• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Creating trees in Gmax

Mick

Mick

Messages
116
I've made some trees for MSFS2004 in Gmax - crisscrossed flat polygons, transparency mapped with tree textures. When I get them into the sim, I'm getting a wierd fringe-ing effect in the areas where the transparency and opacity meet (even though my textures are set up correctly, with registered alpha channels). My trees are also affected by the scene lighting, causing them to look washed out; whereas the default FS2004 trees look self-illuminated (no shadow areas).

Does anyone know how to set up a tree for MSFS2004 in Gmax?
________
Find Headshop
 
Last edited:
Hi Mick,

I have no idea what you mean with the transparancy problem, maybe you can post a picture of that?

About the lighting. Objects made in GMax indeed have a different lighting than autogen trees (or I guess you can better say that autogen trees don't have to lighting of other 3D objects). By tweaking the normals of the polygon you can get the lighting rather similar to the autogen trees, but completely the same is very hard. As the autogen trees are hardcoded in the scenery engine and not library objects like the objects you make in GMax.

This thread discusses the problem:
http://www.scenerydesign.org/forum/showthread.php?t=519

For the latest version of my ag_tree_lib, I have set the normals to 0.0 1.0 0.0, which means they point upwards. And that seems to work rather well.
 
Hi Arno,

Here's a link to the work in progress:

http://www.mickposch.com/Flight_Sim/Whitmore.jpg

We're looking at a the landing pad at Whitmore Wash - at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It's basically a pile of sand - which is a single, seamless object - plus some rocks, and trees/shrubs made of 2 crisscrossed polys each.

You can see the weird fringe effect around some of the shrubs - what's happening in those light areas is that we're seeing right through the sand pile object. The really weird thing is that this fringe occurs only when the poly is in front of another tree shrub poly, or the sand object. It doesn't happen when the poly is in front of default MSFS scenery - and, oddly enough, it doesn't happen when it's in front of my own rock objects. (Not sure why it would behave differently in front of the rocks than the sand - they're built in a similar way.)

You can also see from the picture that the trees are dark and washed out. Could you elaborate on the process of editing the normals? There doesn't seem to be a way to do it within Gmax.

Thanks!
________
LIVE SEX WEBSHOWS
 
Last edited:
Hi Mick,

The transparancy problem looks like an alpha channel to me, that is just a little bit too small. Therefore you have one pixel around the tree that is not fully transparant.

About the normal, yes I can give you a hand there. Just post some code example here (or mail them to me).
 
Hi Arno,

The problem isn't the alpha channel, it's fine - there's something else weird going on here. You can actually see right thru the sand object in those fringe areas (but not thru the rock objects). It's hard to see what's going on from the still - it's easier to spot the problem when you're in the sim and moving.

As far as editing the normals is concerned, I'm not sure what kind of code you'd want me to send - I'm just creating in Gmax, exporting as mdl/xml, then using BGLcomp to make the bgl.

If you'd like to take a look at the current version it would be great - maybe you can tell what's happening. I'm going to send you a link via email.

Thanks!
________
Ocean View Condos Prathumnak
 
Last edited:
Trees

Hi all!!...i have the same effect in my trees...i think that is the alpha channel...the best way to reduce it is that when you copy the figure in Photoshop for create the alpha channel...you can modify it with brightness/contrast function for do a sharp figure that might be the same that you have for the original tree...if you use blur tool on alpha channel...you can realize that the transparent area of the trees is bigger...and also, if you make mip maps in imagetool...i've discover that no using mip maps gives a better look of this thing when you are far away from the object.

Hope this can help...

:wave:
 
Hi,

The problem Mick had with the borders was solved by using DXT1 instead of DXT3 textures. This is because when you used DXT1 textures the drawing order is done correctly by FS (everything was in one big scene, so the RefPoint of the different objects could not be used for the drawing order).
 
That's right...using DXT1 fixed those edge artifacts (thanks, Arno!)

The only down side is that you can't have antialiasing with DXT1.
Hopefully in future versions of FS they'll make transparency mapping easier.
________
Live Sex Webshows
 
Last edited:
Hi Mick,

Another option might be to not have everything in one scene. If you place each objects (tree for example) seperately their RefPoint is used to determine the drawing order. I think in that case it should also work fine with DXT3 textures applied.

The code generated by MakeMDL is more efficient for single objects, not for total scenes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top