MSFS Glass cockpit flickering

[Nick_D]

Hello, gentlemen!
I want to apologize in advance, if I chose the wrong thread for my topic.
The thing is that I'm trying to make a simple glass cockpit, but for some reason the screens are flickering madly. I tried many different material settings in 3ds max, also i tried to copy the material settings of displays from DA-62 and “Kabri” from SDK, but never once could not achieve that the screens acted properly, but the most interesting thing - if i open the project and - after load - “rebuild” em 3-4 times - the screens MAY stop blinking.
Honestly it's driving me crazy and I don't know what to do, if anyone can help me - I would be incredibly grateful.
Software used: 3ds max 2020.3

Below I attach a gif with a demonstration of what is happening, a screenshot of the applied material settings, and a fragment of panel.cfg

[VCockpit03]
size_mm=1280,1280
pixel_size=1280,1280
texture=$MFD_1
htmlgauge00=Airliners/A320_Neo/MFD/A320_Neo_MFD.html, 0,0,1280,1280

 

[=rk=]

Is the emissive value supposed to be white? I am pretty sure emissive needs to be black and any luminosity is provided by emissive textures, but I'm not extremely versed on HTML gauges.

There is an SDK forum, which is probably more relevant, but it's really just a matter of who's watching which.

 

[Nick_D]

Is the emissive value supposed to be white? I am pretty sure emissive needs to be black and any luminosity is provided by emissive textures, but I'm not extremely versed on HTML gauges.

There is an SDK forum, which is probably more relevant, but it's really just a matter of who's watching which.

I've actually struggled with this problem for over a week now, and in that time I've tried every possible combination of material settings (i.e black emission and white base, vice versa, white emission and base, black emission and base, mask, blend, dither etc.), the result has always been the same :s
Yeah, I'm not sure I chose the right forum either, but what's done is done and thank you for trying to figure out my problem!

 

[=rk=]

Ok I think I know what's going on, it's just a guess but there is a material issue that I think rises from interaction between the Babylon plugin and 3ds Max. If I am correct, the end result is that your material is on a back face, but the normals are correctly pointed, which is why we see it at all. Essentially there is z flashing between the material and the polygon itself. Do you want to upload something to test? Did you complete either of the Hello World tutorials?

 

[Nick_D]

Ok I think I know what's going on, it's just a guess but there is a material issue that I think rises from interaction between the Babylon plugin and 3ds Max. If I am correct, the end result is that your material is on a back face, but the normals are correctly pointed, which is why we see it at all. Essentially there is z flashing between the material and the polygon itself. Do you want to upload something to test? Did you complete either of the Hello World tutorials?

Thank you! What you're talking about is really very similar to what's going on, but I don't know what to do about it :c
Honestly, I don't think it makes sense for me to upload anything, because the current scene is literally one flat plane with material assigned to it
I assume you're talking about the tutorial from SDK? No, I haven't looked into it since I don't plan on creating instruments, all I need to do is figure out how to run existing instruments on my model.
P.S What confuses me even more is that before (sometime between autumn 2021 and winter 2022), the principle I'm doing now worked and I haven't encountered anything like this, I don't understand what has changed

 

[=rk=]

OK then flip your normals and rotate your polygon 360°.

 

[Anthony31]

You need emission to be white. You can make white darker but you can't make black brighter.

I don't even use MSFS materials in Blender for VC textures. See attached screenshot.

Obviously I don't know 3DS but why is collision material ticked?

The SDK says you shouldn't use the $ prefix in MSFS but I was never able to get VC textures working in Blender without it (probably an exporter issue?).

"It should be noted that - in some files - materials can be referenced by name, for example in the panel.cfg files. In legacy FSX aircraft, these material names were prefixed using the "$" symbol. However, in Microsoft Flight Simulator this prefix should not be used as it is an internal flag that forces the material to act like a collision material, regardless of whether the collision material option has been checked or not. As such, using this prefix can create unforeseen issues for your aircraft that may be difficult to understand or debug, and should be avoided."

Didn't there used to be a VC material texture type or am I remembering wrong? There doesn't seem to be one now anyway. The SDK is very vague on how to define a VC texture. And by vague I mean there is no information on what is the best practice. Even most of the default Asobo aircraft still use the $ prefix despite the SDK saying you shouldn't.

Also, this is part of the interior model? Not part of an exterior model?

 

[=rk=]

You need emission to be white.

Interesting observation about emissive properties, however in all my emissive missives, I've not encountered a flicker.

Didn't there used to be a VC material texture type or am I remembering wrong?

Never.

The SDK is very vague on how to define a VC texture. And by vague I mean there is no information on what is the best practice.

This is the reason I'd asked about the Hello World tutorials. Between them, they provide a pretty clear description of the exact same material type the op is trying to understand, in addition to implying an unnecessarily tedious lesson on instrument development.

Also, this is part of the interior model? Not part of an exterior model?

I do all my developing from the interior model, because my particular aircraft has gauges on the fuselage. The exterior model is the same mesh without all the xml gauge madness. For me, a standalone instrument display on the runway looks completely consistent with my path of development.

Haha! I think I found it. Your careful perusal of the material properties in software you don't even know prompted me to do some squinting. I see that the alpha mode is set to "mask." Ok, mask as a blend mode sets an opacity threshold, beyond which there is no blending or dithering. The semi transparent material becomes completely opaque beyond a specified level of transparency. On a display, the end result would be almost exactly what we see, flickering in and out of visibility. I strongly believe the alpha mode should be set to opaque.

 

[Nick_D]

Interesting observation about emissive properties, however in all my emissive missives, I've not encountered a flicker.

Never.

This is the reason I'd asked about the Hello World tutorials. Between them, they provide a pretty clear description of the exact same material type the op is trying to understand, in addition to implying an unnecessarily tedious lesson on instrument development.

I do all my developing from the interior model, because my particular aircraft has gauges on the fuselage. The exterior model is the same mesh without all the xml gauge madness. For me, a standalone instrument display on the runway looks completely consistent with my path of development.

Haha! I think I found it. Your careful perusal of the material properties in software you don't even know prompted me to do some squinting. I see that the alpha mode is set to "mask." Ok, mask as a blend mode sets an opacity threshold, beyond which there is no blending or dithering. The semi transparent material becomes completely opaque beyond a specified level of transparency. On a display, the end result would be almost exactly what we see, flickering in and out of visibility. I strongly believe the alpha mode should be set to opaque.

I apologize, perhaps I'm not paying enough attention or don't fully understand what you're talking about, but I take it you're referring to the section of the SDK manual shown in the screenshot? In that case I haven't really studied it, but that didn't stop me from reading it and not finding anything related to how to correctly assign material for the screens in the cockpit. Perhaps (and this is probably true) I wasn't paying enough attention and just didn't notice it, and I would be insanely grateful if you could give me more precise targeting.

About the alpha mode - as I mentioned above in my second post, I tried various options including opaque, unfortunately it didn't work for me

OK then flip your normals and rotate your polygon 360°.

Unfortunately, that didn't work either. I made a simple poly, assigned a material, then applied the "normal" modifier with the "flip normal" checkbox, then as you advised - rotated it 360, but that only made it disappear

 

[=rk=]

Yes, I might have been thinking of the creating WASM gauges section, which in turn defers to the Gauge Aircraft tutorial and if reversing your polygon made it invisible, it is probably properly oriented before doing that then.

For the flickering material, something is going wrong for you that we are only understanding through your eyes. To me it strongly looks like the alpha mode is to blame. It's largely a guess because I've never seen this exact circumstance. You comment that you have tried multiple versions, are you confident that your testing procedure is correct? Is it possible you started with alpha blend mode set to mask and then believed yourself to be using a different mode without fully replacing the previous version?

 

[Anthony31]

I think at this point you need to upload your .gltf and .bin model

We're really just stabbing in the dark here.

Are you absolutely 100% certain that you're not duplicating your models? What does your model.cfg look like? If you're exporting the same polygon in the exterior and interior models (or you are using the same model as the interior and exterior) then you will have two screens in the same place (which is exactly what it looks like in the gif). VC textures do not draw in the exterior model so you would get flickering between an untextured poly and one that is.

BTW, Here is what the texture definition in my gltf looks like:

        {
            "emissiveFactor" : [
                1,
                1,
                1
            ],
            "extras" : {
                "msfs_detail_color_texture" : {},
                "msfs_detail_normal_texture" : {},
                "msfs_detail_occlusion_metallic_roughness_texture" : {},
                "msfs_blend_mask_texture" : {}
            },
            "name" : "$SCREEN_3",
            "pbrMetallicRoughness" : {
                "baseColorFactor" : [
                    0.800000011920929,
                    0.800000011920929,
                    0.800000011920929,
                    1
                ],
                "metallicFactor" : 0,
                "roughnessFactor" : 0.5
            }
        },

As you can see, it's as simple as it could ever be.

 

[Nick_D]

I think at this point you need to upload your .gltf and .bin model

We're really just stabbing in the dark here.

Are you absolutely 100% certain that you're not duplicating your models? What does your model.cfg look like? If you're exporting the same polygon in the exterior and interior models (or you are using the same model as the interior and exterior) then you will have two screens in the same place (which is exactly what it looks like in the gif). VC textures do not draw in the exterior model so you would get flickering between an untextured poly and one that is.

BTW, Here is what the texture definition in my gltf looks like:


As you can see, it's as simple as it could ever be.

Jesus christ... sir, you are my lifesaver!
I had so convinced myself that there was a problem with the material that I completely forgot to exhale and look around
You are right, I did make a stupid, childish mistake and use the exterior model as the cockpit model in model.cfg
God, what a shame...

Thank you so much, and thank you so much Mr. =rk= for your help, I don't know what I would have done without you.

 

[=rk=]

Well now we know how to make a nicely flickering display.