WU13 UPDATE: A fix included with WU13 Oceania appears to have resolved the issue introduced with SU12.
SU12 UPDATE: Please be advised that SU12 has at least partially broken water masks in the sim. As a result you may experience erratic texture behavior when using this mod. I understand that MS/Asobo are aware of the issue. So hopefully a fix is forthcoming.
So, I was flying along in northern Baja California the other day, mostly minding my own business and checking out some of the sceneries created by Bozone74, when all of a sudden, I have a rather jarring experience ... there in the middle of what I supposed was the Sonoran Desert lay this beautiful, blue and sparkling lake, basking in the hot Mexican sun! Ooookayyyy!!! Reminded me of something I spent a week of my life fixing recently.
Let's have a closer look then, shall we. What's the name of this thing? Ok, "Laguna Salada" ... the fabled "Salad Lagoon" finally discovered? Probably not, so let's ask Google Translate then. "Laguna" is easy, you guessed it, it means "Lagoon". How about "Salada" then? Well ... it means "SALT"!!! Déjà vu all over again!!! This there blue sparkling lake is not a lake but rather a dry salt "lake".
Anyway, I can't help myself and fix things in MSFS that's either missing (like airfields), or not supposed to be there (like water in dry lakes). This episode covers Mexico...
Notes:
- I've taken a fairly broad brush (or should I say big sponge). There are lots of them (though per capita, not nearly as many as in Australia). If I've missed some, let me know. If I've emptied your favourite dam, let me know.
- The removal of the water has left some of the larger dry lakes with irregular textures (e.g., bad colour correction). It's sometimes noticeable from high altitudes, but this bothers me less than a huge lake where there isn't one.
- I've taken the liberty of also removing the water masks of a lot of dams and small lakes (especially around Mexico City), even if they nominally contained water. However, I've only done so if the default water mask was atrociously bad (unfortunately, many of them are).
- I've left coastal lagoons alone for the most part. The current SDK doesn't have any tools to apply transparent water masks. This means removing water to reveal the rich colours and textures of these coastal lagoons effectively makes them dry land (ie. no float plane-ing etc.). So, until such tools become part of the SDK we're relying on Asobo to apply coastal water masks, which in places like Yucatan and the Gulf of California are painfully overdue.
- There's a mod by timot75 that fixes some of the coastal lagoons in the Gulf of California. There are no issues in using my mod in conjunction with timot75's mod.
[Note: For those geographically and/or geologically minded: Laguna Salada is an endorheic basin (meaning there's no outflow for water, other than evaporation). It's actually a secondary cohort fault of the San Andreas Fault system that's slowly tearing parts of California off continental North America. It's 10 metres below sea level and does occasionally fill with water. However, in the Bing aerial imagery it was clearly dry.]
Love your work! Appreciate all the effort to make it realistic.
2 years ago
sarahymac
Thanks man, it sucks flying over over that huge laguna salada desert and see it full of water.
2 years ago
Rigberto
Very nice job! Is there any chance you could work your magic for the water errors to the far west of Phoenix, AZ by the White Tank Mountains? There's a stretch west of Luke AFB all the way up to west of Surprise, AZ that's full of water that shouldn't be there. Thanks
2 years ago
No worries. Check out this:
https://flightsim.to/file/28456/southwestern-u-s-salt-lakes-fix
2 years ago
gunther
dpskg1993
Awesome!! This is the place I fly daily. White sands, Yuma & Baja!! Thank you for this!! -Missedapproach
2 years ago
roswellsoaps