SurClaro Flight Simulator Resources

I need a one-off CalXpress fuselage done for a HGW aircraft I want to release, it's an SGA 733 with my livery, but the lower fuselage, nose gear doors and both engine nacelles are to be highly polished. I can do a lot of stuff but I pretty much get stuck on bare metal. Anyone wanna help a brotha' out?

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:10 am Post subject:

Once you have the texture opened in DXTBMP, I believe you need to do a few things to produce reflective shine in FS.

First, I think you need the suffix '_t.bmp' after your regular .bmp name. Secondly you set the areas that you want to be reflective as different shades of gray...the darker the colour the more reflective the area will be. Black will produce the most reflection.
Apparently, if 'has lightmap' hasn't been ticked during the model export (and a small dummy black bitmap included) process...reflective textures show as transparent at night, nothing you can do.
Don't forget to make sure 'Reflections' is turned on in your FS settings.
I'll check again to see if there's an alpha channel involved as well to make the reflective surface render....I'll post back.
From what I can tell, true reflective textures will not work no matter what you do if they haven't been enabled while model exporting...you may get lucky.
Also, don't confuse reflections with specular shine. A shine can be achieved while modelling, without any maps... but a 'reflection in metal' effect needs at least the above to work. I'll post a few links once I find 'em. Smile

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 2:49 am Post subject:

Hark, the chrome textures I looked at were a sort of gray alpha channel and a sort of bluish shading. The problem is while I have the DXT converter I don't have a program that can produce alpha channels for the reflextive part. I use something called photo explosion and not PSP. I tried to C&P even, no luck. But I'll take a shot at the conversions and see what happens, I really need to learn this but I've been after it for about 2 weeks now and I'm running out of patience.

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:48 am Post subject: and...

And, could you tell us which aircraft by filename please?

i.e. *******.zip

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:21 am Post subject:

O.K., define what you are after and refine your expectations according to the limitations you run into..such as a model that may simply not allow a real reflective texture.
By a 'real' reflective texture I mean one that you've added the '_t' suffix to, and have created an alpha channel for. This alpha map, blended with your regular texture in, and created with DXTBMP, is simply a gray-to-black scale in the areas of the map that you are hoping will be REFLECTIVE, and simulate a moving mirror image of the surroundings as the aircraft moves. This effect also requires that 'Aircraft Reflections' is turned on in your FS9 settings. Once again, also dependent on a proper .mdl export for a working reflective surface at night, no fun if your chrome goes transparent after dark.

Say the above method is impossible for whatever reason....I think you can fake chrome pretty well with some clever texture application. I have achieved decent results with bitmaps as chrome or shiny metal... just DXT1 (no alpha). The best results come when I have the opportunity to set the base material as nicely specular in gmax, but you can almost go photoreal with good chrome textures in your desired area of the bitmap, and if the model has some shine you're good to go.

Regarding creating alpha channels....it's a breeze. You're already familiar with DXTBMP. You can use the Alpha thing on the toolbar to create an alpha channel (it's cool) and merge it with your map right then. It's also easy to create an alpha channel in any image editor, even Microsoft 'paint'.
Just change the area you want as your reflective alpha to varyng shades of grey, going towards black for maximum reflection. Stay away from anything but the actual grey scale, and add the suffix to the blended map. and if the model supports it...your 'DXT1 with alpha' should render some reflection. Oh yeah, after making the alpha channel bitmap in 'Paint' (if you don't just create one in DXTBMP), just import the newly made alpha with that DXTBMP function (your new alpha will display in that small corner window) and blend it with your open original bitmap.

Back to 'no alpha' chrome...I have a few textures for chrome & metal, and have an easy, unique way of creating them in any shade. I'm a bit busy with an almost done sim jet...and a whole plateful of real life stuff, but I can get you any kind of chrome fakes you want, lemme know and I can post a few 256 X 256's here (Admin. permitting) or send a bunch off. If there's a way to chrome up your aircraft, I'd be happy to help all I can. Still have to find the few excellent FFDS forum threads on this exact topic and link you up. Soon come. Smile

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:51 am Post subject:

Having the zip to the plane would be great. I have been able to apply chrome textures to engines without the help of the model cfg/build.

RD

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:47 am Post subject:

I have not attempted (yet) to paint any aircraft. However, I have acquired a great deal of respect for one of the best aircraft painters.

Check out these tutorials from Gary Smith. Cool

http://www.gjsmith.net/Tutorial/tutorials.htm

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 2:31 pm Post subject:

Here is the FFDS thread I was looking for. If you carefully read the whole thread, ignoring the references to setting specular shine in the actual modelling program, you'll gain more insight. Sounds like DXT3 is the way to 'save as' out of DXTBMP. You'll enjoy the screenshot buddy put up of his plane ...with reflective chrome everywhere but the paint job, using a grey alpha.
Remember, if model-specific details (sounds like 'has reflectmap' needs to be ticked as well when exporting from gmax with 'MakeMDL') prevent you from seeing reflections after your alpha efforts, then you can fake a decent chrome with a straight no alpha bitmap.
I'll see about organizing some texture maps in case you find yourself in need of some base art to work with.
RD does some nice work when it comes to texture art, and may have some further experience to share. Very Happy

http://www.aerodynamika.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=General;action=display;num=1078833988

Here's a link to Pixia, it's a free image editor/paint program that's pretty versatile once you play with it a bit.
http://park18.wakwak.com/~pixia/

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:03 pm Post subject:

Hark, you are giving me some of the absolute best advice I've ever gotten. Much of it is helping me understand how reflective textures work, my problem is a limit in being able to produce the necessary alpha channels due to programming, as I understand it, that are needed for this to work. I do appreciate greatly your info and will study it.

RD, the texture set can be found www.calxpress.com and is the default livery, also as file http://www.calxpress.com/aircraft/cx733cx.zip. All that needs to be done is have a polished lower fuselage, polished engine nacelles and nose gear doors added, and the registration changed to N51837. The chrome lower fuselage will start about 3 pixels below the red line. I'll do the tail associated with this aircraft later as it'll be one of CALX's custom tails. Let me know by email at calxpress@earthlink.net, RD, I appreciate it. And Hark, I'll keep trying to learn this stuff, thanks for your patient support.

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:07 pm Post subject:

No sweat Pmckay. Smile

The alpha channel is easy in DXTBMP..you may find the process handy down the road.
Might be nice to see a few screens of your jet once you guys are done playing. (working Cool

) Have fun!

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:52 pm Post subject:

Here's a couple quick shots Pete, let me know what you think.

I'll work more on it tonight/AM when I get off work.

RD

Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:06 pm Post subject:

Looks like you nailed it RD, I owe you big man. How does 1000 shares of CALX stock sound? Hey, it's doing good, we're at v$98.13 right now. But that's exactly the concept I was looking for, this will be the "California Street Rod" tail aircraft, and the 22nd custom tail aircraft produced, and one of 4 in the "Hit the Highway" series. Here's the street rod tail, waiting for the chrome...

http://home.earthlink.net/~calxpress/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/streetrod.jpg

Other aircraft in this block...

http://home.earthlink.net/~calxpress/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/rt66.jpg

http://home.earthlink.net/~calxpress/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/pch2.jpg

One more, N51836, is as yet undetermined but may be Sunset Blvd. I just need to get to SoCal and take the picture.

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 4:23 am Post subject:

Cool, SoCal Hot Rods on the tail. Great idea/concept.

Glad you like it. I still have to see about the nacelles though. Haven't even looked at them yet. Still need to do the front gear door and what nots. I will start on them as soon as I log off.

RD

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:32 am Post subject:

Great RD, thanks again. The car is actually for sale for $47,000 on Boyd Coddington's webspace and was built initially for a local Fresno Hot Rodder. I wanted to use Boyd's 54' Vette but they said no since the car was actually a registered trademark image. sort of like the Lone Cypress belongs to Pebble Beach, that's why it hasn't been used yet either. You being a California resident, you can probably identify with most of the images. Coming soon will be a Monterey Bay Aquarium tail. And the N51836 tail has now been assigned to Rodeo Drive, and will have either a gold or platinum lower fuselage.

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 7:54 am Post subject:

Hey Pete, I did recognize the car as Coddington's. Know his work and build ups for ages. Just use my v-pay and send it to me, LOL.

Well, *I* wasn't real happy with how "white" the chrome was, so I did some more fiddling around. The pics are of the NEW chrome, as to me, looks more realistic. I also did the engines in different textures. Inlets are the white chrome, which I like, and the exhuast is between the two.

So, have a look, and let me know.

RD