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FSX Shadow does not show on the bridge.

jtanabodee

Resource contributor
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thailand
Hi,
I am making the bridge of taxiway over the tunnel in Beijing. I have the model successfully but what irritates me is the shadow of the airplane is missing. When we do ground poly by FSX material (not FS2002 ground poly wizard), we can see the shadow over it. I have tried export just the surface of the bridge but the shadow of the airplane is still missing.
Do you have any trick to get back the shadow on the bridge?

Tunnel4.jpg
 
Hi Tic:

If your bridge has a "Platform" as an object 'attached' to a MDL, perhaps this might be an issue: :idea:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=Making_a_landable_platform_with_GMax

"NOTE 2: if you don't see any shadow of the heli, adjust (raise) a little bit the location/height of the platform."



Also, as you may already know, the RefPoint position for 3D objects when "placed" via BGLComp with a large offset distance relative to the Cartesian coordinate "Origin of Axes" or central 'datum' for the overall 3D model (X,Y,Z = 0,0,0) ...may affect FS run time display:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/mcx-ground-poly-shadow-problem-fsx.429523/


And of course, vertex coordinate sequence (aka "winding" direction) used to 3D model a 'Direct Draw Surface' (whether a legacy format FS2Kx or MDL-based 3D object, or a terrain object) might sometimes affect the FS run time rendering engine ability to display shadows on such surfaces:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/excluding-water-polys-and-shorelines.86578/

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc526973.aspx


NOTE
: NW>NE>SE>SW = 'clockwise' -or- NW>SW>SE>NE = 'counter-clockwise'


See also: Don Grovestine's documentation for the latest ADEv1.7x GP_Editor ...regarding vertex "winding" (how a polygon is "wound")

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/forums/airport-design-editor.95/


AFAIK, ModelConverterX converts 3D coordinate system "winding sequence" of imported SCASM / ASM files, MDLs and *.X-files 'correctly'.

But I am not familiar with whether 'all' the FS SDK compilers do convert 3D coordinates correctly (OK... I'll speculate that "probably" they do ? :scratchch)


Hope these considerations might help ! :)

GaryGB
 
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Thanks for your reply, GaryGB.
1. The platform problem is not the issue since I do not use platform. The airplane is running on the AFCAD taxiway which there is a over layer of AFCAD for the tunnel to make a pit and I make Gmax model to cover that pit as this thread. http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/tunnel-under-taxiway.427049/
2. The reference point is not applicable since it is near the center of the object. But I will check on that again.
3. For counter-clock-wise issue. I don't think it is. But I am not quite understand this issue. It happen on exclusion that draw counter clockwise, isn't it?
4. MCX might be the problem? I don't know how to fix that.
 
I got it!
It seems to be an aircraft issue.
I changed the airplane to be some of AI and I think it is the model from FS2004. It casts no shadow.
When I used default aircraft, the problem went away.
 
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Here they are;

Thai Livery from the default 747. The shadow is on the bridge.

Shadow5.jpg


Airbus A321 default livery, shadow is there.

Shadow4.jpg

AI aircraft, Shanghai Airline livery, there is no shadow.

Shadow1.jpg


Ok, go on with other things in the airport. There are lots of things to do.
 
Are the FSX aircraft operating as an AI aircraft? It might be flyable vs AI?
 
Are the FSX aircraft operating as an AI aircraft? It might be flyable vs AI?
Yes, they are flyable but the flight dynamic may not as good as the user airplanes. I used it because I have no livery of China Airline for the user airplane.
 
http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/shadow-does-not-show-on-the-bridge.438369/#post-754995

3. For counter-clock-wise issue. I don't think it is. But I am not quite understand(ing) this issue. It happen on exclusion that draw counter clockwise, isn't it?

4. MCX might be the problem? I don't know how to fix that.

Hi Tic:

Glad to see you got the anomalous aircraft ground shadow display sorted out. :cool:


Regarding the required vertex coordinate draw sequence / winding direction to define "Front" surfaces (...so that they should not be "culled" as a "Back" surface) via the DirectX rendering subsystem underlying most 3D model graphic rendering in Windows simulations including FS, the Windows DirectX-9 documentation confirms that one should draw them in a clock-wise order. :pushpin:

Thus, if one purposely wishes to prevent "normal" rendering of a texture image mapped onto a 3D model, one draws that surface in a counter-clockwise vertex winding direction; this MSDN Direct3D-9 document explains that particular option: :teacher:

"Culling State (Direct3D 9)

To improve rendering performance, you can cull out (or remove) a primitive that faces away from the camera. For single-sided primitives, this saves rendering time because a back-face is not visible. To enable culling, you need to know the winding order of the vertices (typically counter-clockwise). This example will remove any primitive whose back face is facing forward (given a counter-clockwise winding order)
"

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb204882(v=vs.85).aspx



PS: Whereas Sketchup by default automatically creates 2-sided (Front and Back) faces and applies a default White material to the 'Front' face, and a light Blue to the 'Back' face, IIRC, in 3DSMAX / GMAX one must manually create any 'Back' faces.

I'm not certain yet as to what Blender does in this regard.


However, IIUC (as a non-user of either 3DSMAX / GMAX), one can still draw vertices for a face in either a clock-wise or counter-clockwise direction.

I am not sure whether 3DSMAX / GMAX provides any visual clues as to such a "winding direction" for faces in a single-sided 3D model (such as is otherwise provided automatically by Sketchup).

But AFAIK, 3D models which have such surface geometry (whether texture-mapped or not), will have the clock-wise or counter-clockwise direction of vertex coordinate sequence preserved by the native export to any file format, and via the FS SDK compilers (and AFAIK, this is also the case when they are imported and then subsequently re-exported by MCX).


So, we must all be aware of how we sequence vertex coordinates when drawing our 3D models, as our 3D geometry will have the clock-wise or counter-clockwise winding direction preserved ...with a subsequent impact on the resulting run time render by Windows' DirectX sub-system. ;)


And of course this same Caveat- to be aware of how we sequence vertex coordinates- also applies to our work-flow when creating poly-line and polygon scenery content for FS. :alert:


Hope this helps to explain how '3D vertex coordinate winding direction' works in FS via DirectX. :)

GaryGB
 
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