MSFS20 Parallax with Blender - Help!

[Kiartz]

Hi guys!
I'm trying to create some windows with PARALLAX MATERIAL, it work fine on the simulator but it's really difficult to map!
I'm tryng with the default texture of Sample Material with numbered rooms.

Moving the face, the image don't correspond with texture!!
Someone know how fix it? Ther's another method to map it?
Thank you guys!

 

[Pyscen]

The Parallax map is more like a displacement map and it could be called a detail map. So it might need to be placed in the detail map for the albedo map. Have you placed it there yet?

 

[Kiartz]

The Parallax map is more like a displacement map and it could be called a detail map. So it might need to be placed in the detail map for the albedo map. Have you placed it there yet?

Hi Pyscen, Thanks for your repy!
No I have anly one map ,as in picture, probably is the albedo map!
How can I create a detail map? I must create a second UV?
Thnaks!

 

[Pyscen]

Did you have the setting within blender set accordingly such as: MSFS Parallax? From there if you look down from the list it will show this:

 

[Kiartz]

Yes, I've done this! So, the parallax texture work perfectly! but the shown imge is not correct

 

[Losco Nosciuto]

So, I digged through the Documentation and even tho I did put all my effort with it, I still can't get it right.
Here's what I got. If somebody has any clue other than this, please feel free to answer so we can set up a guide just right as it should be according to developers:

-Parallax parameters​

A parallax effect can be used to render fake interiors through a building window. It uses the second UV set (UV2) to tile the fake rooms.



This means the Parallax "interior" needs a Second UV.
To achieve this, all that must be done accordingly to the documentation is:
Click on the "Object Data" icon

, expand UVMaps Menu, click on the ADD button.
After this, we need to go in Shading tab (top tab list) with our Parallax object selected, and add another UV mapping channel to the "Behind Glass Albedo" node.

So, let's disconnect the original "Behind Glass Albedo" from the original UV channel, which was like this.

After disconnecting, press SHIFT+A, click search and write "UV".

Add a "UV MAP" node, and let's connect it to the Vector input of the Behind_Glass_Uv node

NOW - Setting up shader parameters.
------------------

Parallax scale​

A scalar multiplier applied to increase the depth of the fake rooms.

I left it at 0.80, as in the example found here on FSDeveloper

-----------------------

Room SizeX Scale​

A scalar multiplier applied to increase the horizontal size of the fake room, it is a multiplier for the UV2 used for the fake rooms.

Room SizeY Scale​

A scalar multiplier applied to increase the vertical size of the fake room, it is a multiplier for the UV2 used for the fake rooms.

I left it to 1, accordingly to the example.

-------------------------------------

Room number XY​

The number of rooms available on the texture.

Accordingly to the Documentation, using the same texture used by the example here on FSDeveloper, it should have been 16. In the example tho is 4. I tried both with no luck.

---------------------------

Corridor​

Use this to not render the left and right walls of the fake interiors. This will connect rooms together on the horizontal axis and, when observed from an angle, make them look like corridors.

Self explanatory
-------------------------------

Fresnel parameters​

These parameters are used by the FresnelFade material type.

Fresnel Factor​

Exponent factor for the opacity of the fresnel effect.

Fresnel Opacity Bias​

This value is subtracted from the previous fresnel opacity result. It’s there to enforce the transparency effect when the previous dot product is close to zero.

Seems like they're missing from Blender2MSFS. Any clue of new updates @Vitus ?




So, even tho I setted them accordingly, and I played with values for more than 3 hours, I still couldn't get a decent result. Interiors are flipped -90°CW (90 to the left), no matter how I define the first and second UV. things get really weird, and I suppose there is some work to be done on the plugin too, using the new documentation which has been added after 0.40, which is really a lot.


If anybody managed to make them work FULLY, let me know!

Thanks

 

[ZdenniZ]

I have spent a day trying to get a grasp of the parallax system using blender and also couldn't get it to work fully. The behaviour is very weird, I can't even put a UV to where I want, it ends up showing in a completely different area of the texture in the sim. Emissive texture also doesn't seem to work. I was told in 3DMax this process is a breeze, so apparently the plugin should be updated...

 

[ZdenniZ]

So I got 3ds Max and here's what I found about parallax being able to visualize the settings. If you have just one UV Map, you can move around only one texture tied to that UV Map channel. If you have your basecolor texture (with window frames) tied to the only UV Map you have, you will be able to move around the window frames only, while the rooms behind it will stay in place. If you add a 2nd UV Map and tie your rooms texture to that you are then able to move the rooms and the window frames independently from each other. But the most interesting part is that you just can't make it the way that the numbers you labeled your rooms with go in order one after another. There is a strange algorithm behind the parallax in MSFS that chooses the rooms seemingly in a completely random way. I can conclude that the only viable way to do parallax stuff in MSFS for now is 3DS Max because you can visualize what you are doing in real time. Until Blender has this feature, this is just not practical. Here's how it looks like in Max:

 

[Kiartz]

So I got 3ds Max and here's what I found about parallax being able to visualize the settings. If you have just one UV Map, you can move around only one texture tied to that UV Map channel. If you have your basecolor texture (with window frames) tied to the only UV Map you have, you will be able to move around the window frames only, while the rooms behind it will stay in place. If you add a 2nd UV Map and tie your rooms texture to that you are then able to move the rooms and the window frames independently from each other. But the most interesting part is that you just can't make it the way that the numbers you labeled your rooms with go in order one after another. There is a strange algorithm behind the parallax in MSFS that chooses the rooms seemingly in a completely random way. I can conclude that the only viable way to do parallax stuff in MSFS for now is 3DS Max because you can visualize what you are doing in real time. Until Blender has this feature, this is just not practical. Here's how it looks like in Max:

View attachment 67601
View attachment 67602

Thanks [mention]ZdenniZ [/mention] ! So I will learn 3ds Max and will try the parallax! We hope someone update the plug-in for blender!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[flightzoomer]

Interesting topic...

As 3ds Max is not an option for me, I had to dig deeper until I found this:

First I compared the gltf of the materials-sample with the output of the Blender plugin. Doing that I found the solution for this:

Emissive texture also doesn't seem to work.

What was missing in the blender export was this json node from the working sample:

"emissiveFactor": [
0.8,
0.8,
0.3
],

-> this node is located in the "materials"-node and then within the section for the parallax material.

Btw. the Blender export has the emissiveFactor too, but the factors are wrongly set to 0. So you are getting emmisive textures by changing the factors manually in a text editor.

I can conclude that the only viable way to do parallax stuff in MSFS for now is 3DS Max because you can visualize what you are doing in real time. Until Blender has this feature, this is just not practical.

To solve this I simply loaded the project in the sim and then changed the gltf File with notepad++. By changing this node and hitting ctrl+s I was able to get the changed visual appearance directly in the sim in no time:
"extensions" : {
"ASOBO_material_parallax_window" : {
"parallaxScale" : 10,
"roomSizeXScale" : 50,
"roomSizeYScale" : 10,
"roomNumberXY" : 1,
"corridor" : true,
"behindWindowMapTexture" : {
"index" : 6,
"texCoord" : 0
}
}
},

After the right value for the parameter were found, the parallax material in Blender can be adjusted accordingly. The only thing that needs to be remembered then is, that after any Blender export, the emissiveFactor needs to be overwritten as above with a text editor.

Btw. like Roman in this thread I also dont need a second uv map. The parameters above (and the corridor option) are sufficient to tweak the appearance of the interieur as wished.

 

[ZdenniZ]

Interesting topic...

Btw. the Blender export has the emissiveFactor too, but the factors are wrongly set to 0. So you are getting emmisive textures by changing the factors manually in a text editor.

To solve this I simply loaded the project in the sim and then changed the gltf File with notepad++.

Great finds! Your proposed way to change the gltf on the fly in notepad++ is a very interesting idea, but I'd guess it would work fast with a low poly count model only. If you have large textures assigned to a model with a decent poly count, redrawing in sim could take a very long time. On the other hand, nothing prevents you to export the windows object only and play with its settings. As for the emission factor, I believe it could be easily fixed in the exporter code, I'll see what could be done. It's a real shame that @Vitus gave up on updating the exporter though... And it's been over a month since he last was here, is everything ok with him? For those who don't know, FBW team is developing msfs2blender2msfs toolkit and judging by the overall FBW productivity, I'd hope that would become the ultimate tool for us Blender users. I was real serious to try to study 3ds Max, but gave up immediately. It has so sluggish and overloaded feel to it that I just couldn't stand.

 

[flightzoomer]

If you have large textures assigned to a model with a decent poly count

My terminal has a polycount of 40k. No idea whether that accounts as a decent size? Out of only three materialmaps, which the model has, one is the parallax material, which is assigned to 800 faces. When I increase a parameter, say roomSizeXScale and save the file, within a couple of seconds the model disappears in the sim and is reloaded showing the effect of the change.

As the meaning of these parameters was not intuitive to me, it was just trial and error increasing and decreasing ever only just one value to see the effect, that is created. That way I was able to narrow in to some reasonable settings whithin minutes.

After these values are defined and copied to the Blender model, the only place to edit manually in notepad++ is the emissiveFactor node. Addmitedly this has to be done after every export. But it is not dependent on the poly count.

B.t.w. maybe the LOD issue with the exporter could also be fixed by some manual gltf hack?

 

[Losco Nosciuto]

I never had to edit the GLTF manually to be able to use emissive. Emission is black by default in the Blender2MSFS plugin, just turn it to white and your emissive works and also has a realtime preview in blender. Just check the top part of the plugin, under the albedo color.

That said, today I'ma try the GLTF editing for parallax and see if it works

 

[sleepy_t]

Interesting topic...

As 3ds Max is not an option for me, I had to dig deeper until I found this:

First I compared the gltf of the materials-sample with the output of the Blender plugin. Doing that I found the solution for this:


What was missing in the blender export was this json node from the working sample:

"emissiveFactor": [
0.8,
0.8,
0.3
],

-> this node is located in the "materials"-node and then within the section for the parallax material.

Btw. the Blender export has the emissiveFactor too, but the factors are wrongly set to 0. So you are getting emmisive textures by changing the factors manually in a text editor.


To solve this I simply loaded the project in the sim and then changed the gltf File with notepad++. By changing this node and hitting ctrl+s I was able to get the changed visual appearance directly in the sim in no time:
"extensions" : {
"ASOBO_material_parallax_window" : {
"parallaxScale" : 10,
"roomSizeXScale" : 50,
"roomSizeYScale" : 10,
"roomNumberXY" : 1,
"corridor" : true,
"behindWindowMapTexture" : {
"index" : 6,
"texCoord" : 0
}
}
},

After the right value for the parameter were found, the parallax material in Blender can be adjusted accordingly. The only thing that needs to be remembered then is, that after any Blender export, the emissiveFactor needs to be overwritten as above with a text editor.

Btw. like Roman in this thread I also dont need a second uv map. The parameters above (and the corridor option) are sufficient to tweak the appearance of the interieur as wished.

Hey there!
I've tried this method, but still am running into crazy problems.
I am using the sample texture.
I get the strage effect, that "roomNumberXY" seems to do some scaling insteal. Isn't it I could use this number to select another image in the tileset? But when I set this to 2, it seems it is scaling it by 2. When setting it to 3, everything is so big, the parallax hardly noticable.
What am I doing wrong?
I just created a simple cube, width 2x the height, just like the images in the sample tileset. One face is set to Parallax material, I've set up the UV for the albedo image, and now I am playing around with the values for the behind window. It just won't work.