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FSX/Blender Reflection Question

I

Ian P

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unitedkingdom
Hi folks.

I've created a few models in Blender and exported them to FSX using the toolkit now - it is greatly appreciated and thanks very much for your efforts, capt_x and those who have assisted in various ways.

The latest model I have created, however, appears to be getting mixed up between "grass" and "glass" - I have a large area of protective grass berms around some buildings, which are reflecting the sun when placed in the sim, although there's no reflection visible in ModelConverterX, or Blender's material preview.

The material settings I am currently using (I've played around quite a lot, trying to resolve this) are as follows:

Diffuse: Intensity 1.000
Specular: Intensity 0.000, Hardness 50
Shading: Emit 0.00, Ambient 1.000, Translucency 0.000
Transparency: nothing set
Mirror: nothing set
Subsurface Scattering: nothing set
Strand: nothing set
Options: Traceable, Use Mist, Pass Index 0
FSX Material settings are as default except: Reflection scale 0, Specular power scale 0, No Specular Bloom, Specular Bloom Floor 1.00, Ambient light scale 1.000, Enhanced only has No Base Material Specular ticked.

From that, can anyone see what's causing the grass polys to reflect the sun so brilliantly? The buildings don't, the concrete doesn't, but the grass does.

I'm not overly protective of my models, so if anyone wants me to zip it and the textures up and upload them so you can have a play, please let me know. I'm very confused right now!

Thanks.

Ian P.
 
Usually the objects in fsx have a very high reflection, by default I was seen this as a problem. mostly this have to do with the "specular". I applied almost black sepecular color to the objects to fight this issue.
 
Hello Ian,

I assume you have a specular texture applied as per the wiki manual. Check the tickmarks of all your textures (especially the diffuse one) in the "Influence" rollout of the texture tab in properties panel. If that doesn't help: what color is the specular texture in the area where the grass polygons are mapped? Mostly black or mostly white? black = no specular reflection, white = max specular reflection, alpha = "hardness" = size of the shiny spots.

Regards :)
 
Hello Gents,

Thanks for your thoughts. It gets odder, though, because two people are now telling me that they don't see the glow.

Originally, there was no spec map applied to the texture at all and I had turned off everything vaguely spec or reflection related that I could find. I've since tried both pure white and pure black spec maps and it has made no difference whatsoever - I still get as per the attached.

I've zipped up the blend file and its bitmaps here: http://www.ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk/ijpobjects/IncendiaryStore3054-36.zip

If someone could take a look and at least tell me whether you see specular shine or not, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm utterly baffled by this, now.

Cheers,

Ian P.
 

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Ian P said:
Hello Gents,

Thanks for your thoughts. It gets odder, though, because two people are now telling me that they don't see the glow.

Originally, there was no spec map applied to the texture at all and I had turned off everything vaguely spec or reflection related that I could find. I've since tried both pure white and pure black spec maps and it has made no difference whatsoever - I still get as per the attached.

I've zipped up the blend file and its bitmaps here: http://www.ianpsdarkcorner.co.uk/ijpobjects/IncendiaryStore3054-36.zip

If someone could take a look and at least tell me whether you see specular shine or not, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm utterly baffled by this, now.

Cheers,

Ian P.
Click to expand...

Hi Ian P!

I took a look at your Blender Project, the only thing that I could find that was wrong is that your .bmp file that you were using as your specular map was not being seen as having a alpha channel. (Also set your spec level on the texture to 0.0) I re-made your incendiarystore3054-36_grass_spec map and tested in Blender. Everything looks good in Blender. I also noticed that you did not have the FSX Material Params checked. This probable did not cause the issue but it needs to be checked for FSX.

Here is a link to your Blender Project:
http://www.kp-coolstuff.com/tmp/incendiarystore3054-36_krispy1001.zip

I did not check your project in FSX, but the new incendiarystore3054-36_grass_spec map should fix the problem.

If you still have problems please let me know.

Thanks, Krispy1001:)
 
Last edited:
Consider to uncheck Allow Bloom in the Bloom section of the FSX Material Params. I believe that it is pure Bloom what you're seeing.
 
capt_x said:
Second that. Looks like Bloom.
Click to expand...

That explains why some don't see the glow. Actually you can switch Bloom on or off in the FSX graphics settings. (Now we're talking about that, I haven't been very consequent with Bloom on my D.21's materials since I switched it off in FSX. Advice: keep it on during development, so you can tackle it when needed, like now)
 
Dutcheeseblend said:
That explains why some don't see the glow. Actually you can switch Bloom on or off in the FSX graphics settings. (Now we're talking about that, I haven't been very consequent with Bloom on my D.21's materials since I switched it off in FSX. Advice: keep it on during development, so you can tackle it when needed, like now)
Click to expand...

Hi Mr. Daan!

How are you today?

In Ian P's Blender File he had "No specular bloom" checked in the Bloom section of FSX Material Params. But He did not check the FSX Material Params check box. So that could be the problem. But in his Blender file, if you look at his material in the material Preview window you can see a very large Specular bloom on the texture. The first thing that I did was look at his spec. texture. I could get rid of the specular bloom by setting the specular setting of the texture to 0.0 . and that fixed the problem. I also looked at his texture and the texture that he was using for specular did not have an alpha channel. So I made a new specular texture applied an alpha channel to it and changed the format to an 8bit indexed bmp.

So now he can change the amount of specular desired by changing the texture's specular intensity.

Kris:)
 
Hi folks. Thanks very much for your help.

The answer, in this instance, was simply that I hadn't ticked the "FSX Material" tick boxes, as Kris suggested.

Because the grass isn't really supposed to have any form of reflection, specular or otherwise, I was trying to make it completely flat. With the tick boxes actually ticked to make the settings I had selected actually be read, it doesn't matter whether there's an alpha there or not - the material is now completely matte and non-reflective.

I do still need to play with the spec maps for the buildings, because the glass and steelwork will need at least some reflection, so this is all very useful discussion for that and I'll post some results as soon as I have something to show. However, the grass is now not glowing yellow every time I fly past. I knew I was missing something incredibly obvious... I just hadn't realised it was that obvious. :oops: :banghead:

Thanks again.

Ian P.
 
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