FS2004 Night lighting obsticle

[Aviasim]

This is for FS2004 and I am using 3ds Max 9

I am creating EDRJ scenery.

Since my aerial imagery is out of date, I have had to make my own fully textures ground textures/polys... it is hard to explain but basically, the texture on my ground polys has no alpha what so ever, and it is tiled many many times.

What I am kinda stuck on now is, realistic night lighting. Is there a way I can illuminate my ground in some places that are brighter than the other? for instance, bright under a light, and fade out darker further away from the light?

Again, this is for FS9 so I can not use Bill Leaming's great method for illumination.

Can I create a poly/plane where a light would be, set it to fully transparent in the day and partly transparent in dawn, dusk and night?

Has anyone else ran into this problem for FS9? did you solve it? how?

Regards

 

[Southwest]

My nightlighting for FS9 and FSX is all on the aerial image, which like you is tiled.

But I don't think this is what your after, otherwise i've found no other alternative.

 

[khaos_56k]

I work and fly 99.9% of the time in FS2004 but I'm in no way an expert...

In past works I've created day and night textures with shadows and splashes of "light" using masks during the texture creation and alphas for the transparency. It's tedious because YOU have to think of where the light source is coming from, where the shadows will be cast... etc... but done right it'll look awesome!

I created all of shading on the "base texture", then created layers and masks with feathered edges to filter the "lighting" as either overlay, burn or multiply. There's no hard, fast, sure way to do it as far as I'm concerned. Much like art, you'll have to play with the masking to get the right look.





That's my experience...

 

[Aviasim]

I work and fly 99.9% of the time in FS2004 but I'm in no way an expert...

In past works I've created day and night textures with shadows and splashes of "light" using masks during the texture creation and alphas for the transparency. It's tedious because YOU have to think of where the light source is coming from, where the shadows will be cast... etc... but done right it'll look awesome!

I created all of shading on the "base texture", then created layers and masks with feathered edges to filter the "lighting" as either overlay, burn or multiply. There's no hard, fast, sure way to do it as far as I'm concerned. Much like art, you'll have to play with the masking to get the right look.





That's my experience...

Thanks Khaos,

So I just create a plane with a light color that only displays at night then?

 

[khaos_56k]

...So I just create a plane with a light color that only displays at night then?

Hoping not to confuse you and assuming you already know the techniques for creating a ground plane in FS9 using the FS8 SDKs...

I create a single plane, no matter how many faces it has, that is the "ground". I apply both a Diffuse (day) bitmap and an Ambient (night) bitmap to it in Gmax. Each of these two textures are completely created and edited by hand through your favorite image editing program. For me it's been Corel Paint Shop, which is what I've used for years and am accustom to.

Prior to applying the Ambient bitmap (in Gmax) I'll edit the Diffuse bitmap by applying an overall layer of solid black at 80-85% transparency. Anywhere I want a "light" I'll create the shape of the "illuminated" area, feather the edges and "delete" that area from the solid black layer. Now if I want that area to have a specific color I then fill in the area I just deleted with a transparency of the color desired. Choosing a filtering is entirely up to you and what kind of effect you are looking for: overlay, multiply, burn... etc...

Then I compile the bitmaps with the alpha (black=transparent & white=opaque) in DXTbmp to feather the edges of the "ground" so it blends with the terrain already in FS.

It's important that you name the files accordingly so FS knows what to do with it. Ambient bitmaps must end in "_LM.bmp" so for every ground poly you chose to have a "night" texture for you will have to have two bitmaps: yourtexture.bmp and yourtexture_lm.bmp.

EXAMPLES / STEPS (A very simplified explanation):
"Step #1" - Create a Diffuse (daytime) texture to be applied in Gmax:
"Step #2" - Night mask overlaying texture at 80% transparency as a "multiply" filter:
This is created and applied to the Diffuse texture in your image editing program.
"Step #3" - Coloring and further filtering layer over top of "night mask" at 100% as an "overlay" filter:
This is created and applied to the "night mask" to create a yellowish hue.
"Step #4" - The steps above create the Ambient (night time) texture applied in Gmax:
Everything combined together...

This is basically the exact same way I treat my ground textures.