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Transparent Overlay Problem

linbuckfan

linbuckfan

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us-georgia
Hi all, I have been trying to do a stains overlay on the ground poly textures for P3D v4.5. No matter what I set in the Alpha source blocks it doesn't appear as transparent in the Sim. I can dial the transparency down in the FAC block in the shader and it will go transparent in blender but when I export the files into P3D, its always full opaque. I have tried everything I know how to do. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
 
Pyscen

Pyscen

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Hello..

I assume you have the blender2p3d/fsx toolset?
The alpha channel for the albedo doesn't work the same way as in FSX. If I understand correctly you are adding to the groundpoly? You may need to set the blend mode to transparent in the toolset and use layers within your graphics editor (GIMP or PS) to add the stains. It's been awhile since I have done this. There is another blend mode but I can't remember what it's called and I'm not at my computer right now.

Sorry I'm not remembering what can be done right now.
 
Pyscen

Pyscen

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Getting to a computer:

The Render mode (not blend mode) is where you can change it to "Translucent". The other option is called "Masked".
 
linbuckfan

linbuckfan

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Thanks for responding, yes I am using the tool kit to export, I will try the render mode thing. thanks so far
 
linbuckfan

linbuckfan

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us-georgia
I cant seem to find the Translucent settings you mentioned, but i still have the same problem and I am at a loss to figure out what to do. Unless i made the texture wrong, but i don't think I did.
 
Pyscen

Pyscen

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Ok... if you would explain to me how are you placing the stained areas? Are you placing the stains on the concrete (groundpoly)?
 
linbuckfan

linbuckfan

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88
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I duplicated the concrete and asphalt polys, then i joined the duplicates together to make one poly, then i a used the specular matl mode. I applied the material and used the stain texture as the diffuse. the nodes were already set up by the P3d addon. I turned the fac block down in the invert node between the texture alpha and the specular bsdf node. It does go more transparent in Blender. I set the transparency in the material area and chose alpha blend. and set the framebuffer area to transparency. but that doesn't seem to work, in the sim it still shows full opaque.
 
Last edited:
Pyscen

Pyscen

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Going that route you will need to bake the "stains" into the concrete/asphalt groundpoly, which in turn, you will need to update the UV Unwrap for this area. This would be because you are creating a new material for this groundpoly. Without "baking", nothing within the node editor will appear (within FS), even if you did change the Render mode for it.

A better option would be to recreate this section of the groundpoly (by making a new material) from the rest and have the stains already a part of the concrete/asphalt using a graphics editor (such as GIMP or PS). From there you would place the updated material into the UV.
 
linbuckfan

linbuckfan

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88
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us-georgia
That actually sounds like a good idea, but I am adding some other overlays as well, do i need to make those first and merge all of them together, because some of the overlays will only be on part of the runway/tarmacs? I think that is where my problem will be.
 
linbuckfan

linbuckfan

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us-georgia
is there a way to copy the whole mesh as a texture to use in gimp?, otherwise I don't know what to do, because im using a repeating texture.
 
Pyscen

Pyscen

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The groundpoly should be broken down when you UV unwrap them or you can place seams yourself. So that they will break where you want them to. I would not have the groundpoly as 1 large mass. Within GIMP, having multiple layers or "overlays" as you call them, shouldn't matter at all.

You will lose sharpness in your texture if you make it 1 large mass.
 
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