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Accidental transparency

M

markself

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32
Country
us-california
In working with hardened surfaces (Following Adam Howe's blog) I was able to create a building with a helipad opn top. Worked perfect! Then i got ambitious. I wanted to creat3e a very thin helipad that I could drop anywhare I wanted. Created a box 100x100x2 feet. Assigned the helipad texture to the top of the box. Looked great in FSDS. placed a 100x100 foot poly (platform_CONCRETE_0)just below the surface of the helipad. Made sure the crash detect was turned off. Created the .MDL and the _PL.XML files. Went to the location in FGS (Just off the runway at KSEA). The box is there the hardened surface is there, but the helipad texture is missing and it is totally transparent. You see the sides of the box. You can land on top of the box on the hardened surface but it's as if the top of the box is made of glass!

Help please.
 
In FSDS - go into polygon mode and check to see if that "roofpad" polygon is there on your box. If it is, make sure that its normal is pointing UP.

On first reading, it sounds that either that top polygon got "flipped" or, you made your concrete surface from splitting the top polygon, wich removes it from the top of the "box".

remember, the attachpoint hard surface polygon does NOT get generated!


*MY* way is to make a copy of the box, delete all but the "hard" polygons (in this case, the rooftop) and make that the attachpoint part. Since the geometry is not actually generated, this part does not need to be textured, and can be located with the top polygon of the "box" - you do not need to move it slightly below.
 
Thanks Felix for your quick reply

FelixFFDS said:
In FSDS - go into polygon mode and check to see if that "roofpad" polygon is there on your box. If it is, make sure that its normal is pointing UP.
Click to expand...

Yes it's there and facing up.

On first reading, it sounds that either that top polygon got "flipped" or, you made your concrete surface from splitting the top polygon, wich removes it from the top of the "box".
Click to expand...

I didn't do it this way.

remember, the attachpoint hard surface polygon does NOT get generated!
Click to expand...


*MY* way is to make a copy of the box, delete all but the "hard" polygons (in this case, the rooftop) and make that the attachpoint part. Since the geometry is not actually generated, this part does not need to be textured, and can be located with the top polygon of the "box" - you do not need to move it slightly below.
Click to expand...

This is the exact way I made the model. That's why it is so confusing. I tired the model with different textures and different sizes. Same thing.

My textures are 8 bit .BMPs that have worked on previous models. The textures are in the correct directory. I made several hardened objects using your methosd and all of a sudden it quit working.
 
Here's the .ZIP file

FelixFSDS:
This .ZIP file (Accidental Transparency.zip) includes the .FSC project file along with the .XML, .MDL, .BGL, .BMP and a screenie .JPG file. As you can see from the screenie the Hardened SDurface is working fine.
Thanks for taking a look.

MarkSelf
 

Attachments

Curiousier and more curiousier

FelixFSDS:
I went back and folowed Adam's tutorial.

1. Made a 50x50x100 box.
2. Named it "HeliBuilding".
3. Cloned it.
4. Selected the clone.
5. Went to point mode
6. Deleted the bottom 4 points
7. Scaled the resulting plne down just slightly
8. Named the resulting plane "platform_CONCRETE_0"
10. Selected the original box.
11. Went into texture mode.
12. Applied the "Helo2.bmp" from the FSX Texture directory
13. Made the .MDL file
14. IT WORKED!

Don't understand this at all My texture "HoverCircle_Cement.bmp" is a 512x512 8 bit RGB file.
"Helo2.bmp" is an 256x256 8 bit RGB file. Apparently that's the only difference that I can find.

Doesn't FSDS support up to 1,024x1,024 textures?

VERY, VERY FRUSTRATING!
 
Last edited:
Me blushing

:DWell, I got it.:D
I went back and looked at my texture closer. Tuirns out it was in 24 bit format instead of the 32 bit format that it should be. I changed it to 32 bit format and VOILA, it works.

:confused:Sorry for bothereing with such a simple problem. I don't know how it became saved in 24 bit .bmp format.:confused:
 
markself said:
:DWell, I got it.:D
I went back and looked at my texture closer. Tuirns out it was in 24 bit format instead of the 32 bit format that it should be. I changed it to 32 bit format and VOILA, it works.

:confused:Sorry for bothereing with such a simple problem. I don't know how it became saved in 24 bit .bmp format.:confused:
Click to expand...

Congratulations - you are now on your first steps to become an "expert". You cannot become an expert until you've made (and admitted to) such oversights/mistakes. Saving as a 24-bit image is one of the easiest to make, especially when most paint program default to the 24-bit!
 
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