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I am using the developer version of MCX 1.3.0.0 r 1253 28/08/2011 and in my latest attempt of a building redesign I experienced some issues but first some background.
Hopefully Arno can point out what I am doing wrong and what is a problem (if any).
Background Information
Some parts of the building use Sketchup solid colours such as the "window eyebrows" that are protruding above the windows (see yellow arrows in MCX screenshot). The windows are made of transparent materials and that seems to be working ok, so does the sky reflection transparent material of the tower.
The inside walls of the building have been "painted" with Sketchup solid colours so that when seen through the windows or the back, they would not appear 100% transparent (tip from another thread). That is also working fine.
Most of the rest of the building has been textured. For that purpose I prepared a PNG texture sheet that contains a wall texture with a couple of general purpose lamps that can be conveniently placed by positioning the texture. Also contains other parts such as an airport sign and the overhanging of the outside balconies. Using these same sheet, I prepared a night texture (samename_LM.png) in which I created the night effects on those textures, this night map was in PNG format.
The Issues Found while working with MCX
When using MCX to create my FSX MDL file and converting the textures I found these anomalies:
Issues Found on deployed FSX model
Having done the above as usual I deployed my building's BGL and all the corresponding textures. This is what I noticed when the model was seen in FSX.
The Pictures
On the 1st picture you see how the building looks in the Model Converter X application which is nearly the same as the Sketchup version, how the building was expected to look in FSX.
The 2nd picture shows the building as seen from the front side and the rear side. In both cases the "greyish" looking walls you see are the back sides of the walls on the opposite side of the building. That because of a recommendation to paint them because if left with default color they would look transparent when seen from the back side.
The 2nd picture like the first shows (perhas more clearly) the floating windows on the foreground wall and the few foreground surfaces that are not transparent are either because they where painted with a non-default color or textured with a standard Sketchup texture (rather than my own texture sheet).
Hopefully Arno can point out what I am doing wrong and what is a problem (if any).
Background Information
Some parts of the building use Sketchup solid colours such as the "window eyebrows" that are protruding above the windows (see yellow arrows in MCX screenshot). The windows are made of transparent materials and that seems to be working ok, so does the sky reflection transparent material of the tower.
The inside walls of the building have been "painted" with Sketchup solid colours so that when seen through the windows or the back, they would not appear 100% transparent (tip from another thread). That is also working fine.
Most of the rest of the building has been textured. For that purpose I prepared a PNG texture sheet that contains a wall texture with a couple of general purpose lamps that can be conveniently placed by positioning the texture. Also contains other parts such as an airport sign and the overhanging of the outside balconies. Using these same sheet, I prepared a night texture (samename_LM.png) in which I created the night effects on those textures, this night map was in PNG format.
The Issues Found while working with MCX
When using MCX to create my FSX MDL file and converting the textures I found these anomalies:
- I specified the Nightmap Texture (PNG) in the corresponding texture sheet entry of the Material Editor. The problem was that when I used the Mass Material Converter, the Nightmap texture showed greyed out checkboxes for both "Resize" and "Convert to DDS". The resize is ok because the texture has the power of two dimensions. However, I expected the PNG to be converted to DDS.
- The Nightmap texture did not get converted. I had to manually use an image editor to generate a DDS with the same name from the nightmap PNG.
- The converted DDS texture sheet (that contains the various textures for most of the building) is a flipped down (vertical flip) of the original image. In other words as if mirrored but flipped vertically.
Issues Found on deployed FSX model
Having done the above as usual I deployed my building's BGL and all the corresponding textures. This is what I noticed when the model was seen in FSX.
- All walls when seen from the front side (rather than from their back) were totally transparent (missing) even though the corresponding texture sheet was present in DDS form in the texture folder. So my building in FSX looked as if the front walls were removed with floating windows and visible back walls (they were painted with standard colors rather than texture).
The Pictures
On the 1st picture you see how the building looks in the Model Converter X application which is nearly the same as the Sketchup version, how the building was expected to look in FSX.
The 2nd picture shows the building as seen from the front side and the rear side. In both cases the "greyish" looking walls you see are the back sides of the walls on the opposite side of the building. That because of a recommendation to paint them because if left with default color they would look transparent when seen from the back side.
The 2nd picture like the first shows (perhas more clearly) the floating windows on the foreground wall and the few foreground surfaces that are not transparent are either because they where painted with a non-default color or textured with a standard Sketchup texture (rather than my own texture sheet).
Will keep you posted.
