Night Textures

[L7L]

I am modeling several buildings for an airport, including the terminal, and was wondering how I can create night textures, so that the windows light from within, etc. I am currently using GMax with the FSX gamepack. Would I create two texture images, one for day and one for night? How are they to be applied using GMax? And finally, will FSX know how to switch between the two depending on the day?

 

[arno]

Hi,

You would have to create two versions indeed. One for day and one for night. In GMax you apply the day texture to the diffuse slot and the night one to the self-illumination slot. After that FSX will take care of the switching automatically for you depending on the time of day, season, etc.

 

[L7L]

Excellent! Thank you so much, I will try it out once I get home.

 

[flyhalf]

I tend to make a copy of the day texture, darken the whole thing by maybe 75%, then select all the parts of the window I need to highlight and raise the contrast and brightness in these windows only. Then I use Render>Lighting Effects (Photoshop, this is) to add glow and light splash effects to the side of the building where required. Seems to do the trick.

 

[L7L]

Thank your for your help. I am using GIMP as my image editing tool and I think that it has similar capabilities as photoshop.

But I am curious, once you have unwrapped the UVW coordinates and painstackingly "painted" the surfaces of your building with the daytime textures, would you then need to repeat the exact same process for night time textures? Or if the texture image is identical (in terms of placement), would GMax be smart enough to use the same UVW coordinates on the nighttime textures as the day time?

 

[Mace]

Thank your for your help. I am using GIMP as my image editing tool and I think that it has similar capabilities as photoshop.

But I am curious, once you have unwrapped the UVW coordinates and painstackingly "painted" the surfaces of your building with the daytime textures, would you then need to repeat the exact same process for night time textures? Or if the texture image is identical (in terms of placement), would GMax be smart enough to use the same UVW coordinates on the nighttime textures as the day time?

You don't need to remap the night texture. Say your day texture (aka diffuse texture) is MHTG_terminal.bmp. Your night texture could be MHTG_terminal_lm.bmp. It can be any name you want in FSX, but I still use the old _lm suffix (old habit).

If you do a Save As... in GIMP you can save your layered file and gmax will still remember all the UVW mappings.

 

[Mace]

I am modeling several buildings for an airport, including the terminal, and was wondering how I can create night textures, so that the windows light from within, etc. I am currently using GMax with the FSX gamepack.

I use Photoshop, but I think these night texture tricks I use could be done using GIMP, too:

1) on your lightmap (night texture), I make sure all those areas that I *do not* want lit up, are 100% black. That means 0,0,0 RGB. Failure to do this, will mean that FSX will make your night textures brighter than you want. The Self-Illumination slot is ADDITIVE. Additive means the sim will still use your DAY TEXTURE at night, and then ADD the night texture to the day texture!

Many people don't realize FSX is using the day texture (diffuse...) at night.

2) for some lit windows, it might be good to use the Inverse function (I'm sure GIMP has this, right?) on the area you want lit up, and then adjust the color balance giving it a little bit of yellow/orange or whatever tint you want your night lights to have.

3) brightness and contrast tweaks are useful here, too.

4) In Photoshop, there are some light render special effects you can use, which are sometimes helpful.

 

[MichaelD]

The method I use (and someone else posted an example of this here recently) is to make a copy of your diffuse texture, add a layer behind it with whatever color/pictures you want to show through and then use the Marquee tool or the Eraser tool to "cut out" the windows on the top Layer. Then darken your top layer. You can also get some nice effects by playing with the Opacity setting of the eraser tool while doing this.
Here's a building I did with that method (click on JPEG 3 to see night shot):

City Place Tower/Dallas

--------

The Self-Illumination slot is ADDITIVE. Additive means the sim will still use your DAY TEXTURE at night, and then ADD the night texture to the day texture!

Many people don't realize FSX is using the day texture (diffuse...) at night.

Rhett is almost right. By default when you create a new FSX material the "Emissive" property is set to "AdditiveNightOnly" by default. That means that at night time, the simulator is blending your Diffuse texture and your Night Texture together, which makes it brighter than you probably want.

Setting it to "Additive" only, causes the the two textures to be blended regardless of the time of day.

But you can change this in the Gmax Material Editor under FSX Extended Parameters -> Emissive properties.

"Blend" mode is probably what you want. This will cause your Diffuse texture to only be shown during the day, then a blend of your Diffuse and Night texture at Dusk/Dawn and then cause your Night texture to be used as the Diffuse texture at night (in other words, the Diffuse texture is replaced by the night texture completely).

This is discussed in two different places in the SDK:

1) Modeling SDK > FSX Materials > "The Base Texture Properties" section (Hold your mouse over the FSX Materials List on the left to see an example and
description)

2) Modeling SDK > Texturing Aircraft Models > Texture Map types > "Emissive Map/Self Illuminating Map" section

Even though it's under "Texturing Aircraft", it applies to other 3D objects as well.

-Michael

 

[Mace]

Here's a building I did with that method (click on JPEG 3 to see night shot):

City Place Tower/Dallas

I have your CityPlace Tower in my sim. It complements well my Terminal D at DFW:

http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fsxscen&DLID=122682

I examined your building very closely and I thought it was a fine job. It goes well when one is approaching KDAL from that direction. My building is a few miles west...

By default when you create a new FSX material the "Emissive" property is set to "AdditiveNightOnly" by default. That means that at night time, the simulator is blending your Diffuse texture and your Night Texture together, which makes it brighter than you probably want.

This is a good explanation that to me, the SDK fails to explain very well. Last year, it took me a while to figure out what "additive" even meant. I was a beginner.

For a while, I could not fathom why my objects got so bright at night. I had assumed that "Blend" was the default mode, which to me seems logical--you want a night texture at night, a blend during dawn/dusk, and diffuse in the day.

Setting it to "Additive" only, causes the the two textures to be blended regardless of the time of day.

But you can change this in the Gmax Material Editor under FSX Extended Parameters -> Emissive properties.

"Blend" mode is probably what you want. This will cause your Diffuse texture to only be shown during the day, then a blend of your Diffuse and Night texture at Dusk/Dawn and then cause your Night texture to be used as the Diffuse texture at night (in other words, the Diffuse texture is replaced by the night texture completely).

this is by far the most clear and concise explanation I have seen. Thank you for this Michael.

I may need to re-think my current projects...take for example the following screenshots of a tower I am working on:

Day shot: (click to expand image)


Night shot of the same scene: (click to expand image)


Here I used AdditiveNightOnly. On the lighted areas, since these were sharply defined windows, I used INVERSE and then added some yellow tint to those areas.

Here is a question I had about this. Look at the lattice-work I did for the railings on the control tower. At night, these look odd, I don't know if you can see what I'm talking about in the screenshot, but it almost looks like the antialiasing is off. The edges of the textures are brighter and shimmer a bit at night. I don't like it.

But it may be related to the fact that I'm using AdditiveNightOnly. Have you seen anything like this before Michael? And do you think it may be a consequence of ADditivenightonly?

 

[Mace]

bump

I realize it's difficult to see what I'm talking about in my night shot. What I am seeing, is that the edges of objects appear rather strange. You can perhaps barely discern what I'm talking about on the above control tower's railings, which were made using small boxes, not using an alpha texture...

Have any of you noticed this in YOUR objects?...and is it related to using AdditivenightOnly vs. Blend? Perhaps it is the antialiasing on my computer?

 

[MichaelD]

Hey Rhett,

I have your Terminal D building installed and didn't make the connection that it was yours. It's very nice! I always examine other peoples texture files and you did a good job of keeping them small and still having it look good. I tend to use a little too much detail sometimes.

I have yet to work on modifying an actual airport. I'd like to re-do KDAL completely but it sounds like a LOT of work that I don't want to start.

Anyway, your right in that It's difficult to see what you're talking about in the screen shots you posted. I can see the outline of the railing in the beacon light but don't really see anything odd about it.

But if you think it has to do with the emissive property, it's pretty quick and easy to just re-export the object with a different setting. You don't have to change anything with the actual textures themselves.

And I agree that the SDK can be very frustrating for a beginner (like myself as well). Even though the FSX version is great improvement over previous SDKs, it still assumes that some things are just obvious when, in fact, they aren't. In fact, I started to try my hand at scenery design sometime back in 2004 and just ended up quitting out of frustration. I finally stuck with it when FSX came out.

-Michael.

 

[Mace]

Michael,

I do the same--I examined your CityPlace Tower closely. I always learn things by doing that. Your attn to detail is something I will have to emulate to some extent. With DFW termD I worked fast...too fast really. I whipped that out in about 1-2 weeks. I have thought about going in, adding some specular reflection on the windows, maybe re-doing a few things...if I ever have time.

Regarding the shimmering edges of gmax objects at night, I will probably experiment with the different material settings as you mention. If need be I will start a new thread about it sometime.

 

[prarez]

hello,
FSX Extended Parameters -> Emissive properties
where is it exactly? i cant find it in my material editor
i have fsx sdk installed and working properly.
thank you

 

[prarez]

ok i've found it, the option show up when i create new material.
How to put my existing material to this new FSX material?
all my texture is using standard material and i want to change it.
Thank you

 

[arno]

Hi,

If your existing materials are standard materials, you will have to replace them by FlightSimX materials to get all those options. There is no easy way to convert between the two though.