MSFS20 Draw order issue related to NORMAL format?

[Deltasierra2004]

Good day, I wonder if someone can help me. I'm refurbishing an airport I created in GMax for FSX and bringing into MSFS. It's been going great - until I created and introduced NORMALs. Referring to the attached screenshots, you can see how there is no longer any order to the drawing of the objects. Well, not all. Some are displaying correctly. Anywhere where there is a transparency seems affected. I used Nvidia Texture Tools Exporter Standalone to create BC5u/2D texture/normal map/tangent space format/ Normal textures. They produced the purple 8bit textures, I upped that to 16bit in Gimp and resaved them to PNG. Can someone show me where I went wrong, and suggest a fix? To note, when I don't include the new normal files in the project's texture folder, everything is correctly displayed, so it's somewhere in the creation of these new files, I'm thinking.. I attached a copy of one. Thanks.

 

[=rk=]

If you are doing the conversion using MCX, it will automatically flag your texture as "blend," if there is any level of transparency in the albedo texture. When a "skin" texture is transparent, everything behind it, superimposes in front of it which resembles a change in draw order. Normal maps have no relation to drawing order whatsoever, but adding them exposes transparent textures to the filter, if you use MCX.

 

[WorldSky]

Good day, I wonder if someone can help me. I'm refurbishing an airport I created in GMax for FSX and bringing into MSFS. It's been going great - until I created and introduced NORMALs. Referring to the attached screenshots, you can see how there is no longer any order to the drawing of the objects. Well, not all. Some are displaying correctly. Anywhere where there is a transparency seems affected. I used Nvidia Texture Tools Exporter Standalone to create BC5u/2D texture/normal map/tangent space format/ Normal textures. They produced the purple 8bit textures, I upped that to 16bit in Gimp and resaved them to PNG. Can someone show me where I went wrong, and suggest a fix? To note, when I don't include the new normal files in the project's texture folder, everything is correctly displayed, so it's somewhere in the creation of these new files, I'm thinking.. I attached a copy of one. Thanks.View attachment 86540 View attachment 86539

MSFS20 - [ SOLVED ] The Problem of a Transparent Texture in Front of Another Transparent Texture

Hi, I'm trying to change the p3d scenery to msfs2020 using modelconverterx, but the problem occurs when I convert the terminal, you can see the terminal glass with transparent texture inside the terminal looks translucent, and it's not pleasing to the eye. what is the solution?

www.fsdeveloper.com

try it

 

[Deltasierra2004]

MSFS20 - [ SOLVED ] The Problem of a Transparent Texture in Front of Another Transparent Texture

Hi, I'm trying to change the p3d scenery to msfs2020 using modelconverterx, but the problem occurs when I convert the terminal, you can see the terminal glass with transparent texture inside the terminal looks translucent, and it's not pleasing to the eye. what is the solution?

www.fsdeveloper.com

try it

Looking for the Frame Buffer Blend/ Source Blend settings. Don't see them.

 

[=rk=]

"Frame Buffer Blend" and "Source Blend" setting are not supported by MSFS, that is why the do not appear on the MSFS specific attributes panel. All he has done, is switch the alpha transparency mode from "blend" to "dither," which removes any blending, obviously. The texture will still render with transparent areas, but there is no "fade" with dither, so it can work for coarse transparencies like wire fences.

If your model is the airplane over the dias and the texture incorporates the transparent glass, you are unable to escape the transparent texture issue. I recommend polygon color for glass to simplify this situation, otherwise, you will need to export both parts separately, glass and fuselage, even though they are the same texture. In MCX you will designate one of the textures as a glass material, transparent, and the other, solid and opaque. This adds a draw call, but it is the about the only way to have opaque and transparent in hte same texture. Otherwise, you'd have to create and implement a blend mask.

 

[Deltasierra2004]

"Frame Buffer Blend" and "Source Blend" setting are not supported by MSFS, that is why the do not appear on the MSFS specific attributes panel. All he has done, is switch the alpha transparency mode from "blend" to "dither," which removes any blending, obviously. The texture will still render with transparent areas, but there is no "fade" with dither, so it can work for coarse transparencies like wire fences.

If your model is the airplane over the dias and the texture incorporates the transparent glass, you are unable to escape the transparent texture issue. I recommend polygon color for glass to simplify this situation, otherwise, you will need to export both parts separately, glass and fuselage, even though they are the same texture. In MCX you will designate one of the textures as a glass material, transparent, and the other, solid and opaque. This adds a draw call, but it is the about the only way to have opaque and transparent in hte same texture. Otherwise, you'd have to create and implement a blend mask.

Thanks for the useful info, very much appreciated.