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.
Welcome to this week’s instalment of “Wiping the MSFS Floor”. The title says “South America”. If that sounds grandiose, then that’s because it is. But since MSFS doesn’t simulate borders (thank the deity of your choice for that), it’s quite difficult to determine where I am at any given place at the scale one has to work in the SDK editor. I’ve got a reasonable grasp of world geography, but it’s not THAT good. Anyway, that’s the reason this mod isn’t called “Bolivian Salt Lakes Fix” etc.
Coverage however, does start in the Bolivian Altiplano and works its way through southern Peruvian Highlands and the Chilean and Argentinian Puna de Atacama, i.e., principally, the Dry Andes. I’ve also made a foray into the Dry Pampas, but please keep in mind, this is a work in progress, and it will be a while before the whole of South America is covered.
Luckily some (if not all) of the larger salt flats, e.g. the Salar de Uyuni are not tainted with water masks. This is fortuitous since, as we all know by now, wiping these monsters dry causes ghastly water stains (aka bad textures). That still left hundreds and hundreds of incorrectly masked dry lakes and rivers in the Altiplano alone. I’ve also removed considerable amounts of water from rivers that are depicted as mostly dry on the aerial images in Bing.
Having said all that, it’s actually quite calming to pan through the MSFS world map and apply the proverbial sponge. Anyway, hope you’ll enjoy exploring some of the driest lands on earth!
gunther 
Can you do Ukrainian salt lake fixes? I noticed there are a lot of salt lakes on Bing maps in the Southern Ukraine (including mainly Russian occupied Crimea).
2 years ago
I had a quick look, but from what I can see, other than a few small dry lakes, these are mostly coastal lagoons. They're usually tidal (ie. sometimes dry). If I remove that water it would mean they're permanently dry land (meaning no small boats, no float planes, no water reflections). I've mostly stayed away from coastal lagoons in all my "salt lakes" mods because the SDK simply doesn't provide the tools to create transparent water masks to bring out the shallow, colorful nature of these places, but still leave them with water cover. So this is really something in the hands of Microsoft/Asobo.
2 years ago
gunther
Maxest