• 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.

FSX Texture Confusion

K

klam

Messages
53
Country
malaysia
Hi Guys, I'm in the middle of completing my first scenery. I have a problem about specular maps/reflection on glass windows. I have searched on the forum but the answer I can get is already for the people who understand the basic of it. Can someone point out to me how to start when i want to use these effects? and Yes i know the basic of gmax and photoshop. Do I have to use Flightsimx materials in Gmax?

Thanks!
 
Shaun

Shaun

Messages
1,959
Country
unitedkingdom
Yeah FSX materials only. Specular is different from reflection. Specular is the "shine" of the material like metal. This can be set for the whole texture at the top of the material settings as a grey-scale, with white being very shiny, or a whole new texture.

Reflection is like glass, a moving image of a generic (or custom) cube map is overlaid.

I don't use extra specular/reflection textures; it's massively increasing the texture load.

For glass the solution is simple: make your windows half invisible by an alpha layer/layer mask which is applied to the texture.

Then in Material Settings:

"Blend Environment by Inverse of Diffuse Alpha"

and

"Use Global Environment Map as Reflection"

Set "Reflection Scale" to 60, 40 is too little, 80 is too much.

Unless of course you want to use your own cube map, which I assume would go under the reflection map. I use the global one.

A specular map us pretty unnecessary if using reflections. If one wants to use a specular texture, just have a greyscale of the texture with white for v. shiny and black for not shiny, using technical terminology!
 
K

klam

Messages
53
Country
malaysia
Regarding about the windows need to make half invisible in alpha layer, do I have to color it using grey tone? I just read it at the wiki section. Tell me whether it right or wrong.
 
Shaun

Shaun

Messages
1,959
Country
unitedkingdom
Yup. In GIMP it's create layer mask. Then in the layer mask grey the windows in so that they become half transparent.

For this I have .dds plugin; apply mask, flip upside down and export.

If you export it as .bmp you need to make sure the alpha goes with it into the .dds.
 
S

SAPPY

Messages
31
Country
india
If I make a object in sketchup and export it to MCX, can I add a specular and bump map in material editor and will it work ?
Or do I have to add the specular and bump map from gmax?
 
Bambi_007

Bambi_007

Resource contributor
Messages
908
Country
germany
I dont like reflection map too - some guys have reflections at sea shore and they show you Hills and Mountains. - Hahahahaha
 
tgibson

tgibson

Resource contributor
Messages
11,338
Country
us-california
You add the specular map in ModelConverterX during the conversion process. I don't know how to make one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top