Glass - Pulling my hair out!!!

[dougbr2005]

I've been trying for days to create a glass transparent object in FSDS 3.51. With no success !!!

I've read and tried all I can find here on FSD and other sites and nothing is working.

I create the object windshield panel, give it a material with a 128 Alpha as per many things I read. Made sure the material name was glass.

Created a texture for the glass and made an Alpha in DXTBMP again as per may things read.

Saved in various formats whilst trying from Extended bitmap DX3 and DDS etc and all have same result.

When I load the aircraft into FSX the window is transparent for a second then changes to the material color.

Anyone got ideas or can send me an FSDS material with texture that works?

Any suggestions welcomed as I'm nearly bald !!!!

All the Best

Doug

 

[Heretic]

FSX models require a material with properties that makes FSX recognize its transparency according to the brightness values of the alpha channel.

This has to be set in FSDSxTweak before sending the model to XToMDL for compilation.

 

[dougbr2005]

FSX models require a material with properties that makes FSX recognize its transparency according to the brightness values of the alpha channel.

This has to be set in FSDSxTweak before sending the model to XToMDL for compilation.

OK, so I downloaded the FSDSxTweak Suite and installed. Followed the instructions and still same. Here is what I've done in FSDS and then FSDSTweak :

OK the window I tried various material names as suggested, glass, trans etc designated the following on the material :-

102, 102, 102, 128
102, 102, 102, 255
229, 229, 229, 255
0, 0, 0, 255

Also marked to use transparent texture.

On the object selected my transparent texture glass.dds

Compiled the aircraft model, then opened the FSDSTweak plug in - used the example kfg file edited to the following and called it tweak.kfg.

[model]
ShadowMapReady=1

[texture.0]
identifier=glass.dds
reflection=
ZWriteAlpha=1
EmissiveBloom=1
ZTestAlpha=1
AlphaTestValue=128
AlphaTestFunction=Greater

Ran FSDSTweak exterior and the path for the compilation to the FSX directory of the aircraft mdl etc.

Ran FSX windows appeared transparent for a second and then show the glass.dds color as solid.

What am I doing wrong aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Any help very much appreciated

Regards

Doug

 

[tgibson]

Try a transparent number lower than 128?

 

[dougbr2005]

Try a transparent number lower than 128?

Hi Tom

Thanks for the input, tried and get same result transparent for a second then opaque, tried values 66, 99.

This killing me aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

 

[Heretic]

FSDSxTweak offers, from what I've seen, basically the same material settings as the (G)Max Material Editor, so you may now use the official SDK documentation as a reference:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc526974.aspx#SpecificMaterialSettingsforAircraft

Note that you need to set source and destination blend correctly in order to render transparent materials.

 

[Anthony31]

You're over thinking this. The important thing is the blend mode.

You must set it to SrcAlpha/InvSrcAlpha. I believe fsdsxtweak has a button that will set this for you.

Z write alpha should be zero and not 1.

Basically, all you need to do is take a normal texture, change the blend mode to SrcAlpha/InvSrcAlpha and you have made simple glass as long as your texture is a DXT5 with an alpha channel (try drawing a stripey pattern on the alpha, it will make it easier to see any differences).

I wonder, though, if your texture is being recognised. Have you placed the texture in the correct texture folder? Does the texture display without trying to make it a glass texture?

Material DEFAULT_CAC25_Panel_Glass_bmp {
    0.5; 0.5; 0.5; 1.0;;
    0.0;
    0.0; 0.0; 0.0;;
    0.0; 0.0; 0.0;;
    TextureFilename {
        "CAC25_Panel_Glass.dds";
    }
    DiffuseTextureFilename {
        "CAC25_Panel_Glass.dds";
    }
FS10Material {
    0.5; 0.5; 0.5; 1.0;;
    0.0; 0.0; 0.0;;
    0.0;
    1.0; 1.0;    // Detail and bump scales
    0.10; // Scale environment level factor. Cut down to prevent over exposure
    0;    // Use global environment
    0;    // blend env by inv diffuse alpha
    1;    // blend env by specular map alpha. Use alpha of spec to draw.
    0; 0; 0;    // Fresnel - diffuse = NO, Specular = YES, Env = YES
    0; 0; 0;    // Precipitation - Use = NO, Offset = NO
    11.500000;    // Specular Map Power Scale
    "SrcAlpha"; "InvSrcAlpha";  // Src/Dest blend
    EmissiveData {
        "Additive";    // Emissive Mode
    }
    DiffuseTextureFilename {
        "CAC25_Panel_Glass.dds";
    }
    EnhancedParameters  {
        0;  // Assume vertical normal
        0;  // Z-Write alpha
        0;  // No Z-Write
        0;  // Volume shadow
        1;  // No shadow
        0;  // Prelit vertices
    }
    EmissiveBloom {
        0; // AllowEmissiveBloom
    }
} // FS10Material
}

 

[dougbr2005]

I now look like Kojak , but thanks to all the inputs from you guys I can now apply the hair restoring cream and wait for a new thatch to grow.

With a combination of FSTweak and ModelconverterX I now have transparent glass, now I have to work out how to apply a reflective sheen on from sunlight, but one step at a time at least I have transparent tinted glass.

Thanks to all of you for your inputs, all very much appreciated and educational as well.

All the very best

Douglas

 

[tgibson]

The Specular system handles the gleam from sunlight.