Diffuse, Specular, Normal, Fresnel, Environment,...

[Vitus]

Good evening,

once again, I am seeking for help from this noble community. For a start, I want to give my aircraft a "bare metal polished look" and I literally spent hours in painting all the panels and rivets. The result is a total of 6 2048x2048 diffuse maps that looks like this:


For the bump maps and a start, I desaturated the images and tuned up the contrast. After that I used the NVidia filter to generate the normal map used imagetool to swap the red- and alpha channels.

I set up a standard environment map for the reflection.

As far as I know, that's fine so far.

But I did some experiments with the Alpha channels of specular and diffuse map and whatever I do, the result is crap. I can't even point whats the reason, it just doesn't look like polished aluminum. I tried to open the textures of really good paintworks - like the A2A Simulation aircraft - to get an idea how to make a good looking texture set. But it seems like the files are encrypted, I cannot open them.

Therefore I want to ask you if you can give me a hint. My questions are:

1. Will my diffuse map be alright, or do I have to change it?

2. How do I set up Diffuse Alpha, Specular RGB and Specular Alpha?

3. What are the preferred GMAX Material settings?

I hope you can help me with this.

And while we're at it I want to show you my progress:


Regards from Downunder
Vitus

[lionheart]

Hey Vitus,

Awesome work man! Is that an Electra?

There is a little materials tutorial at FreeFlightDesign.com you can download and see how materials are worked, but from there comes the many tunes you will need to make it work.
Link: http://lionheartworld.net/schloss/FSX_Tutorial.zip <<package to download with materials and a model for importing/merging materials into a project you are doing
Link to webpage's tutorial; http://www.aerodynamika.com/cgi-bin/...num=1195533510


For your skins, I suggest copying the way they did it with the DC3 in FSX. You can disect (take-apart) the textures to see how they used their Alpha channels, etc. Also the same with their Fresnals, environment maps, etc.

On the 'in-gmax' settings, its a bit of experimentation.


EDIT: On that tutorial, you simply merge a part over to your project with said material on it, and then that material is in your new project, (such as plexi). The textures are included that are set up for FSX format (aircraft textures as well as basic textures for Gmax to use).


Bill

[Vitus]

Hi Bill,

thats an awesome tutorial! I am sure you spent quite a lot time to write it! I really appreciate what you are doing for the community!

I used your data as a start but wasn't really happy with the result. It looked like a Chrome Aircraft - not a aluminum tube as it should. Therefore I change a couple of settings and after a lot of trial & error attempts I still don't like it. So maybe you - or someone else - can give me some advice with that.

First a couple of pictures:






I think it is not to bad as a start, but it looks like it is covered with fabric. I want the metal to look like this:





Right now, I use the following settings for the material:




For the last test I deactivated the specular map and instead used a specular color of a light blue, as you can see.

So, what are your suggestions? Which parameter do I have to adjust or in which way do I have to change the textures to get a good result?

Hopefully there is a switch within the material settings where you can switch between "sucks" and "rocks"

And finally: yes. It is a Lockheed L-10A Electra. I am happy that you recognized it!

Have a nice day!
Vitus

[Vitus]

A minor update:
I realized that the bump map was "inverted". Remember for the next time: Bumpfilter FIRST, flip vertical SECOND.

Check it out:


I gave the height map a little bit more contrast than before - maybe too much - the bumpmap is very... bumpy now. What I like though is the "blueish" touch on the right sides' top of the fuselage. But where does it come from? From the Reflection map or from the specular color?

But if you look from the other side, it looks like this:


From this perspective, the ship looks like a plastic toy. The stabilizer looks alright, but the rest is just rubbish.

I hope you guys can help me with this!

Have a nice day - I will go to bed now, its getting late

Regards
Vitus

[Vitus]

*bump, bump*

My aircraft still has this crappy look

[lionheart]

Sorry Vitus,

I do not know any good formula's for all aluminum skinned planes.

The only thing I can suggest is experimenting with the Alpha values that are in the FSX DC3 and see how that works out.

Hopefully someone with aluminum materials background can chime up and fill you in better on this.


Bill

[capt_x]

Originally Posted by Vitus

What I like though is the "blueish" touch on the right sides' top of the fuselage. But where does it come from? From the Reflection map or from the specular color?

Check docs for fresnel ramp. You have not specified the fresnel in your mat. Basically, it controls the coulour of the texture (in your case: spec and reflective) at different angles of incidence. Hence, making the right side of your ramp blue will achieve the 'blueish' effect.

Take some time to experiment with ramps a little...

[Vitus]

Hello friends,

after about six hours hardcore painting I can present you some results:







A little bit closer:





Please note that I justed changed the two fuselage textures - thats why the wings and engines look so weird. But before I go on and overhaul the rest of the ship I want to ask for your oppinion. I think my results are not too bad although I am sure there is still room for improvement.

I took the following actions:

diffuse map
- I darkened the background layer by about 25%
- The alpha channel was built up from the scratch (once again!). The shiny metal parts are dark grey with a bit of blurred noise, white blurred panel lines and white blurred rivet dots.
- To give the aircraft some more detail, I added a new "dirt" layer around rivets and panel lines: light brown, noise slightly blurred.
(the two fuselage photoshop texture files now have a size of 198MB!)

specular map
- I took the diffuse map and gave the metal parts in a light blue look (Image Adjustments->Hue/Saturation).
- The Alpha channel is black and again with blurred white panel lines and blurred white rivet dots.

normal map
- The bump map was rebuilt using a heightmap with less contrast than before.

fresnel ramp
- I added the fresnel ramp from the standard DC3 to the GMax materials

GMax Materials
- I tested the three available shaders (Blinn, Metal,Phong) just to find out that the differences are negligibly minor. So its Blinn again.





As said before, I would like to get some opinions and ideas what to change to optimize the look. I will embrace you ideas to finish the paint.

If you like, I will share the details of the paint with you when everything is done.

Looking forward to reading your comments!
Vitus

[lionheart]

Stunning results Vitus! Well done man!

Perhaps a bit of blue on the top of the fuselage to get rid of the dusty look. But massively better.

Nice work on the rivets too. Looks photo real.



By the way, on parts that are mirrored, and sections of the bump maps where the rivets go from 'innies' to 'outies' (on mirrored parts), you can flip these in their sections in the bump maps to negate the bump mirroring.



Bill