face me person (material) doesnt show up through window ???

[AndyCYXU]

so i was going to make some of my own face me people because the ones from SU Warehouse are pretty complex for some reason and i don't care about the shadow.

so i made a simple rectangle put a png of a guy on it but now when i look through window which is another in this case a PSD file texture with Alpha channels i cannot see him what the heck

I though maybe SU was being wierd buy when imported to MCX it was the same

Difference is the downloaded guy has 900 triangles and 900 texture vertices mine has 8 and 10 respectively... BIG DIFFERENCE ! if i wanted to put a lot of them (all different of course lol)

well most of the ones I downloaded are 300 to 500 triangles/vertices still a lot compared to 8 and 10

only thing they are done the way that's explained in most tutorials on making "face me" people and they are not transparent textures..

so my guy I made the background of him transparent and saved it as PNG.. there gotta be something to do with transparent textures not showing though other transparent textures?
idk

any suggestions?

there he is.. mine is on the right..

and now he is gone


Thanks
Andy

 

[GaryGB]

Hi Andy:

PNG transparency can be implemented in more than 1 way.

I would suggest initially using TIF with an Alpha channel for transparency textures, and texture the windows using a default Sketchup "Translucent" material while learning these various methods which utilize transparency.

In MCX, be sure to assign Material Editor properties for the transparent textures by using the "Set Default Transparent" feature.

Hope this helps!

GaryGB

 

[AndyCYXU]

So basically instead of my window texture use one that comes default with SU and then make my guy TIF with Alpha instead of PNG.. I will give it a shot tomorrow..
Thanks
Andy

 

[=rk=]

Actually SketchUp and MCX work together to provide a very powerful interface for editing textures on the fly with multiple layers of transparencies if desired! This is something that I am just working out, however the important concept is that both SU and MCX support multiple layer PSD format textures - the possibilities are phenomenal. Consider that you make a model and you map textures to it. How hard is this? I can tell you in a sentence; you switch to parallel projection camera view, take screen shots of front, back, top, left and right, layer these into a photoshop image, save this (keep PS open), import the saved .psd into SU and map each portion of the image onto your model. Now you have an editable skin for your model, doesn't look quite right in SU? SU won't export (for edit) .psd format, but you can make the changes in Photoshop, save it and re-import that same texture into SU to see your changes. Want dirt? Add a layer and paint it on, save it import to SU and voila, a dirty model.
I know back to on topic, sorry to gush. So you want some clear areas, let's say you have some windows and a few colored lights. Find your windows in Photoshop and outline them and cut them out and paste in place as yet another layer. Set this transparency to something low, maybe 20 on the scale. Then outline them again and switch to the background layer and cut that section out. For your colored lights, do the same procedure, but maybe set the transparency to 50%.
Ok export your model and switch to MCX and you can dial in the transparencies by using the set default transparent feature and export to .dds no problem. Wait, you want a night texture, PS is still open, right? Add, you guessed it, another layer and use the paint bucket to make it fully black, adjust the opacity to 90/95%. Make that layer invisible and find your colored lights or anything you want bright, outline them, switch back to the dark layer and cut those sections out. If you want light wash, use the eraser tool to softly erase the dark layer in a pattern away from the light sources. There are free Photoshop brushes available that make this erasure perfectly, they are worth finding. When you are done, save this version with a "_LM" suffix, like "texture_LM.psd". Go back to MCX and from the drop down select "Add Night Texture;" you are set with a day and night texture. Save to DDS, or whatever your format (I only know that the transparencies are supported in DDS) and your model is ready to export.
Bear in mind that the whole idea of "alpha channels" is only that. Arno has given us powerful software with which to create and this is one of the ways that creativity can be expressed.
Try that technique for your face me people, which I don't think really translates to a MSFS model. I know you can set an effect to face only the viewer and you can have an effect emit models, however I do not know of a way to have a single plane model face only the viewer, I do not believe it is possible.

 

[AndyCYXU]

That is a wealth of information thanks you. I will check all this out.

as for face-me people you are correct they don't really work inside the sim, i just chose them cause they are persons cut out with no background and simply placed them inside terminal building, so say when you pull up to gate with an airplane you see some people inside the terminal looks nice and populated.

what i didn't know until I inspected the model in MCX is just how many triangles/texture-vertices they use on average over 400/400 for each that's a lot of unnecessary burden on the hardware. hence I came up with my own guy that uses 8/10

They all look very nice in the sim behind the glass.. except for my guy, whom you cannot see though the glass, only if you go inside the terminal say with the P3D Avatar or whatever SLEW the aircraft inside then you can see him.

I tried what @GaryGB suggested used glass from glass menu of SU instead and the guy is visible now, the only thing the glass doesn't seem to affect his color, meaning other object behind the glass are tinted green (the glass is green) but not this guy he has full colors.

 

[GaryGB]

Hi Andy:

You may wish to compare Material display attribute settings for your 'face-me' person with 'other' objects inside the terminal by analyzing them in the MCX Material Editor right window pane.


BTW: You may wish to use the MCX development version 1.4x or later so that the "material template feature" is available to save and test various 'material display attribute' presets on different objects:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/material-presets.334683/

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/th...save-properties-fsx-specific-settings.433879/

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=ModelConverterX#Material_editor



PS: The work-flow described by Rick above offers interesting capabilities for editing 3D-mapped texture image files while working with the 3D model inside MCX.

Sketchup (like most other 3D modeling applications) also has the option of editing 3D-mapped texture image files while working with the 3D model inside Sketchup itself:

Sketchup Menu > Window > Preferences > Applications > Default Image Editor > (Browse and select executable for one's graphic raster image editor of choice)

Sketchup work-space > select textured face > right-click > Texture > Edit Texture Image... > (edit texture image as desired; save as same original texture type without any size change to overall image pixel height or width; if using a JPEG, set for NO compression)


A very nice 'worked example' of the editing process for textures (even if already mapped onto a 3D model) ...was presented by Bill Womack (aka "Spotlope") in this video:

[EDITED]

< Link edited to correct URL >

NOTE: In addition to PhotoShop, one can also edit 3D-mapped textures using other graphics applications that support layers (aka "channels" and/or "objects") as well as Alpha channels ...such as Gimp, Corel PhotoPaint or PaintShop Pro, etc.)


Hope this helps a bit more with the learning process !

GaryGB

 

[AndyCYXU]

I do often edit textures right from within sketchup as you explained and I use Photoshop as well.

Only problem is when my original texture for that material is PSD, when SU opens it via Photoshop, it automatically changes it to JPG. Like in case of my window its a PSD file and it has some Aplha channels that I do not want to loose so this I would edit manually then reapply, it doesn't do that with PNG and JPG files so these are nice to edit this way.

As for MCX, many of the options in MCX I am getting quite used to and actually begin to understand so I did switch to the newest and hottest development release. the older one (1.3 I think) never actually worked for me, but until recently I was using Dev Release from back in December, was to scared to change main options in newly released Dev version .

Going back to my guy Lo and Behold! He is Back and visible through either glass ! LOL

as you suggested I used the MCX material editor properties to compare it to textures of other people and they were the same
EXCEPT:

Mine had Alpha Test set at Greater / 4 / True other Never / 0 / False
(to be hones I don't know what most of it means even though its explained LOL other then, well I need Alpha enabled)
There was another thing that was the key
Framebuffer Blend for mine was Destination=InvSrcAplha/Blend=SrcAlpha
for the other
Destination=Zero/Blend=One
I changed that to Zero and One on my guy and poof he appeared behind my glass as well as the one used from SU. Once converted and placed in the sim he was there and again visible through both types of window.



Top 5 panels are my window, (working to get some reflection on the glass that's why it looks fuzzy) the bottom 3 panels are SU glass and I it did not get any reflection ... maybe because it doesn't have alpha channel i am guessing it's needed in the Special Functionality and all them Blend diffuse by inverse blah blah blah ... don't mean it as disrespectful comment just again a lot of these things to are like foreign language to me.

....as you said a learning process....

when I first got into this I didn't know words such as diffuse and specular existed !
...but I am not the only one... looks like spell checker is underlining specular for me

Last thing; The guy still doesn't show up in SU behind the glass but that I couldn't care less about, as long as it can be edited in MCX to show and then it works in the SIM it's all I need !

It would be interesting if it can be done in Photoshop or in SU where these Framebuffer Blends are set as Destination=Zero/Blend=One right from the start, for now I am happy to settle for compromise and fix it up once in MCX.

For what it's worth I will be able to cut down nearly 5000 triangles and another 5000 texture vertices by replacing them with my own made people .

PS: BTW very good video well explained some neat tricks for working it Photoshop to which I am fairly new as well.

OK, Thanks for your help guys. Time to go get some selfies and place yours truly inside the terminal .

Andy

 

[AndyCYXU]

This is something that I am just working out, however the important concept is that both SU and MCX support multiple layer PSD format textures - the possibilities are phenomenal. Consider that you make a model and you map textures to it. How hard is this? I can tell you in a sentence; you switch to parallel projection camera view, take screen shots of front, back, top, left and right, layer these into a photoshop image, save this (keep PS open), import the saved .psd into SU and map each portion of the image onto your model. Now you have an editable skin for your model, doesn't look quite right in SU? SU won't export (for edit) .psd format, but you can make the changes in Photoshop, save it and re-import that same texture into SU to see your changes. Want dirt? Add a layer and paint it on, save it import to SU and voila, a dirty model.

Took me 24 hours and reading your post several times BUT !!!!

That is an ingenious idea !!! I have my roof at the terminal as several smaller textures. the biggest one is 500x500 or so I will look into it, now I can just make a big skin just like that!



it should work very well for walls as well! even better! All of my walls are tiled texture and if I edit it, it will not look good, since well.. they tile; I found a very nice seamless tile texture for wall "stucco" but again cannot edit it then it would not work.
However taking a screen shot then do some work to it in PS then use it as new texture back in SU.

very cool tip, now that I finally got it, silly me LOL !

Thanks !

 

[=rk=]

Nice, also:

I do often edit textures right from within sketchup as you explained and I use Photoshop as well.

Only problem is when my original texture for that material is PSD, when SU opens it via Photoshop, it automatically changes it to JPG. Like in case of my window its a PSD file and it has some Aplha channels that I do not want to loose so this I would edit manually then reapply, it doesn't do that with PNG and JPG files so these are nice to edit this way.

There is no real problem.

Now you have an editable skin for your model, doesn't look quite right in SU? SU won't export (for edit) .psd format, but you can make the changes in Photoshop, save it and re-import that same texture into SU to see your changes. Want dirt? Add a layer and paint it on, save it import to SU and voila, a dirty model.

This operation supports all distinct layers, meaning you can fine tune your transparencies, colors, shadows, whatever; no concern about alpha channels.

 

[GaryGB]

Hi Andy:

I "re-discovered" this previous thread pertinent to making / displaying fully-functional "Face-Me" or "Rotate-To-Camera" objects in FSX as Effects, while I was researching answers for another inquiry here at FSDeveloper:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/people-as-effects-problem.432696/


BTW: In such a 2-sided object as was the original basis for your "Face-Me person object", by use of Sketchup's "Combine Textures" feature, your vertex count should be further minimized.

This can be tested / practiced easily using the default textured "person object" in a new Sketchup project, as that person uses multiple textured 'co-planar' faces, and those multiple texture mappings can be consolidated into a single texture via the cited "Combine Textures" feature, effectively minimizing texture 'draw calls' onto the same texture sheet.


CAVEAT: Sketchup's "Combine Textures" feature is only available for use when adjacent textured faces are all in the same exact plane (aka 'co-planar'), such as in the above flat 2-sided object that was the original basis for your "Face-Me person object" (aka a 2-sided "sprite"):

http://www.icoachmath.com/math_dictionary/coplanar.html


http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=24143

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=21914

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=21847

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=63974


PS: Because 1 of the 2 faces to be combined must be 'unique' for the "Combine Textures" feature to be available for use, initial use of either the Sketchup default "Make Unique Texture" or Aerilius' "Make Unique Texture ++" plugin Ruby script may be required on 1 of the 2 adjacent faces:

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=41441


NOTE: After "Combine Textures" has been used with 'unique' 3D-mapped textures, one may wish to "Purge" left-over un-used textures from the 3D model.

GaryGB

 

[AndyCYXU]

Hi Gary, Thanks for the great tip on combining textures in SU!

I didn't know I could do that lol, kind of works like minimizing draw-calls in a way....
my roof was originally composed of 14 textures I was able to combine 10 of them.... now 10 less of night textures as well; not bad... kinda similar to what Rick was suggesting but don't need to take screen shot SU will do it for you,
Combine texture works only with the ones on that are facing the same way though, but that's ok for what i need at the moment
I was having some problems with MCX textures that it made after doing draw call "minimize" option, but it could have been my fault will try again... as i did draw call minimizing after assigning night textures and it mixed them all together then in the sim during the day i had some night, some day textures display for different faces... next time I will try to do draw call minimize with day textures only (this always worked well); then I will edit these to night textures... will need to work on that cause without it I am at 161 at the moment for terminal alone including nights.. but that another story definitely learning of combine texture will help.


as for my "face-me" people, I was able to make them all on only 1 texture sheet.. i put them all including myself together on one texture sheet then simply applied different parts of it to various vertical rectangles I made throughout terminal where i wanted them to be.

you are correct however, there were some "face-me' people that I downloaded and they were composed of many textures (colors in many cases) where indeed using combine texture feature would have helped.

also my original intention wasn't for them to face the camera, just they are called "face-me" so that's what i described them as .

I read the other topic you linked to and it seems the other developer was making a crew kind of people outside where in fact to have them face user at all times would be beneficial and would look nice, not so important in my case...either way it is great to learn that it is possible using an effect !

Andy