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Much a do about Transparency, Maybe

A

Avroman

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25
Country
canada
Hi Everyone,

I wrote a couple of posts in this forum last spring and have since then been tinkering....In summary, I was trying to import a spaceship/floating aircraft carrier (read: battlestar - search my posts under Avroman...) into FSX from the Google 3D Warehouse. I succeeded in doing this after much work AND also creating a hard-surface runway in GMAX. My initial plan was to modify the mesh, but in the end the solution was a flat plane ( i.e. geometric surface) ( also hard surface) in GMAX of the same size as the runway on the airborne air-carrier. It is then put immediately under the runway in the mesh.

The problem I now have ( always another challenge!) is twofold. Landing a fighter on the runway is fine EXCEPT the wheels/landing skids are slightly submerged into the deck. If I raise my "hard-surface" runway (no graphics) to deck level it zaps the graphics of the pre-existing runway ( of the mesh) and you get a blank surface.

Soooo, following Arno's video tutorial on graphics (on the church)(thank you for an excellent presentation!!) - I isolated the graphic for the runway from the texture file, made a dds file and applied it to the runway/plane surface in gmax. So far so good. Then, I attempted to put the "hard surface" copy over this. The hard surface has no graphics and is blank BUT (notably) NOT TRANSPARENT.

In the game you can land on the runway, but it flickers and you may glimpse the graphic through the flickering. I have attempted to change the opaque settings on the copy as per the previous thread & videos, but no dice. My aim is to recreate the runway as a plane surface with the correct graphic and such that it is a hard surface which is landable.

Any thoughts or possible solution directions would be welcome.

Thank you in advance,

John Allison
 
Addendum

Hi Again,

One change - "Simulation" not game.

Cheers,

John


Avroman said:
Hi Everyone,

I wrote a couple of posts in this forum last spring and have since then been tinkering....In summary, I was trying to import a spaceship/floating aircraft carrier (read: battlestar - search my posts under Avroman...) into FSX from the Google 3D Warehouse. I succeeded in doing this after much work AND also creating a hard-surface runway in GMAX. My initial plan was to modify the mesh, but in the end the solution was a flat plane ( i.e. geometric surface) ( also hard surface) in GMAX of the same size as the runway on the airborne air-carrier. It is then put immediately under the runway in the mesh.

The problem I now have ( always another challenge!) is twofold. Landing a fighter on the runway is fine EXCEPT the wheels/landing skids are slightly submerged into the deck. If I raise my "hard-surface" runway (no graphics) to deck level it zaps the graphics of the pre-existing runway ( of the mesh) and you get a blank surface.

Soooo, following Arno's video tutorial on graphics (on the church)(thank you for an excellent presentation!!) - I isolated the graphic for the runway from the texture file, made a dds file and applied it to the runway/plane surface in gmax. So far so good. Then, I attempted to put the "hard surface" copy over this. The hard surface has no graphics and is blank BUT (notably) NOT TRANSPARENT.

In the game you can land on the runway, but it flickers and you may glimpse the graphic through the flickering. I have attempted to change the opaque settings on the copy as per the previous thread & videos, but no dice. My aim is to recreate the runway as a plane surface with the correct graphic and such that it is a hard surface which is landable.

Any thoughts or possible solution directions would be welcome.

Thank you in advance,

John Allison
Click to expand...
 
Hi John,

Do I understand you correctly that the polygon that you made a platform (using the attachtool script) is still showing up in FS? That is not how it is supposed to work.
 
Hi Arno,

Thank you for your reply and for looking at this issue.

I used the tutorial from here(below URL) in the initial construction of the hard-deck.

http://users.skynet.be/maximil/Tutorial_GMAX_for_FSX.htm

The main polygon shows up because it is a "floating" runway. This is only a test - later I will incorporate into the mesh. I am not sure whether it is the main polygon or the attachtool (hardened?) "copy" which is causing the distorted graphics. Apologies, my characterizations of the different elements may not be exact.

I have attached an image - hopefully a picture is worth a thousand words....

Cheers and thanks!

John
runwayimage.jpg
[/IMG]

arno said:
Hi John,

Do I understand you correctly that the polygon that you made a platform (using the attachtool script) is still showing up in FS? That is not how it is supposed to work.
Click to expand...
 
That looks like two polygons mixed up indeed. Maybe you can show us the mdl then I can take a look.
 
Hi John,

I indeed see two duplicate polygons in the MDL file. Can you check in GMax how many planes are there? I would expect only one for the visual part and one for the platform. I see the platform in the MDL as well, so I suspect you might have three polygons in GMax now.
 
Hi Arno,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, there is "concrete 01" and "concrete 02" and the "runway". So, in total three planes. So, delete the supplementary plane?

Cheers and thanks!

John


arno said:
Hi John,

I indeed see two duplicate polygons in the MDL file. Can you check in GMax how many planes are there? I would expect only one for the visual part and one for the platform. I see the platform in the MDL as well, so I suspect you might have three polygons in GMax now.
Click to expand...
 
Hi Everyone,

I have been tinkering with the runway scenery object to reduce the number of planes (i.e. geometric surfaces). I have also learned about materials and transparency along the way.

Solve one problem, get another....so, I have now got a runway with the correct texture on it displaying in FSX, but when I go to land on it, I fall through AND then land 5-10 meters down on an invisible hard-deck. I have never landed on a totally invisible runway before....

In terms of the Gmax Scene, I now have "plane 01," "platform_CONCRETE_0," and "Mesh 01". All seem to be inline in the "Z" axis, so I am not sure why the dislocation.

Any thoughts, as always, are welcome.

John
 
Hi again,

Success! I have been able to land on my hard-deck runway (floating in the air) AND the textures have displayed! I rechecked all the "objects" in the GMAX scene; I think the "platform_Concrete_0" was indeed off in the "Z" axis. I am learning that you must be extraordinarily careful in selecting the exact object that you are dealing with. Also, with materials having a "Standard" Material means you can make it transparent; but you need to be sure you have the right object.

Thanks for all the assistance on this forum. Now, off to texturing the walls of the floating runway/landing pod...haha!

Cheers,

John (Avroman)

Avroman said:
Hi Everyone,

I have been tinkering with the runway scenery object to reduce the number of planes (i.e. geometric surfaces). I have also learned about materials and transparency along the way.

Solve one problem, get another....so, I have now got a runway with the correct texture on it displaying in FSX, but when I go to land on it, I fall through AND then land 5-10 meters down on an invisible hard-deck. I have never landed on a totally invisible runway before....

In terms of the Gmax Scene, I now have "plane 01," "platform_CONCRETE_0," and "Mesh 01". All seem to be inline in the "Z" axis, so I am not sure why the dislocation.

Any thoughts, as always, are welcome.

John
Click to expand...
 
If there is still a transformation applied to your platform this may not export during the mdl process.

It may be worth Resetting Transform and Resetting Scale of the geometry that has the platform. Then re exporting
 
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