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How to create transperancy for blended Gmax ground poly's.

M

M_Dutchman

Messages
38
Country
netherlands
Hello,

I've already searched this forum for this question but I still have some remaining. I'd like to create the smooth transition like Hans has posted somewhere in the forum.

Here's the image by Hans which shows what I mean:
Blend_ESSX.jpg


Ok here the questions:

Do you need to have a base texture (no alpha) and a alpha-texture and if an extra with-alpha texture is needed, do you need to put an extension behind it like with the reflective textures (..._T)?

In GMax, when you create a new material, which textures do you have to add where (ambient, diffuse, specular)?

The way I'm building my scenery I need to have small lines of asphalt/concrete on one texture (say for example 512x20px) which I will lay next to the taxiway shoulders to make the edges less sharp. Is this possible when you make the alpha channel correct (so for each line a new white-black transition)?

Well, that was it for now!

Thanks a lot in advance,
Best regards :wave:
Maarten Janssen
 
Hi Maarten,

M_Dutchman said:
Do you need to have a base texture (no alpha) and a alpha-texture and if an extra with-alpha texture is needed, do you need to put an extension behind it like with the reflective textures (..._T)?
Click to expand...

No, alpha textures don't have special names in general. You can actually add an alpha channel to almost any texture. The easiest way to do this is from the program you use to design the texture with.

M_Dutchman said:
In GMax, when you create a new material, which textures do you have to add where (ambient, diffuse, specular)?
Click to expand...

As no special texture is used for the alpha, you can add it like any other texture. No special place or so (these special places are reserved for the night textures for example).

M_Dutchman said:
The way I'm building my scenery I need to have small lines of asphalt/concrete on one texture (say for example 512x20px) which I will lay next to the taxiway shoulders to make the edges less sharp. Is this possible when you make the alpha channel correct (so for each line a new white-black transition)?
Click to expand...

Yes, that should work if you map the texture correctly in GMax. But in corners this could become a bit tricky.
 
Hi Arno,

Thanks a lot for the reply, I'll try it out and let now if it works!

Thanks again and best regards,
Maarten
 
Ok, the transperency works now perfectly on a box. But the strange thing is it isn't working at all at a plane.

I've just created a plane, 0 meters height, converted it to "editable poly", selected the polygon of the plane, applied the material (which's texture is named zbias_4_transparant), "uvw mapped" and "uvw unwrapped" it and I had deleted those modifiers after that using "collapse to".

When exported it to FS, I see the box nicely with transparant textures but the plane is flickering and has a grey color (so no texture). I have to say I didn't tweak the ASM's at this moment, but I know of the other planes I created with Zbias_._ prefix that isn't necessary always.

Hopefully someone knows a solution,
Thanks a lot in advance,
Maarten
 
Hmm strange problem. Could you post your asm files here for that plane? It looks like a gmax material problem to me, as the poly flickers and stays grey. Or the bitmap is not in the right format (DXT or 32 bit).

Thomas
 
Thomas said:
Hmm strange problem. Could you post your asm files here for that plane? It looks like a gmax material problem to me, as the poly flickers and stays grey. Or the bitmap is not in the right format (DXT or 32 bit).

Thomas
Click to expand...

The material should not be the problem because it shows well on the box (it's in the same scene) but ofcourse I can be wrong. Here the ASM source, it's just two planes and a box:

Transparant.ASM

Transparant_0.asm

Hopefully you can find any uncommon things, and please note I'm using the FS2004 gamepack and MDLcommander for the export. BTW, I also have this problem with my ground model. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Very strange...

Also another quick question. I just got the FS2002 CD's from a friend, the only thing I'll need will be the FS2002 MakeMDL.exe + FSModelExp.DLE (for FS2002) and the FS2002 bglcomp, is this correct? And if it is, I've added the makemdl.cfg with the lines to keep the ASM's, but where are these stored? I don't see them in my export folder...

Thanks a lot in advance!
Maarten

BTW, Thomas your Brussels scenery looks fantastic, keep up the good work :)

EDIT: After a lot of troubleshooting I made some progress. It seems I have too many objects in one scene (the real one for the ground scenery). After attaching a lot of objects together it seems the polygons don't stay grey and have their texture properly... But I'll test some more, because the strange thing is that on the transperency test there are only 3 objects, but maybe it will help to attach the two planes to the box.
 
Last edited:
Hi Maarten,

In the source you posted here, the texture is just not applied to the plane. So that is why it is showing grey. Must be a fault of MakeMDL, if they should both textured in GMax.

How did you make your planes? From the source it seems you have two boxes in there. It might be more efficient to start with a plane in the first place (or to make sure all not needed points are really gone).
 
arno said:
Hi Maarten,

In the source you posted here, the texture is just not applied to the plane. So that is why it is showing grey. Must be a fault of MakeMDL, if they should both textured in GMax.

How did you make your planes? From the source it seems you have two boxes in there. It might be more efficient to start with a plane in the first place (or to make sure all not needed points are really gone).
Click to expand...

Hi Arno,

I have created 2 planes (really created as planes via the creation toolbar in Gmax) and a box. In Gmax all textures show well and applied. The strange thing is when I have them as three seperated objects the two planes flicker and the box is okay. When I attach the two planes to the box and then export nothing flickers anymore! :confused:

So I think it's a fault of MakeMDL indeed. Maybe it isn't that good in handling different objects in one scene or so..

Thanks for the help so far and can you take a look on my question about the FS2002 SDK too?

Thanks a lot,

Maarten
 
Hi Maarten,

M_Dutchman said:
I have created 2 planes (really created as planes via the creation toolbar in Gmax) and a box. In Gmax all textures show well and applied. The strange thing is when I have them as three seperated objects the two planes flicker and the box is okay. When I attach the two planes to the box and then export nothing flickers anymore! :confused:

So I think it's a fault of MakeMDL indeed. Maybe it isn't that good in handling different objects in one scene or so..
Click to expand...

No, that does not matter. The type of object you use is only to start with. After that it sees everything as polygons.

When you say it is flicking, do you mean in FS? That is very normal for ground polygons. As a box is normally not on ground level, it does not flicker.

M_Dutchman said:
Thanks for the help so far and can you take a look on my question about the FS2002 SDK too?
Click to expand...

You only need the dle file. For the MakeMDL you need to download the lastest version from MS (in the Fs2002 MakeMDL SDK). There is no BGLComp for Fs2002.
 
Hi Arno,

Thanks for the reply! About the objects. I mean you first create for example an box, and after that you create a plane. Gmax indicates that as two different objects (automatically named Box01 and Plane01). With the flickering I mean FS indeed. I have named the materials zbias_4_.... so that problem should be fixed then. But the strange thing is the planes flickered until I attached both planes to the box, then the flickering was over!

About FS2002, thanks, will do that. Then I should be able to tweak the ASM's
the 2002 way. I'm experiencing some problems with the 2004 way, under certain angles the polygons still flicker unless the zbias prefix and killshadow tweak + texture ground...

Thanks a lot,
Maarten
 
Hi Maarten,

Yes, have a look on other topics here. There are quite some trouble with making ground polygons with the zbias prefix only. The Fs2002 approach is much better if you ask me.
 
Hi Maarten.

Arno is right. Please use the FS2002 code if possible. Groundplanes just don't work right with FS9 code.

Dick
 
Ok I will try to get it working. I've already seen the dozens of topics about that problem :scratchch ...

Thanks again!
Maarten

EDIT: Already encountered another problem :banghead: . I export my ground scenery using the FS2002 export module + FS2002 MakeMDL (latest Microsoft version)
and the manually created .cfg file with this code: :stirthepo

[Options]
keep=1
crash=0
debug=1

I export is as an MDL file, I get no errors, but when taking a look in the ASM file (which is created well) it seems it has been exported as an aircraft! This is confirmed when you can quickly see the Makemdl progress menu when exporting in Gmax the export type is indicated as aircraft. And also in the source it really seems to be exported as an aircraft. That caused that I can't find the the lines I need to modify... :(

Any ideas left? I really hope so...

Thanks a lot in advance, :)
Maarten
 
Last edited:
Hi Maarten,

That is correct. For Fs2002 you need to export as a BGL file. In Fs2002 MDL objects are only used for aircraft.
 
Hi Arno,

Thanks, it works now, but I've already encountered a new problem. Please see my new post (created new one to keep it easy to search, is that okay?).

Thanks!
Maarten
 
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