• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

P3D5.3 PBR Texture Requirements

light_blue_yonder

light_blue_yonder

Messages
7
Country
canada
Hello all,

I'm pretty new to scenery development for P3D, and I'm kind of jumping in the deep end with PBR.

I've made my 3D model in SketchUp, which went as planned. I decided to create my own corrugated metal wall texture in Quixel Mixer, and exported the albedo, metallic [metalness(R), AO(G), 0(B), Gloss(A)], and normal maps. SketchUp only allows texture mapping for the albedo texture, so I added the normal and metallic maps in ModelConverterX. However, both in ModelConverterX and in P3D5.3, the texture looks like a 2D image with no visual depth one would expect from a model rendered with normal/metallic maps. As someone who's only texturing experience comes from Blender, this was a bit unexpected. I looked at some of the payware sceneries I own, and they do appear similar.

Can I just confirm that the PBR material shading is visually very different? I know that screenshots will be helpful, but I'm currently away from my main PC, and I will add screenshots as soon as I get back. For now, the two attached screenshots compares what I expected (i.e. Quixel's visual on the left), versus what I see in P3D (screenshot at 12:00 noon in-sim time). Thanks in advance to everyone!



Solution update:

I haven't solved the problem specifically with P3D, but doing a similar workflow in MSFS found the culprit.

I was expecting the normal map to provide the elevation map for color contrast as well, but the sims are not dedicated render softwares. The albedo texture must include the color difference expected from a panel with different heights, and the normal map provides the "3D" graphics when viewed at an angle only.

In other words, there is nothing wrong with the textures nor the way the sim was rendering it. It was my fundamentally wrong expectations. Using the currently available guides for PBR texturing is perfectly fine.
 

Attachments

  • GreenWall2D.png
    GreenWall2D.png
    694.8 KB · Views: 90
  • InSim.png
    InSim.png
    1.5 MB · Views: 101
Last edited:
Pyscen

Pyscen

Resource contributor
Messages
2,994
Country
us-texas
It looks like that the normal map wasn't done correctly. The normal map needs to be inverted in the Y-axis or better known as the DIRECTX fashion. Most applications create normal maps in OpenGL fashion.

Can you go into more detail on how the normal map was created? Through Quixel, you should be able to notify that it needs to be in DirectX mode in creating normal maps.
 
light_blue_yonder

light_blue_yonder

Messages
7
Country
canada
I have tried to invert the normal map to the Direct X way, but the problem is that everything appears flat despite the normal. I think the problem is that the height information is stored in the displacement map (as it should be), but P3D does not have a displacement map assignment. Do I need to just merge the normal map (purple-pink thing) and the displacement map (grayscale thing) together?
 
Pyscen

Pyscen

Resource contributor
Messages
2,994
Country
us-texas
The displacement map, as you know isn't needed, and I don't see that merging it would make a difference.

From Quixel, are you sure that you are creating a normal map? and that it is set up for DirectX mode? How and what is Quixel saving the normal map?
 
light_blue_yonder

light_blue_yonder

Messages
7
Country
canada
Solution update:

I haven't solved the problem specifically with P3D, but doing a similar workflow in MSFS found the culprit.

I was expecting the normal map to provide the elevation map for color contrast as well, but the sims are not dedicated render softwares. The albedo texture must include the color difference expected from a panel with different heights, and the normal map provides the "3D" graphics when viewed at an angle only.

In other words, there is nothing wrong with the textures nor the way the sim was rendering it. It was my fundamentally wrong expectations. Using the currently available guides for PBR texturing is perfectly fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top