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Placing photo textures

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unitedstates
Is there a way to move photos around on a surface? I thought I saw this somewhere. Maybe it was in Building Maker. Or did I just dream it? I'm thinking of putting a photo of a building on a surface. I can resize the photo and resize the surface. It would be nice to be able to slide the photo around to match my surface. Using part of the photo is OK.

Bob
 

Pyscen

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Is there a way to move photos around on a surface? I thought I saw this somewhere. Maybe it was in Building Maker. Or did I just dream it? I'm thinking of putting a photo of a building on a surface. I can resize the photo and resize the surface. It would be nice to be able to slide the photo around to match my surface. Using part of the photo is OK.

Bob

Hello Bob...

Right click, then the Position tab... I think it was mentioned before though :D
 
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unitedstates
Got it. Thanks. Right click/Texture/Position. I just couldn't remember where I saw it before.

Bob
 
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wales
I thought I had posted another question regarding the positioning of textures and could not understand why I hadn't got an answer.

Well I can't find it so perhaps I was dreaming it!!.

Anyway, I have added my roof texture (Tiles from FSX).

This was to 9 separate sides if you follow me.

However when I open the Mass Texture Editor in MCX I see the roof texture 3 times with the photo of each being different.

After painting on the tiles I then positioned them to the correct size ( or as near as makes no difference).

However I have obviously not got them all exactly the same otherwise I would not see the texture 3 times in the MTE.

SO is there a way in which after sizing the first roof (side) you can copy the same dimensions to the others or do you have to size the texture for each one.

Richard
 

arno

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Hi,

Did you use the unique texture option? That can give trouble with the texture not being the same on all polygons.
 
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Hi Arno, I'm sorry but I am not very knowledgeable about this, just starting to learn and I do not understand what you mean by "unique" texture option??

Richard
 

arno

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Hi,

If you right click on a face in sketchup there is this option. It makes a new texture from what is mapped on the face. You don't want to use that option in general.
 
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'morning Arno and all.

No I have not been using that option.

I think I am getting very confused about this texture business but I would like to get my head round it.

I think I do not understand this business of what is a seamless texture, what is a tileable and seamless texture and how you make them. Even after following the youtube tutorial that Gary linked to I am still confused.

There are a number of textures available at CGTextures and also at Mayangs site which I would like to use.

They are stated as being seamless.

I save the image and then import it into SU to use as a texture.

However the texture is huge with only a few, say tiles, covering one side of a roof.

I place the image and then position the texture using the guides to give me the tile dimension I need.

This works reasonably well but of course I have to do this with every roof side of my model ( In this particular case there are 9 roof sides.) and I suppose there is no way in which I can get each roof side exactly the same.

Now, when I use a SU default tile ( or brick) for my model I can just paint it straight on to all the roof sides and they all appear the same.

As I said elsewhere, when I have imported my model into MCX and open up the Mass Texture Editor the roof image appears more than once. One image may be clear and sharp and another looks as if I am looking through a magnifying glass.

I name then differently and the model appears fine in FSX.

I do not however get this problem when using a SU default texture.


I have probably not explained myself very well, sorry.

What would be useful, and not just for me is a tutorial on how to use these online textures and to be able to paint them to a surface in the same way as you do a default texture.

What is the complete process from selecting the texture you want (from say CGTextures) to being able to select it from the materials section of the paint bucket and painting a roof or roofs so they are all the same.??

So there you have it. My head is confused.

Regards

Richard

PS I have just realised that this post is probably under the wrong heading, so would someone be kind enough to move it if that is required.

Thanks
 
Last edited:

Sidney Schwartz

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us-oregon
I think I do not understand this business of what is a seamless texture, what is a tileable and seamless texture and how you make them.

In this context "seamless" and "tileable" mean the same thing. When you place multiple copies of the texture next to each other, in any direction (tiling), they should appear as one large texture. No seams. Strictly speaking, all textures can be tiled, but not all of them will appear seamless. Hope that's not just making things more confusing. :)

Texture files you create for use in SU have a size (obviously), but once you create a Material in SU using a texture, SU also assigns that texture a size ratio. This ratio can be adjusted by you to make the material easier to place and adjust.

In the first pic you can see a building I created in SU. The Edit tab of the Materials window is open. (1) shows the 64 x 64 seamless texture I used to create the material. (2) shows the height and width ratio assigned to it by SU. It seems to use .10 by default. The material has been applied to the building, but the building looks grey rather than corrugated like the texture. This is because the .10 ratio makes each tile, each instance of the texture, so tiny that it just blurs into grey. No good.

In the second pic I've changed the ratio to 10. Now you can see the stripes of the texture, but they are way too big. In the third pic I've changed the ratio to 3, and that looks just right to me.

If your roof tiles are too big when you place them on your building, just change the ratio of that material to something smaller. Once the ratio is adjusted you can apply the material to any number of surfaces and the tiles will always be exactly the same size...no need to adjust for each surface.

Hope this helps.
 

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Messages
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You can also use the eyedropper tool from the materials window to pick up the positioning on a textured face and then apply it to any other face to get the same scale for tiled materials, or uv mapping for untiled textures.

When positioning I think you should only use fixed pins mode (or rotate/flip) and use the red pin (LL) to position, green pin (LR) to scale both x and y, and blue pin (UL) to scale y. Do not accidentally rotate the green pin or shear with the blue pin, or use the yellow pin at all. Doing so seems to cause the exporter to create new textures from those faces.

scott s.
.
 
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454
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wales
Hi guys and many thanks for that brilliant help.

However how do I apply these operations to textures I have downloaded from a website? say CGTextures or Mayangs site.

One thing I was getting wrong and that was I was just downloading them and importing straight into SU.

I have discovered that I have to first of all open them in GIMP and flip the texture vertically ok fine, but I still have to position the texture individually on each individual roof side.

A bit long winded and no guarantee that I will get each texture exactly the same size.

Any thoughts on this.

Regards

Richard
 
Messages
1,553
Country
unitedstates
Hi guys and many thanks for that brilliant help.

However how do I apply these operations to textures I have downloaded from a website? say CGTextures or Mayangs site.

One thing I was getting wrong and that was I was just downloading them and importing straight into SU.

I have discovered that I have to first of all open them in GIMP and flip the texture vertically ok fine, but I still have to position the texture individually on each individual roof side.

A bit long winded and no guarantee that I will get each texture exactly the same size.

Any thoughts on this.

Regards

Richard

Richard

Perhaps you could post the texture you are working with so we could give it a try.

Bob
 

Sidney Schwartz

Resource contributor
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512
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us-oregon
I've used lots of textures from the Mayang site and other sites. Lots of textures look great on the site but are not very good to work with as textures for modeling programs. Sometimes it's the angle of the photo, sometimes the texture isn't suitable for tiling. After a while you'll get a better idea of which ones are going to work or not. For the most part any texture you download from one of these sites is going to require some editing before you can use it. Sometimes a lot of editing. I've often taken a small chunk of a photo of something like roof tiles or bricks and used it to make my own tileable texture. Depends on how much work you want to do. :)
 
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454
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wales
Hi Sidney and thanks, I think your comments have made things a lot clearer for me and I now have a better understanding of what is going on

That's exactly what I found and I thought it was me.!!

Indeed there are really only a few textures (Mayangs) that will work directly into SU without major surgery.

My project is now falling behind because of the time taken to sort out textures.

You are right in that if you do not want to put too much effort into editing these textures then just build up a library of those that don't need editing.


Regards

Richard
 
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