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FSX Bare Metal Reflections when Converting from FS2004

tgibson

tgibson

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Hi all,

I have been working on converting FS2004 aircraft to FSX and have gotten as far as the materials and textures.

My question is how do you create material settings that mimic the bare metal reflection effect of FS2004? My current efforts have been pretty lame...

What I've done:

I originally get no reflections at all. In ModelConverterX the day texture is duplicated in the Specular Texture slot, and no Nightmap is present at all. I understand that, since in FS2004 the nightmap of aircraft is not specified in the MDL file. I don't know why the day texture is in the Specular slot.

So in the Material Editor I choose a material that should have reflections, the amount of reflection based on the darkness of the alpha channel of the diffuse texture.

I make these setting changes, based on some forum reading:

Ambient Color: 149, 149, 149
Diffuse Color: 149, 149, 149
Specular Color: 49, 49, 49

Blend environment by inverse diffuse alpha: True
Reflection Scale: 2 (much less than this and I can barely see it)
Specular Map Power Scale: 0
Use Global environment map as reflection: True (Arno, "global" is misspelled in this line).

Nightmap Texture: added to line
Specular Texture: day texture name removed from line (it didn't seem to make much difference either way).

When I do this, I get this effect - it is not smooth, but has lines in it (using the FS2004 MDL file and darkening the alpha channel does not have this lined effect):

fsx_dc6b_near_fsx.jpg


It also has turned my metal a bit green, compared to the FS9 starting point seen below (using the FS2004 MDL file and darkening the alpha channel has the same green effect):

fsx_dc6b_near_fs9.jpg


In addition, I see a ghosting of the white top in the reflection when viewed from a low angle (not present in FS2004, but it is present using the FS2004 MDL file in FSX). The forward fuselage has no reflections in comparison:

fsx_dc6b_far_fsx.jpg


I have four questions:

1. Are these settings correct? Are there more I need to change?
2. Are these visual problems because I have to raise the Reflection Scale higher than the typical 0.1 to 0.8 value? And if it has to stay in this range, does this mean I have to darken the alpha channel of the texture to see much effect at all?
3. Is there no way to get the effect that is present in FS2004 without repainting the alpha channel?
4. Can I avoid it turning green?
5. Is there a way to avoid the ghosting in the image above?

PS. I do know how to turn the props transparent, that much I've learned. :)

Thanks,
 
Last edited:
Have you tried using a basic bump map (normal map), you probably know how to create one but if not there's a tutorial in the wiki here.
 
tgibson said:
I have four questions:

1. Are these settings correct? Are there more I need to change?
2. Are these visual problems because I have to raise the Reflection Scale higher than the typical 0.1 to 0.8 value? And if it has to stay in this range, does this mean I have to darken the alpha channel of the texture to see much effect at all?
3. Is there no way to get the effect that is present in FS2004 without repainting the alpha channel?
4. Can I avoid it turning green?
5. Is there a way to avoid the ghosting in the image above?

PS. I do know how to turn the props transparent, that much I've learned. :)

Thanks,
Click to expand...


When I worked on the RF-61C Reporter, my starting point was here;

Sim Outhouse Conversion Process

It's a long thread but it contains a lot of useful information in terms of reflections and some metal effects.

For the Reporter I used Alphas to control the reflectivity, settings were much the same as yours but reflection scale was 0.8, Specular at 53. Feel free to download the Reporter and have a look at it in MCX to see the entire settings. Interestingly, the Black Widow used almost exactly the same settings for the glossy surface, with the textures changed and nothing else. Worked really well!
 
Put this together for you: taken from the RF-61C Reporter material settings for fuselage metal. Hope it helps! :)

1.jpg
 
I'm not sure I need a bump map, since I'm not trying to show 3D rivets or anything at this point - just trying to get a reasonable look. :)

Deano1973 thanks for the help. I have been following that thread and indeed that is where I got some of my settings in the first post. I see you are using fresnel ramp and specular textures. Where did you get those? I have no such files in my FSX using those filenames. I have no idea how to create them either. Also, I was hoping for an FSX aircraft that could use my original FS2004 textures directly, without adding such textures. I think I will have to live with no reflections in my FSX conversions for now. I can always change that later, based on user feedback. I'll activate it using your settings, but my FS2004 textures do not have a dark enough alpha channel to display any reflection.

Thanks,
 
Deano1973, a question. Do you know of any place to download the extra modeldef definitions used in your (and other) threads? I asked for them by email but that not a very suitable way to tell others to obtain them (I am writing a "beginners" tutorial for these conversions). If the answer is no, I'll just make my own versions. I have already created a few from scratch and now that I look at that modeldef file several ended up identical. Great minds think allke. :)

Thanks,
 
tgibson said:
Deano1973, a question. Do you know of any place to download the extra modeldef definitions used in your (and other) threads? I asked for them by email but that not a very suitable way to tell others to obtain them (I am writing a "beginners" tutorial for these conversions). If the answer is no, I'll just make my own versions. I have already created a few from scratch and now that I look at that modeldef file several ended up identical. Great minds think allke. :)

Thanks,
Click to expand...

I'm happy to send you my model.def xml by PM or something if you like, tons of bits and bobs added to it over the past year that you'll probably find useful!

Regarding specular and fresnel, they're both native FSX textures. Specular controls shine, Fresnel controls where that shine and reflection is visible by its angle / viewpoint. Think of a matt surface viewed from face-on, there's no reflections. However, look down along the surface and if it's smooth enough, you can see reflections. Fresnel recreates this effect and you can choose which way around the reflections are most visible - face on, or oblique. It also works with colour variations too, although mine are standard greyscale.

Finally, the alpha is quite easy to create for the purpose of your conversions. I would suggest taking the stock texture into an art package, adding a single layer coloured black, then set the opacity to 50%. This will create a dark alpha for your texture. Add and apply it with MCX and see what it looks like. Then you can pop back into the art package and tinker with it to get the effects that you'd like. A lot of this is "suck it and see" work as there are so many possible means and variations in what can be done with the different texture types.
 
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