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Adding Bump (Normal) Maps and Reflectivity to uneditable aircraft

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blazer003

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us-oregon
First of all, I apologize if this is a dumb question, but I did search multiple forums and couldn't find the answer, so I'm breaking my own rule and starting right off on this forum with a question.

I downloaded the OMF-Symphony from Abacus as I was preparing to purchase a real one. As soon as I purchased the real plane, I had to recreate it's paint scheme in FSX. I re textured the diffuse map, no problem, but the original model/textures lacked details like bump mapping, or specularity. It looks very FS2002-04 ish.

I haven't done a whole lot of texturing work in FS, but I'm a CG 3d animation artist (using Blender) and definitely know my way around 3d and texturing and what not.

So here's what happened:

First of all I edited the original BMP texture and made it into a same named DDS file (Symphony_2.dds) and moved the BMP out of the directory. I tested it, and sure enough, FSX loaded the new texture (I was pretty surprised by this as they are different filetypes and have different extensions).

Next I added an alpha channel to the diffuse map and loaded it up in FSX. This was my first issue. The alpha channel acted like, well, an alpha channel. The plane was transparent in places with a white alpha channel instead of reflective (or maybe vise versa, I can't remember). i went back tot he original without the Alpha Channel and moved on.

Next I created a bump map, named it Symphony_2_T_Bump.dds. I followed the tutorial for creating the normal map and it came out as it should.

I went back into FSX and loaded up the plane, and I'm 99% sure it had no effect on the normal mapping of the airplane (I did some extreme maps with full contrast bumps just to see if I could see it on the model, and I couldn't.)

I got to reading more tutorials and found that there are settings for whether the diffuse alpha channel effect reflectivity, and also what the model uses as a bump map. The tutorial made it sound like you could just name it xxx_T_Bump.dds and the game would automatically know to use it, but it appears that's not the case.

So, the questions are:

Is there something I'm missing? Should this be working, or is this common among models that haven't had Reflectivity and Normal mapping set up?

Is there are a way to set it up to read these textures correctly if it is normal that they aren't working when it is a paid model like it is?

Thanks for you help.
 
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Sorry, but you cannot simply add _spec, _bump, etc. files to an already compiled model.

These "texture names" and several other parameters must be added to the model's material definitions during the design process.

If the Symphony is a true FSX model, there should be two .mdl files in the ..\model folder.

If that is the case, then it may be possible to use ModelConverterX to accomplish your goal, at least for your own private use.

I have admired the Symphony for several years and was deeply distressed when the company collapsed... :o
 
Thanks for your quick response. That's what I was afraid of. Too bad. Maybe I'll contact Abacus and be like, "I made better textures for the Symphony, care to add them to the model?"

As for the plane, yeah, the company's closing was the only hesitation I had with buying it, but I got it for a bargain, and the Glastar kit plane is so similar that I've read that many parts you can just order from them.

28725_731212297646_11506288_41084751_1476056_n.jpg


Here's a picture of it. Yes, I'm kind of proud of it.
 
Hi,

I am afraid ModelConverterX will not really help here, as when editing aircraft files you will loose most of the animations in them.
 
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