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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

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Metal Shine in FSX

TARPSBird

TARPSBird

Moderator
Staff member
I've been wondering if it's possible to adjust shine/reflectivity in FSX to get the effect shown on the BT-1's fuselage in the attached pic. This is not bare metal but aluminum paint. What would be the starting point for making adjustments to get this metallic shine? Alpha channel in the fuselage texture file? Adjusting the .mdl file?
 
I'll jump in here with a question:


Specular map and its alpha channel. OK. But what do you do if the model has a normal channel, a bump map, but no spec map?

Can you create and add a spec map?


Thanks in advance for any answer! :mixedsmi:

Owen.
 
no, if the model doesnt have spec maps you cant add them.

Also the main one you want is the alpha on the main texture which controlls how shiney things are (black = super shiney, white = matt), the spec just controls the colour and brightness of the suns reflection, yes it makes the metal look nicer but doest effect how shiney the overall model is :)

edit - didnt really read the first post, and cant see the pic, if its not polished metal then it'd be the spec map you'd want.
 
Thanks for that, Stiz!

As for the original question. I would try to get an unpolished aluminium (or silver paint) by creating a dull grey base*, adding very little "polish" with the main texture's alpha, then giving a good dose of brightness with the spec & spec alpha. Without a spec map, it won't be possible to get something as nice as for example A2A's P-51.
If you don't have a spec map, you can always "paint on the shine" and that can look pretty decent. Use shading effects, etc.

*1930's navy planes were painted with a color called "silver-grey", and a possible match for the dull grey base could be FS36622.

In any case, metal skins aren't easy :icon_eek: but rewarding :redface:

Owen.
 
As soon as I brought up SOH to check this thread, I knew I forgot to attach the BT-1 pic in my original post. :redf: Too early in the AM to be posting stuff, LOL. Here is the pic with the fuselage shine effect I was referring to.
 
Nice pic!

You see the difference in light reflection between the black paint and the silver paint? The way the silver sends back more light?
Well in my experience only the spec map will enable a reproduction of those characteristics.
 
Guessing nothing can be done if the shine/reflection is built into the model.
Tried adding Ryan STA red paint by SWingman for FS9 into FSX, wings and tail are ok but fuselage and wheel pant shine is still there.
Any painters know if anything can be done to spec to negate built in shine?
 
Paul Anderson said:
Guessing nothing can be done if the shine/reflection is built into the model.
Tried adding Ryan STA red paint by SWingman for FS9 into FSX, wings and tail are ok but fuselage and wheel pant shine is still there.
Any painters know if anything can be done to spec to negate built in shine?
Click to expand...

I use MDLMATXX from MW Graphics to adjust specular shine for the whole external model. It usefully tells you which parts of the model (LODs) each texture files paints. Just successfully dulled down Rob Richardson's F-106. But you are altering the .mdl files so these are strictly for your own use. And it doesn't substitute for a specular map which I don't know how to code into the model if the developer didn't put it there (anyone know??).

DaveQ
 
DaveQ said:
And it doesn't substitute for a specular map which I don't know how to code into the model if the developer didn't put it there (anyone know??).

DaveQ
Click to expand...

As long as you don't have the mesh model resource you are not able to assign the specular mapping into the model.

:salute:
Hank
 
I believe the subject of this discussion is my model of the Northrup BT-1. It does have specular maps included. They are in the texture folder and are called BT1_1_T_Spec and BT1_2_T_Spec respectively. The fuselage spec is in BT1_1_T_Spec. The spec textures are very simple; just all gray and all gray alpha. I selected the colors to provide very little shine. Feel free to modify these.

Best, Paul
 
PutPut said:
I believe the subject of this discussion is my model of the Northrup BT-1. It does have specular maps included. They are in the texture folder and are called BT1_1_T_Spec and BT1_2_T_Spec respectively. The fuselage spec is in BT1_1_T_Spec. The spec textures are very simple; just all gray and all gray alpha. I selected the colors to provide very little shine. Feel free to modify these.
Best, Paul
Click to expand...

Paul, I had been messing around with the BT-1 but hadn't tried adjusting any shine beause I had absolutely no idea how to use the spec maps. Now that I know enough to be dangerous, it's a good plane to experiment with. I used the BT-1 pic in my post because it showed the aluminum paint shine so well.
 
It is simliar as working with alpha layers except the usage of black and white are reversed, using white in specular map increases shine, black will remove it.

Cheers,
Hank
 
hae5904 said:
It is simliar as working with alpha layers except the usage of black and white are reversed, using white in specular map increases shine, black will remove it.
Cheers,
Hank
Click to expand...
Hank, roger that. :salute: Last night I figured out that on the spec maps lighter = more shine, darker = less shine. I also noticed the spec map bmp's have an alpha channel. If you change the gray shades on the main portion of the texture, do you then generate a new alpha or leave the original?
 
The alpha channel does have an impact on the end product. I have not found a definitive tutorial on this subject, but it is "somewhat" described in the FSX SDK. Again, the darker the alpha the more shine, the lighter the alpha the less shine. (Note this is the opposite of the diffuse texture part of the spec map) It really becomes a matter of trial and error and personal taste.

Best, Paul
 
Paul, I tweaked the alpha channel gray-shade values up and down on the BT-1's fuselage spec map and nothing seemed to happen. However when I changed the diffuse texture numbers I definitely saw a big change in shine. I'm going to play around some more and see what looks good and what doesn't. I like your use of the term "somewhat described" for the FSX SDK, seems like a lot of FSX stuff is only described "somewhat" and the rest is left for the user to figure out. :icon_lol:
 
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