I am not sure everyone which works on map creation knows this so I think this may be a good thing on certain maps. So here it is.
Any object (house etc.) has a native pop-up distance which is given in the corresponding mesh file. However when the object is placed in a map (for example with FMB map-creation mode) there are global instructions which limit the pop-up distance to about 3500 meter. In other words, although according to mesh a house may have a pop up distance of say 5000 meter when placed in a map the pop up distance is reduced to 3500 m. As a side note, if an object having native pop-up distance 5000 m is placed not in a map but in a mission this 5000 m pop-up distance will show up in game and this is good.
Now what I discovered long time ago is that if in a map a plate is sufficiently close to an object or group of objects the global 3500 meter rule is overridden and objects can show up to 5000 meter. This can be utilized when creating or modifying maps provided caution is exercised.
To give an example. Suppose that you have a region with villages and SMALL towns and perhaps moderate object density. Place in FMB map-creation mode a blank plate all over the village/town area with a density of say one plate per hundred meter. This would give 100 plates per kilometer square. For me the boosted visibility really brings a lot of immersion when flying.
Placement of the blank plate can be done with AUTOPOP utility too...
As mentioned, caution with large cities/ or moderate cities with large object density. Experiment and see, of course whether the flying will be smooth depends on the map itself!
By the way, to see this effect just open in FMB normal mode some map which has railway stations provided with platforms. This platforms are plates so objects close to them will show from larger distance then the others. So when you approach the town you see first a sort of 'island of buildings' in the railway zone and nothing around. Only when close enough the other objects pop up.
I hope some will exploit this!
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Topic: increased pop-up radius of map objects via blank plates (Read 529 times)
