
Pretty handy for that.

I also added several other terrain tiles to cover other areas where I was laying track/roads from scratch on some other
L&N & (mostly) SR segments. It will be my most complex route although the total area is only about 100 miles N-S
and 50 miles E-W and all but two short segments are in Tennessee. Having worked for the Southern in my days of
youth, I was familiar with what these lines existed for, and while I don't do activities, I will provide a number of
suggestions to tickle the brains of those that do.

Jerry

[charland]

Glad you fixed the problem Gerry. I few months ago I thought I would add about 30 miles to the south of Brattleboro VT, I still had the DEMs from the Conn River Route. I went in and generated the new tiles and created the terrain in DEMEX but when I went to have a look in the route, only a few tiles had any elevation, the rest were just flat... turned out the DEMs had no elevation data.

Paul :-)