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MSFS20 Blender - FS2020 Glass again again ....

C

chansen

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44
Country
denmark
Still can't get my head around makin proper reflective glass in Blender. Normal see trough is okay but glass like the standard one used in FS2020 like this picture
I can't figure out to make in Blender. Anyone having a recipe to this ?

FS2020 Std Glass.png


Thanks
Claus
 

Attachments

I had to separate out the glass as a separate object
I had to solidify the main structure so looking into it was not transparent.
I had to set the glass material blue color and make alpha 0.07 - So you could see thru the glass.

Sorry this is a blend file using ASOBO's exporter and Blender 3.3



DA40CGDFQ_2024.02.12_19h32m6s.png




DA40CGDFQ_2024.02.12_19h32m41s.png

DA40CGDFQ_2024.02.12_19h35m16s.png
 

Attachments

Why would you have to separate the glass? I do not think it is necessary. Just make a material for the window faces. Set MSFS Standard type. Blend mode to Alpha blend. Tick Backface Culling and Show Backface. Base color to black (or some dark color blue, green if it should be tinted glass). Set Metallic value to 0.300 and Roughness to 0.03 for proper reflectivity. Play around with the Alpha value - 0.100 might be a suitable value. More roughness or higher Alpha gives a dirtier look to the windows.
 
WildLynxPilot said:
Why would you have to separate the glass?
Click to expand...
I have found that the Babylon exporter does not like multiple textures for a single node so in a case like a large building, or lets say a pilot mesh that was derived from combining separate helmet, figure, face and hand textures into one, resolution becomes a consideration. That said, the sim will support monstrous texture dimensions, so options remain. Aside from your otherwise excellent advice, I'd bump that glass metallic to .65, higher for anything mirrored. 👍
 
WildLynxPilot said:
Why would you have to separate the glass? I do not think it is necessary. Just make a material for the window faces. Set MSFS Standard type. Blend mode to Alpha blend. Tick Backface Culling and Show Backface. Base color to black (or some dark color blue, green if it should be tinted glass). Set Metallic value to 0.300 and Roughness to 0.03 for proper reflectivity. Play around with the Alpha value - 0.100 might be a suitable value. More roughness or higher Alpha gives a dirtier look to the windows.
Click to expand...
As WildLynxPilot writes, make a non-textured material and assign that to selected faces in Edit mode. Should work fine from Blender.
 
WildLynxPilot said:
Why would you have to separate the glass? I do not think it is necessary. Just make a material for the window faces. Set MSFS Standard type. Blend mode to Alpha blend. Tick Backface Culling and Show Backface. Base color to black (or some dark color blue, green if it should be tinted glass). Set Metallic value to 0.300 and Roughness to 0.03 for proper reflectivity. Play around with the Alpha value - 0.100 might be a suitable value. More roughness or higher Alpha gives a dirtier look to the windows.
Click to expand...
Don't have too as many pointed out. But thought it was easier to follow.

DA40CGDFQ_2024.02.13_17h15m33s.png
 
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The MSFS Glass material is primarily used for aircraft or other SimObjects, as is Windshield material. Most of the SDK is geared towards aircraft creation regarding objects. It's probably best to stick to untextured Standard material for glass in scenery objects... unless you're using parallax.
 
Okay guys, I have been playing around with everything in Blender 3.6 related to "Alpha Channel" and no matter which combination I try, I do NOT get transparent glass with reflection. Only completely clear or complete reflection. The only think that seems to make a difference is the backface culling--it acts like a toggle switch for glass on/off. If someone could please clarify which one of these 5 things related to "Alpha Channel" you are referring to when you say ALPHA CHANNEL? Thank you!
ALPHA CHANNEL.jpg
 
Here's a simple textureless Standard material that mimics glass:

GlassSetup_1.png


Set Alpha and Color.png


Control the strength of the color tint with the alpha slider.

MSFS Material.png


MSFS General Parameters.png
 

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I copied your settings exactly and my remaining challenge is the glass color. With mine set to black (I've also tried dark blue), it shows up like this in the sim:
1717770061307.png

Guess I'll try adding a texture file to it and see what that does...
 
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I would just adjust the metallic and roughness, as well as the alpha to get what you want. It shouldn't need a texture.
 
You're right, the texture isn't doing anything anyway. The closest I've been able to work out is to increase the roughness to increase darkness, otherwise it's just like above, a mirror. The only downside is one loses the glossy reflectiveness.

1717778095798.png


It would just be really nice to have it be reflective and glossy at the same time, as in real life however, I think with FS20, I have to settle for either matt+transparent or glossy+opaque. I'm thinking I favor the glossy, but I'll have to experiment to figure that out.

1717778231065.png
 
ViolinPilot said:
Okay guys, I have been playing around with everything in Blender 3.6 related to "Alpha Channel" and no matter which combination I try, I do NOT get transparent glass with reflection. Only completely clear or complete reflection. The only think that seems to make a difference is the backface culling--it acts like a toggle switch for glass on/off. If someone could please clarify which one of these 5 things related to "Alpha Channel" you are referring to when you say ALPHA CHANNEL? Thank you!
Click to expand...

Do not touch the shader nodes, as Ron said above. The settings in your pic would require a proper, complete PBR texture set. Forget it and set only the MSFS parameters (numbers as in your picture) as follows:
Standard material.
1) No need to touch this, no need to adjust Alpha here.
2) Disconnect and set to 0.1-0.4 depending on how translucent glass you want. This is where you set the opacity.
3) Alpha Blend.
4) Set suitable color, no need to adjust Alpha here.
5) Blend

And additionally to make the glass properly reflective:
- Disconnect Metallic Scale and set it to 0.3
- Disconnect Roughness and set it to 0.03

You disconnect the parameters from the nodes by clicking on them and selecting Disconnect from the popup menu.

This has worked fine for me for all translucent and reflective glass...
 
So do modify the Surface panel (in order to disconnect and set 0.3,0.03), just don't touch the shader nodes.

After following these steps precisely, I am seeing a slight blue reflective sheen to the top area (see attachment), but it's still not quite as reflective/glossy as I would like. For instance, aircraft lights do not reflect off them. I even tried cranking up the metallic to 5.00, nothing. I am curious to try a PBR texture but the trouble with that is, for glass, all I seem to find are standard non-PBR textures. yet to find one that is PBR.

If what I have is a close as I am able to get, then I am still grateful that you took the time to help get me here. Thank you, gents!
 

Attachments

  • SlightSheenWindows.png
    SlightSheenWindows.png
    3.5 MB · Views: 80
My suggestion to you is to reset the material to "glass" that means just reselecting the drop down in the MSFS material panel. (don't set to disable as that will loose all you settings for that material). That will rebuild the shader nodes and set things to correctly export - howeve there is a ASOBO bug that sets the alpha to 1 (I think). Next would be to make an adjustments in the MSFS Material parameters panel only just click on the base color and manipulate the alpha and color there. - set the roughness scale in the panel also - set the reflective glass parameters also if you like.

What you have to understand - there are possibly three programs that show you how your textures look. If you use SP -it looks one way, in Blender it looks a bit different and in the sim it looks a bit different.

The shader nodes in Blender are setup so that it represents as close as possible how your textures will look in the sim with all the other MSFS material gltf adjustments.

Here is an example of one issue. The Normal texture required in the sim are DirectX normals. However Blender uses OpenGL Normals - what's different? The green channel is flipped. So if you insert a Direct X texture into blender (without the MSFS shader nodes) it will be backwards. ie. dents are bumps and bumps are dents. How does ASOBO get arround this? They add a shader node that flips the green channell so blend shows it as expected to the user/developer.

If you would like to be bored to death I have tutorials on this. #3 describes the MSFS materials, but if you want more info on what PBR is start at 1

 
Thanks ronh. I'm aware of PBR as that's what I've been using for all my other surfaces. I have an idea in the works that I am trying out now, as I have already tried the MSFS material para for glass option.
 
I made a series of experiments with standard type material and glass type material. There seem to be no way at all to make a reflective material really mirror objects in front of it. It only reflects terrain and sky with clouds. If I select the MSFS Glass type as a starting point, then I can make it transparent and reflective using the settings I mentioned above. But it does not reflect aircraft lights at all. When I use the standard material as a start, then it will be reflective and transparent with the settings I mentioned above, and it will reflect aircrafts lights - but only when the aircraft is close enough so that the light cone touches the window surface!
 
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