Floating Objects.

[ACG_Sods]

I don't know why but some of my objects seem to be changing their height to the same default value (object, Y= 68.1 or something) and it seems to be the same set of objects, trucks and fires. (not all Fires or Trucks just some)
I keep changing them back but its sooo annoying.
I've seen a post this and its possible the same issue, but this post is so old and no reply to it, ill link it in at the end.

Is this issue known? is there a work around? or am I doing something wrong?

 

 

 

Edited May 17, 2024 by ACG_Sods

[Jaegermeister]

3 hours ago, ACG_Sods said:

I don't know why but some of my objects seem to be changing their height to the same default value (object, Y= 68.1 or something) and it seems to be the same set of objects, trucks and fires. (not all Fires or Trucks just some)
I keep changing them back but its sooo annoying.
I've seen a post this and its possible the same issue, but this post is so old and no reply to it, ill link it in at the end.

Is this issue known? is there a work around? or am I doing something wrong?

 

 

It is a known issue. Copying and pasting effects like fires, smoke and explosions seems to be the main cause. There are certain areas on the Rhineland map that seem to be worse than others. You need to place a new effect and create a new linked object whenever you use them as opposed to importing or copy pasting them.

 

That usually works, but not always.

[IckyATLAS]

It is an issue I have on a regular basis. On a map with a lot I hundreds of ground objects like craters, effects like smoke and explosions, all are affected by this altitude bug.

They should as a standard be on ground, and for chimneys as an example you set the right altitude.

Regularly the editor messes all this. You get craters floating on explosions 100 meters in the air instead of ground level etc.

When it is stuff that has to be on ground then the you can select all effects that have to be on ground and restore them to the right ground altitude all over the map.

But if you have many chimneys or smokestacks with variable altitudes then you have to set them again one by one and this is a pain.

How to solve this issues.

Here are a set of ways I have used to mitigate this:

 

1) Group effects as much as possible in dedicated groups with the various MCUs to control them. Avoid groups of groups of effects. You can have them as a subgroup no problem. Regarding effects like explosions, fire, smoke etc. try to have your groups geographically localized. This means that do not do groups of effects that are all over the map. My experience here is with Kuban map where you have a lot of very different altitudes. If you do this altitudes of effects mess up more often.

 

2) Ground object like craters should be separate in their own subgroup. There is no control MCU here as they are like blocks. 

 

3) Separate in your groups grounds from effects. Grounds get their altitude messed up less often than effects.

 

4) Always check that altitudes are correct and then save the group in a group file dedicated to your mission. You can save in a group file many groups but this will limit the flexibility up to you to find the right balance according to your missions or campaigns. In this way if the altitudes are messed up you can import the file with the correct altitudes. This has saved me a lot of time.

 

5)I have also noted sometimes that using the "grounding editor function button" can lead to messing up the Waypoint and Plane altitudes. I am not sure as I can only see it when I open again the file, but it happened multiple times.  It happened a few times that using that button to set down to ground multiple objects has also set on ground all "airplane" waypoints and the plane themselves. There is no problem with ground vehicle waypoints as they never get messed up, but those for your flights have variable altitude values. And like for effects they get messed up once in a while. This is why it is good practice to have your flights well organized with the flights and their corresponding waypoints and well as the icons that you may have related to your waypoints in well separated and structured groups saved in your mission group directory, so that in case of "altitude catastrophe" event you can get import back the right data.

 

6) Beware also to have objects which Icon coordinates that are nearly identical. Like piling up two or more icons exactly and the same place. This will crash not the editor but the game. For whatever reason the game code does not manage this. So it is good practice to always have a very small X-Y coordinate difference  if you want multiple things at the same place.

 

The very annoying thing here is that you may have things ok in the editor as you work, you save and then if you open again it is messed, and not always the same way.

 

Clearly this editor besides crashing regularly but in a complete random way, is also bugged in the way it manages altitudes on a given map. They have an issue with the Y axis and the way it is let's say treated inside their code in relation to map altitudes. It is not robust. It seems that they are working basically on map ground level and everything that uses a variable Y axis can be troublesome. Probably this is due to their choice of map making system and how the code manages that. More modern tools should not have such issues.

 

I speak here for myself as my missions datafiles are huge as I have multiple hundreds of grounds, effects of all type etc.

 

It is a pity because it is a very very powerful editor but is has not been "finished" and has still too many bugs and issues that make life miserable.

 

Edited June 2, 2024 by IckyATLAS