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Prepar3D v4.4 PBR materials

dgpilot1

dgpilot1

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86
Hi Arno. Thanks for your latest release supporting PBR, very useful!
I'm having a little trouble with the Ground poly wizard with the latest release. When selecting the export as P3Dv4.4... and whether I have a PBR material included or not.. everything in that export flickers like mad. I've tried with and without the PBR material, and I've also tried positive and negative z-bias numbers.
Any tips appreciated.
 
R

Roland81

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dgpilot1 said:
Hi Arno. Thanks for your latest release supporting PBR, very useful!
I'm having a little trouble with the Ground poly wizard with the latest release. When selecting the export as P3Dv4.4... and whether I have a PBR material included or not.. everything in that export flickers like mad. I've tried with and without the PBR material, and I've also tried positive and negative z-bias numbers.
Any tips appreciated.
Click to expand...

I second this, I am also having this issue, I thought I did not but having it also.
 
arno

arno

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Hi,

I have found out that for non PBR materials the zbias values seems not to be written correctly by the v4.4 XtoMDL. So if you don't use PBR materials better use the v4 option to export.

For the PBR materials you need to use positive layer values if I read the SDK correctly. I see they are stored correctly in the MDL file.
 
Rustam46

Rustam46

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Roland81 said:
I second this, I am also having this issue, I thought I did not but having it also.
Click to expand...
dgpilot1 said:
Hi Arno. Thanks for your latest release supporting PBR, very useful!
I'm having a little trouble with the Ground poly wizard with the latest release. When selecting the export as P3Dv4.4... and whether I have a PBR material included or not.. everything in that export flickers like mad. I've tried with and without the PBR material, and I've also tried positive and negative z-bias numbers.
Any tips appreciated.
Click to expand...

I understand that you have a similar problem? https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/t...ay-on-the-runway-partially-disappears.444349/
I created a topic about this, but so far no answer on this issue.
 
R

Roland81

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The problem also happens with 'convert and place wizard' it appears some materials are altered (most of them non-pbr) when exporting.
So yes probably something in the x-tomdl format of the 4.4
 
arno

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Which attributes do you think are missing?
 
DaveWG

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england
Hi Arno,
I've encountered a problem when exporting a model with MCX that has both PBR and non-PBR materials. Any non-PBR materials seem to get exported with the wrong material settings.
My original source model was modified in 3DS Max, with the fuselage and wings given PBR materials, with the other parts still having standard P3d materials. Exported from Max, and compiled directly using the 4.4 SDK. Works fine in sim and if I load the mdl into MCX the materials are defined correctly. If I then export from MCX, (export set as 4.4 mdl), then re-import into MCX the non-PBR materials have changed.
Here's a screenshot of the MCX material editor showing both the original model on the right, and the model after being exported with MCX on the left.

PBRSettings.jpg
 
arno

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Would you happen to have the X file that Max made as well? That might help me to find where the difference is.
 
arno

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Thanks, I'll try to do some debugging tonight as well. Probably something changed in the way the X file should be written.
 
DaveWG

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Here's the .x file from a slightly simplified version as the original was around 22mb.

Hope that helps.
 

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  • MixedPBR.zip
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arno

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Hi,

I have found the problem. It was a bug in my code in the end. Now all material settings seem to work correctly again. I'll push a new development release later this evening.
 
A

aekki

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finland
Hi. Ive been fiddling around with the GPW and the new pbr possibilities however, I cant seem to get MCX to work with transparent GP layers, it compiles fine but is not visible in the simulator, this is with the render mode translucent, with the mode set to anything else the texture shows up but ofc is not transparent nor translucent, any suggestions? Am I just doing something wrong here?
 
Horst18519

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I'm also wondering if the GPW can manage PBR materials. If I'm not mistaken it should (theoretically) be possible to open a file in the wizard, change material settings (in the Material Editor) to make a material PBR) and then compile it as P3Dv4.4? That does not seem to work yet, I think because the positive z-bias value is stored as a negative number when compiled.
Also the wizard currently cannot save (PBR) material settings to mgp files so you can't save your progress.
 
arno

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Hi,

If you load a MDL file that has PBR materials I think it should work in the GPW. As you describe changing them after loading should also work.

You should see that the ZBias value becomes positive again. If it is saved as negative the GPW didn't see there was a PBR material in the object.

The MGP file only stores the name of the material and the layer number. So that is not changed by PBR materials.
 
Horst18519

Horst18519

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Does that mean for P3Dv4.4 you just use a "normal" mdl for the ground and have to apply layers manually?
Is there any way of preventing flickering textures if they all have the same altitude?

In the material editor you can use templates to easily edit materials. Is it possible to create a custom template for PBR materials?
 
Last edited:
arno

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Hi,

Not sure if I understand what you mean.

The GPW can be used to set the layers and it will slice the polygons as needed. But the PBR material settings can best be set in the input mdl file already.

The output bgl does use mdl files for the polygons, but they are sliced and curved.
 
Horst18519

Horst18519

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Ok, so you import the X file into MCX and save it as an P3Dv4.4 mdl with PBR textures, then use the wizard to process it into a bgl?
 
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