• 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.
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    • 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.

What is z-test and z-write?

The SDK is not very good pointing you in the right direction regarding transparency. There could have been lots more concrete examples in there. I found my solution here at this forum in a thread I can`t find back.

So I am re-posting the material properties I`m using for two-way transparency in FSX, let`s say this is windows for a control tower...where each window has two sides (two polygons, one with the normal pointing out, the other with the normal pointing in):

Material properties for the inside:

Framebuffer blend set to Default Alpha.

Emissive mode: Blend.

Z-Test Alpha checked. Test level 128.

Alpha test mode: Greater.

Z-Write Alpha...unchecked.

For the outside:

Same as the previous parameters, but with Z-Write Alpha checked.

The texture I use is a 32bit .tga with alpha in the "diffuse" slot in Gmax. For the \texture folder in FSX I convert it to DXT5 with .dds extension. If memory serves...DXT1 is for no alpha, DXT3 for "hard alpha" and DXT5 for "gradient alpha".

I am still a tad unsure about "test level" greater than or less than 128 and what it does...but for the time being this works for me.

PS: Stuff like this should really be on a "sticky" in here since the SDK is not very clear :scratchch
 
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Andrew said:
PS: Stuff like this should really be on a "sticky" in here since the SDK is not very clear :scratchch
Click to expand...

No, information such as this should be posted as a new Wiki entry, so it can be more easily catalogued, indexed and retrieved!

Creating a "cookbook" of FSX Material Properties along with a brief outline of the methods to be used would be of immense benefit for future reference.

Creating a new Wiki entry is very, very simple.
 
There you are :)

I tend to forget about the wiki...I am used to stickys. Anyway, I cut & paste many tips from here into a simple txt file which I always back up. I`ll see if I can input it into the wiki. Wanted to do that a good while ago, but seaman`s life is breaking my plans up all the time. But I have to say the info I posted isn`t something you easily extract from the SDK...I expect a good example to be in the SDK but as I can see it isn`t.

Thx for dropping in here. Some of the stuff I posted comes from you ;)
 
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Hi Paul,

BASys said:
Hi Folks

There's already two existing Transparency related articles.

Texturing - Alpha channel - Transparency - PhotoShop

Transparency problems

Perhaps we might look at rationalising these aspects of the wiki, to incorporate FS version specific data.
Click to expand...

That first article you mention is only about making the alpha channel in the texture file. So that has nothing to do with the problems mentioned here.

The second one might be a good point. That article explains why there are something drawing order problems. Adding solutions to that one sounds like a good idea.

But a nice series of articles about the FSX material settings is also a good idea.
 
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