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FSXA Fiction Control Tower from Texture Baking

jtanabodee

jtanabodee

Resource contributor
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thailand
Hi,
Texture baking is something that I'd like to do for a long time.

I did a project for texture baking tutorial. I have done a control tower with texture baking in 3dmax9. I wish I could do in Blender but the interface is quite difficult to master and I got 3dmax9 from a friend.
This is a fiction tower in gmax after import from 3dmax.

TowerComplete.jpg


TowerComplete03.jpg


You can see the detail of shadow even on the rail.
TowerComplete04.jpg


The detail inside.
TowerComplete02.jpg


All the texture I used before texture baking were from 3dmax library.
It is fun. Then I came up with a Tutorial in Thai.
And here is tutorial in English:http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/downloads.php?do=file&id=103
Please feel free to comments, any advices are welcome.

Regards,
Tic
 
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It's a nice tower, but there's only one fault...

How do they get up there? :confused:
 
Actually there is a door behind and stairs inside the brick wall.
Just for fun, it is not real though.
 
It's nice to have an entire thread dedicated to answering my question... :o
 
Unfortunately, amahran, nobody answered my question: "Do you need texture baking tutorial?"
 
Although I'm no good with Gmax/3ds Max/Sketchup, I'm sure a tutorial will be a good resource and helpful to others. :)
 
IMO Texture baking only really 'works' for games that are played at a certain time of day- Unless the FS user flys with all shadows turned off (or these are disabled in the model), then the lost immersion from seeing conflicting shadow projections from those in the baked texture and the FS object shadow is greater than the benefit of having it there.

What looks to be happening in Flight, is the shadows are getting a good overhaul so the need to bake shadows will be a thing of the past and we can have proper self shadowing (and lighting!)
 
Timmo said:
IMO Texture baking only really 'works' for games that are played at a certain time of day- Unless the FS user flys with all shadows turned off (or these are disabled in the model), then the lost immersion from seeing conflicting shadow projections from those in the baked texture and the FS object shadow is greater than the benefit of having it there.

What looks to be happening in Flight, is the shadows are getting a good overhaul so the need to bake shadows will be a thing of the past and we can have proper self shadowing (and lighting!)
Click to expand...

That's a very good point indeed. Thanks Timmo for that. In the past I agreed with this idea. I hated when I saw no shadow cast in the early morning and late afternoon. The cast shadow would make things more realistic.


I think we use a lot of satellite photos today. And no way we can make this photo shadowless. So fix shadow in texture and no shadow from the game engine might be a good idea. Since you always get conflict shadow from satellite photos and the shadow from the game too.

Beside that you don't need the powerful machine to make shadow. It saves power for other thing.
 
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There's a lot more to "texture baking" than shadows! I don't use those at all for anything dynamic, such as a virtual cockpit's texture.
 
Yes, I agree with you.
The reflection on the glass is example. If you look at the windows of the control tower, you will see faint reflection of the rail outside.
 
I think a texture baking tutorial is great. People forget that the best use of texture baking in MSFS would be while making night textures. They generally don't change based on time of day.
 
The only time I've seen texturing baking in MSFS is under the elevators of most aircraft, the shadow is already "baked" into the paintkit for some realism, as well as the fuselage is darkened or shaded at the bottom.
 
Most of the time, that is simply "painted on" by the texture artist... ;)
 
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