FSX transparent+reflective

[tgibson]

Hi,

Yes, you can import the exported file, although I don't know if that will recreate *all* the settings, but it will get most of them.

 

[arno]

Hi,

I guess I could add an option to save in some native MCX format, but I am not sure what it would really add. The FSX exporter should save "almost" everything and to me having to save in another format first seems like a bit of a waste.

About the reflective texture issue, I will try to test that tonight.

 

[robystar]

Sorry Arno to be such a pain in the ...
Just trying to convey a layman's troubles with MCX and thereby hopefully contributing to making it more easy to use for more FS fanatics.

 

[arno]

Hi,

I am not sure if I tested the right thing, but if I do this it works. You want to use the diffuse texture alpha for the reflection. So what you have to do is add the alpha channel to that texture of course. After that you need to enable the option "Blend environment by inverse diffuse alpha" and enable the option "use global environment map as reflection". With that done it is working on my test object here.

Would that work for you as well?

 

[robystar]

Hi Arno,

Appreciate your trying to help me out.
Your suggestions do not seem to work for me.
Best thing to do is to give you all the details of what I did:
- The diffuse texture map is blueish grey with a mid grey alpha channel to make it semi transparent
- the specular texture map is light blue with mid grey alpha
(both are dds dxt5)
- I set default transparent in the material editor
- in the enhanced parameters everything is false but z-write Alpha
-frame buffer blend I never touched and reads
Destination blend InvSrcAlpha
Source blend Src Alpha
- Special functionality
Blend diffuse by diffuse alpha true
Blend environment by inverse diffuse true
Reflection scale 164 (that changed automatically)
Use Global environment map as reflection true

Result is a completely transparent glass window.
Changing 'no base material specular' false to true does not change anything.
Changing Blend diffuse by diffuse alpha to false does not change anything either.
As soon as you set both the Blend environment and use global environment map to false, that is when things go back to a dull semi transparent glass texture.
Another thing I noticed is that when you open an mdl, make some changes, change the Guid and export again, upon importing the mdl again the Guid has not changed. It only changes when you also change the name of the mdl.

 

[hcornea]

FWIW there is no specular texture listed in your MCX screengrab ... even though blend by spec map alpha is checked.

It is best to setup the materials in Gmax (or similar) so they are linked to the initial source file ...

Otherwise editing your model is quite cumbersome.

 

[robystar]

Oh but the screengrab dates from my previous life, it is obsolete. In the meantime I have altered the texture settings dozens of times.
My problem is that I do not exactly know what I am doing and I am trying to find some more info on the subject on the web but it is still elusive.
Guess my pretending to have a high IQ is getting compromised. Or maybe it had been already?

 

[arno]

Hi,

It seems I tested a slightly different variant, since I used the diffuse alpha, not the specular alpha for the reflection. But that won't work of course if you texture also needs to be transparent. I'll try to test your situation later.

 

[robystar]

Thank you for your latest developent release(s), Arno.
I now have to wear sunglasses when playing FSX.
It really makes quite a difference and I will have to 'reverse engineer' all previously made dull objects that are now too bright and shiny.
Allow me to ask one more question (well, for the time being):
Is there a way to reduce the difference between shadow and light through MCX (for opaque objects I mean)?

 

[arno]

Hi,

I am not sure if I understand. Do you mean that the objects behave different in FSX since a recent update in the development release? There shouldn't have been such a big change in colours.

 

[robystar]

Morning Arno,

Yes, that is right. I thought it had to do with your fixing a problem with the specular power but I do not know that, of course.
Fact is that running a previously "dull" object through MCX and compiling again, it then becomes more shiny than it was before.
In the attached screenshot you can see the shine on the transparent roof that I could not get to show earlier on. I can now influence it through my specular texture alpha channel and the specular level.

 

[arno]

Hi,

That shine looks more like transparency to me. But that is indeed something I fixed recently, after you reported a long time ago that transparent colours made in Sketchup did not come through correctly.

 

[Foiter]

Hey Guys,
It appears I've been having similar problems attempting to achieve a glossy reflection effects on a canopy glass (same way it is on F-18C's wind shield). Unfortunately following SDK's step-by-step procedures doesn't help much (unless one can read between the lines).
...and it gets worse when I activate Double Sided flag to get similar effects inside a canopy using the same material settings for both exterior and interior models. Probably need to play around a Z-Write Alpha flag or whatever...

Analysis of F-18 model's texturing brought me to conclusion that the best material settings used to get those shiny effects on the semi-transparent textures could somehow be achieved with the usage of three maps located in global FSX/Texture/ folder.

These are:

• GlobalEnv_AC_Glass_T.dds - definitely used for Diffuse channel.
• GlobalEnv_AC_Chrome.dds - definitely used as a global reflection map.
• GlobalEnv_AC_Glass_spec_T.dds - should actually be used for a Specular channel, but I'm not sure the model actually uses any Specular maps.

The pure RGB levels of GlobalEnv_AC_Glass_T.dds are similar to Cyan color, but it is not actually seen on F-18's glass, probably because in the "Special Functionality" section of Material Editor the Blend diffuse by diffuse alpha is on. Which does make sense, since the same map can be used elsewhere with different reflection settings.

As far as we all know the reflective feature of Diffuse maps (transparent or not) is achieved through the blending with pixels of environment map (mostly global one unless otherwise explicitly specified in a Material Editor as an extra Reflection map[/B]).

If I'm not mistaken, the blending is performed according to the standard inverse Modulation algorithm:

C(Dest) = Alpha(Diffuse)*C(Diffuse) + Alpha(Env)*(1 - Alpha(Diffuse))*C(Env) ;

So if Diffuse Alpha is Zero we get GlobalEnv_AC_Chrome.dds pixels full-color rendered on the resulting map. That's how we reflect The Trees-&-The Mountains on our glass.

Unfortunately SDK documentation, once again, fails to warn the user that if "Use global environment map as a reflection" is ON the Reflection channel in the Maps section of Material Editor should NOT be used alltogether, otherwise the result is normally not the one we would ever want, especially when both Global Env Map and user's own reflection map are the same.

For anyone who decides to plunge into the trickery of FSX's shiny transparency (which is in fact very savvy in terms of frame rates, I'd say), it should be clear that those shiny effects are the results of a combination of a material Glossiness (Specular map) and its Reflectivity (Alpha channel of a Diffuse map), which are clearly two different things.
The fine tuned combination of both is what makes the glass texture look like real thing.

...and what really makes me wonder, that having understood all this crap, I'm still failing to achieve (...or better say replicate what I see in the default FSX models)