Odd Polygon Issue with FSX Exporter (GMAX)

[IRIS - David Brice]

Hi guys,

I've finally managed to get my FSX exporter working properly and have amazed my fragile little mind by getting to grips with the dark art of bump-mapping.

Only, I've come across a slight um...oddity.

As the image below shows, the fuselage of my T-6 has a reflection shine, specular sheen and bump mapping all nice and perfect, HOWEVER, on certain parts of the aircraft, (and as shown by the top of the cowling) a few polygons lack ALL reference to reflections, specular shine and bump mapping.

http://www.irissimulations.com/t6_oddity.jpg

I have no idea what's causing this. I originally presumed it was the bump map as I'd applied a new texture to the fuselage with no bump map and I was getting the specular and reflections displaying correctly, yet as soon as I apply the bump map in the Bump map field in GMax I get these mysterious polygons with missing effects.

I then decided to make a flat colour bump map with no raised or lowered areas just in case it was a rogue pixel or something, but alas, even with a flat bumpmap, the issue still occurs.

Has anyone else come across something similar when using the FSX exporter??

DB.

[IRIS - David Brice]

Well, I think I fixed the problem. At least I know what caused it. When I started applying the UV map on the aircraft, for some reason I decided to split the fuselage into 4 parts. It appears that the very splitting of these parts then welding back together caused this issue with the polygons near the weldpoint. I made sure to weld the vertices so I had figured it was all fine...at least until I put the bump map on! lol

Anyway, the problem was solved by deleting the polygons along the seam and recreating them poly by poly...not the best way, but after a couple of hours work, I have a nice smooth T-6A again...(I knew I liked multimaterials for a reason!) ;)

[IRIS - David Brice]

Okay, so I thought I had it solved....um...stupid me... lol.

It now seems that I can apply a material to the fuselage with no problem, even a material with bump maps, spec maps and diffuse maps...no problem at all... The dodgy polys appear as soon as I apply a UVMap to the fuselage to texture it... I still have no idea, so will continue to bang my head on the desk again!

[Orswell]

David, the image no longer works and your issue sounds very similar to mine.

I too have a chopped up fuselage, and I too am banging my head against the wall. I have a picture in post linked below. Another difference is that I'm using the Prepar3D created 3dsMax 2012 .x exporter ;)

Noticed this post was like 5 years ago and your aircraft are awesome so hopefully yes.

See my post:
http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=178337

[tgibson]

After welding everything together have you tried selecting all the polygons in the fuselage and pressing the AutoSmooth button?

[Orswell]

I haven't tried that yet, thanks for the suggestion.

[lionheart]

Also, if you are using multi materials, make sure all have the same amount of bump maps, specs, etc. One or two might be 'without' one of those in the mix, causing the irregularities.

I think Tom is on it, smoothing should do it.


Note that with mirrored sides and opposite sides of mirrored parts, the bump maps reverse. You can see this on stock FSX aircraft. A way around that is to reverse the grays and lights on a copy of the bump map(s) and use that on opposite side wings and things. On the fuselage though, you may have to suffer on one side, or have a multi material with a dual set of bump maps, one for all, and one for the opposite side.



Bill