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MSFS20 Glass blending with Trees (SOLVED)

Norvin

Norvin

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unitedkingdom
Hello,
I tried to find out how the drawcall system works for different Material types for MSFS. I got stuck at one issue. I have a tree that’s using a standard material with blend mode selected and a building behind it using a glass material. As you can see in the picture, the Glass will always be rendered on top. Changing the the draw call order for the standard material doesn’t affect it. Is there a way to render the tree first?
Regards,
Norvin
43EB4D51-2216-4AD5-9A6F-25A7FAF5269B.jpeg
 
Does the draw order even work in MSFS? I've had no real success with it.

The only thing I have found that works with any consistency is the origin point of the model/part. The origin point appears to be the main determining factor with objects closer to the viewer being drawn last. If you want glass to draw over another part then the origin point of that glass needs to be closer to the viewer than the origin point of the other part.

For glass panels like this I'd try separating each panel into a separate part of the overall model. Centre the origin of each panel to the panel and see what happens. You could even try adding the tree model to your building and making it part of the model (still as a separate part though). This might help with draw order too.
 
I‘ve got some news about this topic.
Drawcalls do work for glass materials. If there are 2 glass materials in front of each other, they will both be rendered on top of each other. To fix this, you can use draw calls to define what is rendered first depending on your scene position.
@Anthony31, I also tried your positions but that didn’t work unfortunately.
Another idea I had was using a glass material for the tree. However, glass materials don’t have an alpha channel slot like the standard materials. There is a slot called “blend mask”, but still there is no alpha channel showing in the sim…
 
Finally got it working!
For trees and vegetation using alpha channels, try FakeTerrain Material with Mask mode enabled;)
1637280152618.png
 
When you say mask mode enabled what do you mean? In blender I don't see any option for alpha blending when using the the fake terrain material.

Screenshot (400).png
Screenshot (402).png
 
In 3Ds Max, I "pre-select" mask alpha mode in the Standard material type and then change the Type to FakeTerrain.
1637322684597.png


When FakeTerrain is selected, the Alpha Mode tab is unavailable, but it is shows up transparent in the viewport.
1637322717774.png


I think it should work without doing the extra step.
 
okay thanks! it seems its not possible in blender, masked mode on in the standard material and when you select fake terrain the alpha goes opaque
 
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