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Does anyone have a tutorial on creating night textures?
- Thread starter CaptCargo
- Start date
- Messages
- 26
Hey there Capt Cargo,
Night textures are nothing but a bunch of fun, but I have never sat down and made a tutorial on how to do it....
I work with PSP 7 and 8 and would be more than glad to get you started on some of the tricks to the game. Believe me, it is more fun than difficult.
Here is a little sample.
http://home.comcast.net/~alpics/missionpics/Still.jpg
The 'bank' lighting and the reflection of the neon from the 'Frame King' shop took a couple minutes but are well worth the effort.
Drop me a line on e-mail and I would be glad to assist.
Al
alheline@comcast.net
Night textures are nothing but a bunch of fun, but I have never sat down and made a tutorial on how to do it....
I work with PSP 7 and 8 and would be more than glad to get you started on some of the tricks to the game. Believe me, it is more fun than difficult.
Here is a little sample.
http://home.comcast.net/~alpics/missionpics/Still.jpg
The 'bank' lighting and the reflection of the neon from the 'Frame King' shop took a couple minutes but are well worth the effort.
Drop me a line on e-mail and I would be glad to assist.
Al
alheline@comcast.net
- Messages
- 366
- Country
I struggle with night textures as well. For the longest time I've been using the "_L" mask to make things look right but now I've been trying to use the "_LM" textures and my night textures look oddly splotchy and miscolored. Even when creating "_LM" textures with a transparency mask there are ill-effects. I want to use the "proper" format but if this keeps up I'll not have any hair in my head by the time I'm 40!!!
I use CorelDraw7 and for night textures I create a layer of black and set the transparency for 80-85%. If I want a lighting effect I use the appropriate effect tool and apply it right on the mask. I save it to a TGA and use ImageTool to format the image to DXT1. Everything looks GREAT until in FS!?!?. What am I doing wrong?
I have tried DXTBmp but it confuses me more than helps as there are so many options and the terminology is different. I've tried PhotoShop 4 (burned for me) and get frustrated trying to find similar effects and tools I use in CorelDraw. Am I hopelessly doomed using CorelDraw and ImageTool? Or do I need to save my pennies and buy PhotoShop and use DXTBmp?
I use CorelDraw7 and for night textures I create a layer of black and set the transparency for 80-85%. If I want a lighting effect I use the appropriate effect tool and apply it right on the mask. I save it to a TGA and use ImageTool to format the image to DXT1. Everything looks GREAT until in FS!?!?. What am I doing wrong?
I have tried DXTBmp but it confuses me more than helps as there are so many options and the terminology is different. I've tried PhotoShop 4 (burned for me) and get frustrated trying to find similar effects and tools I use in CorelDraw. Am I hopelessly doomed using CorelDraw and ImageTool? Or do I need to save my pennies and buy PhotoShop and use DXTBmp?
I don't understand why you save as TGA. It seems that you are applying a mask to your image simply to create a night texture. Once you have created the texture, your mask can be discarded. I normally only use TGA when I need to preserve the mask for use in the simulator. If you are including the mask in your texture then you will get strange effects.khaos_56k said:
- Messages
- 26
Kahos
Some of the SDK's don't help on this matter either, I have seen mud that was much clearer. Since I work in GMAX I will refer to some of the info published for that program, one being "Using Materials in gmax" in the Flight Simulator 2002 SDK. There, when you decypher what is said, the _L (LightMap) suffix is actually for aircraft work. The _LM (NightMap) textures "are normally used for scenery objects, not for aircraft objects."
One would think that LM stands for LightMap, but not so.
There are limited times when you might want to use reflective qualities but I would think that they are few and far between. Typically though, there is no need to mess with the alpha channel to do routine night textures.
If it helps, I am over 60 and still have plenty, AND I have been doing scenery for a few years.....
How much of that has to do with me using Paint Shop Pro, I will not say. There are problems with every program out there; getting it to do what you want it to do is the challenge.
I have made up a tutorial for night textures and a couple guys are trying it right now. I will drop a note to Arno today about posting it. It is currently in Word Doc format, we may have to change that. The point is though; night textures are not that overly difficult.
Al
Some of the SDK's don't help on this matter either, I have seen mud that was much clearer. Since I work in GMAX I will refer to some of the info published for that program, one being "Using Materials in gmax" in the Flight Simulator 2002 SDK. There, when you decypher what is said, the _L (LightMap) suffix is actually for aircraft work. The _LM (NightMap) textures "are normally used for scenery objects, not for aircraft objects."
One would think that LM stands for LightMap, but not so.
There are limited times when you might want to use reflective qualities but I would think that they are few and far between. Typically though, there is no need to mess with the alpha channel to do routine night textures.
If it helps, I am over 60 and still have plenty, AND I have been doing scenery for a few years.....
How much of that has to do with me using Paint Shop Pro, I will not say. There are problems with every program out there; getting it to do what you want it to do is the challenge. I have made up a tutorial for night textures and a couple guys are trying it right now. I will drop a note to Arno today about posting it. It is currently in Word Doc format, we may have to change that. The point is though; night textures are not that overly difficult.
Al