FSX Default shine/reflectiveness on aircraft

[Adamski]

I've just bought the Wilco Series1 A320 and am amazed at the "shininess" of it.



I've seen this on other aircraft, but never as bad as this. It's quite revolting. Is there any way it can be reduced?

[Cbris]

Is that a portover from FS9 to FSX? That's sometimes a cause - the models have been poorly exported.

Tone the alphas down is always good. Simply "Send Alpha to Editor" in DXTBMP and lighten the textures.

You'll still get the stripey reflections, but a lot less glary. FSX renderer has difficulties with large, flat polys.

Another help is to add a slight amount of "noise" to the bumpmap. But not too much or it'll look like orange peel.

Sometimes too, the modellers put way too much shine on the model surface. It is best to export the models with a plain "plastic" finish and add reflection with a good set of alpha textures.

But basically you are stuck with the need to alter the textures manually.

[Adamski]

Thanks for that, Chris. I thought maybe there was a config setting somewhere in the aircraft model that could be tweaked - that would affect all the surfaces in one hit.

I've never attempted modifying any repaint bitmaps. Maybe this is a good excuse to have a go! Either that or I contact the author of the ANZ repaint

[2fst4u]

haha, I'd be tempted to leave it like that. Keep it looking pimped out.

[Adamski]

QUOTE (2fst4u @ Dec 10 2009, 01:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

haha, I'd be tempted to leave it like that. Keep it looking pimped out.

Just 'cos you're *Boeing* fan

[Adamski]

QUOTE (Cbris @ Dec 10 2009, 09:56 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is that a portover from FS9 to FSX? That's sometimes a cause - the models have been poorly exported.

Tone the alphas down is always good. Simply "Send Alpha to Editor" in DXTBMP and lighten the textures.

Looking at the BMPs in DXTBMP, it does look like they're all FS9 ports.

I think I'll have a go at remaking them. Is there a decent DXTBMP tutorial kicking around anywhere?

[Cbris]

Well, there isn't much need for a tutorial for DXTBMP. If you follow the menu button "Alpha" and go to the top item in the drop-down, you'll see "Send alpha to editor"

"Editor" will be whatever graphics program you had set in menu itne "Prefs".

What you will need is knowledge of your painter program.

Good reference sites? Avsim forums or www.simmerspaintshop.com

Once you have lightened the alphas close the paint program. You will be asked if you want to save, say yes. Don't save separately but close the paint program.

Once the paint prog saves and is closed, go to "alpha" in dxtbmp and click on "refresh alpha", and save.

[Adamski]

QUOTE (Cbris @ Dec 10 2009, 04:33 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, there isn't much need for a tutorial for DXTBMP. If you follow the menu button "Alpha" and go to the top item in the drop-down, you'll see "Send alpha to editor"

"Editor" will be whatever graphics program you had set in menu itne "Prefs".

What you will need is knowledge of your painter program.

Good reference sites? Avsim forums or www.simmerspaintshop.com

Once you have lightened the alphas close the paint program. You will be asked if you want to save, say yes. Don't save separately but close the paint program.

Once the paint prog saves and is closed, go to "alpha" in dxtbmp and click on "refresh alpha", and save.

I'm generally pretty good with Photoshop, but alpha channels in these DXT2 format files are a bit of a mystery!!

When I open up the BMP and send (to Photoshop) the alpha channel is just solid black. Could that be because the (old FS9) textures just didn't have alpha channels saved properly?

[Cbris]

DXT 5 please

and the all black alpha channels explains everything! In FS9 they'd look rather "shiny" too. Oh my, Oh dear, oh gosh...

Simple lesson - take A COPY OF the basic paint, turn it to greyscale. Anything that should be matt (tyres, anti-glare shields etc.) reduce to white. All painted aircraft surfaces turn to around 10 to 15% black (i.e. a light grey). Shiny metal textures (chrome etc.) make around 60 to 70% black.

Try it. Adjust it. save as "alpha" plus the texture name so that yyou can find it.

Open the texture in dxtbmp and "import alpha" and re-save the texture as DDS DXT5

[Adamski]

QUOTE (Cbris @ Dec 11 2009, 05:08 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Open the texture in dxtbmp and "import alpha" and re-save the texture as DDS DXT5

Didn't like DDS textures - they got mapped all over the place ... looked neat though!

However ... Chris - many thanks - you're a gentleman and a scholar! Here's the result:



All the shine removed from the fuselage and fin by setting the alpha to 100% white in those areas. I saved the final bmp's as extended bitmap 888-8, with the "Include Mip Maps while saving" option on and no scaling filter. I suspect the upper drop-down is for 16-bit dither <?> which I didn't use.

Still a problem with the solid cockpit windows, but all the repaints I've downloaded had that problem, so looks like there's something wrong with the model <?>.

So ... I'm a happy camper now. Got a slightly less shiny A320 and learned something! Thanks again!

[NZ255]

Were all the repaints included like this?

[Adamski]

QUOTE (NZ255 @ Dec 12 2009, 02:17 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Were all the repaints included like this?

If you mean the black cockpit textures, just the IAE ones. The CFM ones are fine. All the freeware addons for the IAE versions also suffer the same problem.

However - if you mean the high-gloss problem, then the it appears to have been a bad portover in the freeware ANZ repaint I got. I'll find my source/filename for that one.

[Cbris]

Cockpit transparencies need a full black alpha DXT3 in fs9 and/or 32bit dds in FSX

[ZKIWI]

Adamski,

Any chance of getting a copy of your work? That is one thing that has always annoyed me with the A320 in FSX. ( Not that i sit outside and look at it when flying often. )

[Adamski]

QUOTE (ZKIWI @ Dec 12 2009, 10:38 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Adamski,

Any chance of getting a copy of your work? That is one thing that has always annoyed me with the A320 in FSX. ( Not that i sit outside and look at it when flying often. )

Sure thing. I'll put it up on NZFSIM. I'll just need to contact the original author to get his permission.

[Adamski]

QUOTE (Cbris @ Dec 12 2009, 04:10 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Cockpit transparencies need a full black alpha DXT3 in fs9 and/or 32bit dds in FSX

Whenever I try save in DDS format, the textures go completely out of alignment (badly). I suspect it would mean changing the MDL file somehow <?> - way out of range of my skills!

[Adamski]

QUOTE (ZKIWI @ Dec 12 2009, 10:38 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Adamski,

Any chance of getting a copy of your work? That is one thing that has always annoyed me with the A320 in FSX. ( Not that i sit outside and look at it when flying often. )

Chris Moroney (original author) very kindly allowed me to play with his textures and upload them to NZFSIM (or anywhere else). The new textures are here:
Wilco A320 IAE - Air New Zealand - FSX

Let me know if there are any "funnies" ... but I can't guarantee I can do anything about them (read this thread from the top ).

Thanks to both Chris's

[Cbris]

QUOTE (Adamski @ Dec 12 2009, 02:13 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Whenever I try save in DDS format, the textures go completely out of alignment (badly). I suspect it would mean changing the MDL file somehow <?> - way out of range of my skills!

No way to change the mdl at our level - only the modeller can do that.

As for alignment . if you are working from a paintkit, are you flipping the images vertically before you save as dds? That is one thing that is often overlooked.

[Adamski]

QUOTE (Cbris @ Dec 16 2009, 04:50 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As for alignment . if you are working from a paintkit, are you flipping the images vertically before you save as dds? That is one thing that is often overlooked.

Aaah, grasshoppa ... you got me there!

If I convert all the BMPs to DDSs will it all still work? What about a mixture of BMP and DDS?

At the moment, the archive only contains the external textures. They're then combined with a copy of the default set (that includes cockpit, etc.).

[Cbris]

A mix will work, but don't need both. But for transparencies to work, you will need to work on the transparencies sheets. I just looked in the repaint you linked to - they are definitely FS9 format. i.e. 16 bit dxt3 bitmap and have been saved with mip-map textures.

If these work as-is, then you can use them without converting to dxt5 dds - you won't get an improvement in quality anyway.

As for the transparencies. I see they are on sheet 2 (A320_Main2_t.bmp)

If you open this in DXTBMP and then "save as" extended bitmap / 32 bit 888-8 then you might get see through windows.

I don't have themodel myself, but this procedure worked on the Christen Eagle from LIC which had the same problem.