I love this a/c i think it is pretty great but when i go to fly it and look out the vc everything is black except out the HUD.
has anyone else had this problem and is there anyway to fix it?  :-/

This is the download if anyone was confused
FSX Team FS KBT F18F Super Hornet WarHawks Package
http://www.simviation.com/simviation/static.php?ID=64&page=22

Hello, and welcome to SimV! :)

You are suffering from the dreaded alpha channel problem in the VC glass texture. ;) This is a quite common problem with FS9 aircraft that have been ported to FSX.

There is a way to fix it though, you will need the program: DXTBMP. it is free, here is a link: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Editors/DXTBmp.shtml . ;) Next you will need to find the texture for the VC glass, usually called by that or something similar.

Now load that texture into DXTBMP

Next  if you look in the upper right hand corner of the screen you should see a little window called "alpha channel" it will probably be a white square, in FSX the alpha channel is opposite of FS9.

Now go to the top menu and select the alpha tab, and and choose the option: Invert alpha channel.

Your white square in the alpha channel window should be black now.

Now save and let it overwrite, load up the plane and enjoy the new clear cockpit gass. ;)

Any problems. just ask. :)

I cant find the one im supossed to change
can u help me find the right one?

Downloading it now, give me a couple of minutes to take a look at it. ;)

ok cool thank you so much

OK, for each of the texture folders in the F-18 aircraft folder itself, you need to do the above process to the following files:

sh_vc02.bmp

sh_vc03_L.bmp

Do that and let me know what you have then.  ;)

Found a couple of more:

image1_L.bmp

pan1_L.bmp

pan2_L.bmp

thank you so much trying it now

are u sure i should do this one
sh_vc02.bmp?
bc everyother one has _L on it

Yep, I just did this myself, and everything looks correct now, except for the VC glass itself, where at first the entire cockpit controls and all were blacked out, this is the same problem you had, correct?

The VC glass is going to require another trick. But one step at a time. ;)

i wasnt so much concerned with the gauges
i was more worried about the VC glass :-?

Working that problem now. ;)

ok thank you so much
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

so anything new?
:-/

The texture file for the VC glass needs to be modified in an editing program like PSP or Photoshop, I'm tweaking and testing it now, if you want, I can just send you the file or I can upload it here at the V and you can just download it from there. ;)

oh wow thank you either way works for me :)

Bad news, I cannot get that darn glass to go clear for nothing, I have modified every texture in the folder and saved everthing having to do with the VC in every format possible and it still stays black :-[.

Call to designers : Any one know how to fix the KBT F-18 glass? This is not like all the other easily fixed blacked out VCs. Is it possible that the VC glass texture is part of the model file itself? If it is, I imagine that there will be no possible way to adjust this one for FSX.
 I have done this many times with plenty of other planes and always had success, but this one is really stuck in my craw now. >:(
I have also sent KBT an email requesting the name of the file used for the glass, but I don't see how I could have missed it, and a google search has turned up nothing of any value in helping to solve this one.

thank you for your help
let me no if anything new turns up

I sure will, I'm gonna keep trying it, and hopefully will get a response from KBT. ;)

thanks so much

Guys, I have beat my head against the wall trying to fix the black glass in the VC in this aircraft more hours than I care to admit.  If you find a fix, I will also be overjoyed!

charlie

You could maybe download MDLMat and change the material of the glass? I can't seem to work it though...

http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/download/MDLMat.zip

StACAttack wrote on Dec 15^th, 2008 at 3:54pm:

You could maybe download MDLMat and change the material of the glass? I can't seem to work it though... http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/download/MDLMat.zip">http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/download/MDLMat.zip

Program is for MDL's not BMP ;)
PS: you hit the "FTP" link no the "URL" link ;)
Yes, very strange, I can't seem to get them to work but the guy who posted them says in the readme he has FSX SP2 and it works fine... does it require accel maybe? :-/ I don't have accel and I really want an F-18 :-X

Wii wrote on Dec 15^th, 2008 at 11:58pm:

StACAttack wrote on Dec 15th, 2008 at 3:54pm: You could maybe download MDLMat and change the material of the glass? I can't seem to work it though... http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/download/MDLMat.zip">http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/download/MDLMat.zip Program is for MDL's not BMP ;) PS: you hit the "FTP" link no the "URL" link ;) Yes, very strange, I can't seem to get them to work but the guy who posted them says in the readme he has FSX SP2 and it works fine... does it require accel maybe? :-/ I don't have accel and I really want an F-18 :-X

I have Accel and it won't work for me. :( I have played with every texture file that comes with this plane and can't get that glass to become transparent. I've never heard of a texture being part of a mdl file myself, but I'm not quite as knowledgable in that area as some others so I guess at this point it is a good possibility.
The funny thing is, I can get just about every other part of this plane to become transparent except for the cockpit glass. :D

ShaneG wrote on Dec 16^th, 2008 at 6:33am:

Wii wrote on Dec 15th, 2008 at 11:58pm: StACAttack wrote on Dec 15th, 2008 at 3:54pm: You could maybe download MDLMat and change the material of the glass? I can't seem to work it though... http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/download/MDLMat.zip">http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/download/MDLMat.zip Program is for MDL's not BMP ;) PS: you hit the "FTP" link no the "URL" link ;) Yes, very strange, I can't seem to get them to work but the guy who posted them says in the readme he has FSX SP2 and it works fine... does it require accel maybe? :-/ I don't have accel and I really want an F-18 :-X I have Accel and it won't work for me. :( I have played with every texture file that comes with this plane and can't get that glass to become transparent. I've never heard of a texture being part of a mdl file myself, but I'm not quite as knowledgable in that area as some others so I guess at this point it is a good possibility. The funny thing is, I can get just about every other part of this plane to become transparent except for the cockpit glass. :D

Just a shot in the blue but maybe this plane doesn't have a "vcglass.bmp" texture? It seems to me (because it shows up pitch black, not even a reflection) that something is missing. I could be wrong but I might send the guy who posted it a quick email this afternoon to see how he got it to work and why it isn't working for us. :-/

You know, you might be on to something there! I never even considered that possibility. :-[

Quote:

Just a shot in the blue but maybe this plane doesn't have a "vcglass.bmp" texture? It seems to me (because it shows up pitch black, not even a reflection) that something is missing. I could be wrong but I might send the guy who posted it a quick email this afternoon to see how he got it to work and why it isn't working for us.

Below is a quote from another forum regarding a similar issue in a different aircraft where removing the glass bmp file made the canopy glass clear.

Quote:

This plane works fine for me in FSX, using FSX w/Acceleration running on Windows XP SP3 BUT, to fix that problem with the VC, I had to remove a texture, and in the process it does remove a piece of the doorframe but I stil llike it

I notice that when the war hawks aircraft opens in vc mode, the cockpit is clear for a second, then turns black.  This is probably an indication of the problem, but I haven't figured out just what it means yet.  But getting back to removing texture files, it might be instructive to remove texture files one by one until the file is found that contains the cockpit glass and then work from there to resolve the problem.  Just a thought.

charlie

I know which file they are refering to, I can make that door frame turn transparent but not what I thought was the glass, which is attached to the same file. The file that I believe to be the correct one for the vc glass is 'sh_vc04.bmp' , but have had no luck still. When I removed the file altogther, I just had more of the VC blacked out than I did before.
I even repainted that glass texture solid white, and solid black and set the appropriate alpha's and still nothing. Just blackness on the glass, but the frame would disappear.

Shane, I've discovered that if you remove chrome.bmp from the texture folder, it makes the exterior cockpit glass black.  I don't know at this point if that is significant, but I'm working on that angle at the moment.  

charlie

well, that was a dead end, I'm afraid.  Apparently, the chrome.bmp file is related to reflectivity, and has nothing to do with the interior transparency issue.  The 'sh_vc04.bmp' file has been the center of a lot of my attention because it just looks like the right file, but no amount of tweaking on it has done any good for me.  Hope you have better luck!

charlie

Quote:

Just a shot in the blue but maybe this plane doesn't have a "vcglass.bmp" texture?

As nobody else has come forward I might be able to save you all a lot of head scratching. I've messed around creating aircraft for CFS2 & FS2002/4 but this was some time ago & I've forgotten most of it. I never used a texture for the cockpit transparency but defined it in the MDL. I believe this type of transparency does not display properly in the FSX graphics engine. I suspect this is the same with the F-18 you're playing with in which case you're wasting your time. Unfortunately I can't check it out myself as I only have the FSX Demo. Of course, I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

No names, no pack drill but I note that this "update"was uploaded by someone who has upset a lot of people in the past.

I thought it had something to do with the model itself, thanks Hagar! :)
I've never run into this kind of texture until now, hope I don't see one like it again anytime soon. ;D I'll just stick with the Accel F-18. ;)

Sorry Razgriz, we did our best with this one, but I feel we've reached our end with it. :(

ShaneG wrote on Dec 16^th, 2008 at 4:01pm:

I thought it had something to do with the model itself, thanks Hagar! :) I've never run into this kind of texture until now, hope I don't see one like it again anytime soon. ;D I'll just stick with the Accel F-18. ;)

If I'm correct there's no texture involved. The windscreen & canopy are defined as transparent parts.

Yeah dont worry about it guys,
I really apprciated all the help i guess im just stuck with the Accel.
Not that i have a problem with it i just wanted a Super Hornet.
So thanks for the help!!!!!!!!!

Christian

P.S. if anyone wants to try to make this let me know
http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1229291789

Hagar, many thanks for the input.  I was beginning to suspect something exactly along the lines of what you described.  

Wii wrote on Dec 15^th, 2008 at 11:58pm:

StACAttack wrote on Dec 15th, 2008 at 3:54pm: You could maybe download MDLMat and change the material of the glass? I can't seem to work it though... http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/download/MDLMat.zip">http://www.mnwright.btinternet.co.uk/download/MDLMat.zip Program is for MDL's not BMP ;) PS: you hit the "FTP" link no the "URL" link ;) Yes, very strange, I can't seem to get them to work but the guy who posted them says in the readme he has FSX SP2 and it works fine... does it require accel maybe? :-/ I don't have accel and I really want an F-18 :-X

I think we've established that this is not a texture problem - Hence the Idea that it is a model problem.

Arkycharlie wrote on Dec 16^th, 2008 at 1:11pm:

I notice that when the war hawks aircraft opens in vc mode, the cockpit is clear for a second, then turns black.  This is probably an indication of the problem, but I haven't figured out just what it means yet.

this probably means that the geometry of the glass was made transparent in Max or whatever, but when the texture loads it overrides the transparency of the material replacing it by it's own alpha channel


just a thought... is it possible that this glass could have been mapped to a small corner of some texture map? seems plausible if the author didn't want to lose too much time mapping a big texture to transparent glass, he might just have mapped it to some small corner of one of the texture maps, which might be under a solid alpha map... then it would be a matter of finding out where it's hidden and painting the alpha channel transparent on that section of the map

I also wonder why we can see out of the HUD but not the rest of the canopy.  

I was messing around with the alpha channels when I noticed that the canopy doesn't start out black, but it snaps to it like a loading texture.  I think we just have to find out which texture it is.

Hi

Having to much time on my hands, I decided to see if I could assist with the problem, now I don’t know if the file has been updated, or what specs your PC has, but after unzipping the file and copying it into FSX I have no canopy transparency problems at all in the VC view.

The file I used was downloaded using the link provided in the first page of this post, and if I got the correct one the file name is FSXF-18F_Warhawks.zip, and the zip file weighs in at 44,948kb.


For information my specs are

Windows XP Home + SP3 32 bit
FSX+SP2 (not Acceleration)
AMD dual core 4400+ 32 bit
2GB dual channel memory
512MB Nvidia GT8500 (with nvidia 181.22 drivers and Nhancer set up as Nick’s post)

I hope the information is of some use, and that it helps.

Jim Hodkinson

I was actually trying the FS KBT F/A-18E, but went and tried this package as well.  Still no joy.  Black canopy.

Hi

I really don’t know what to say, the download I used has no transparency problems on my rig, so I can’t offer a solution to what I don’t see.

The only thing that I can suggest is for finding out what texture does what is an old repainting trick for finding individual parts in a repaint kit if the part you want is not obviously visible, which is to get the texture file (in this case use a backup copy) and in your favourite painting program, put lines of one or two pixels width spaced roughly 10 to 20 pixels apart horizontally and vertically to make a grid, and make each line a different colour, but every say 20th line place the same preferably bold colour, to give you a reference, that way you may be able to track down where and on what texture the canopy is, that is if it’s texture at all and not part of the mdl file.

Not much help I’m afraid, but the best I can offer for now.

Jim Hodkinson

Hi
Just a wild guess. As some have no problems and other have, could it be something with the rig? I have a nVidia card and I am unable to look out of the VC.

putte

My rig is:
8800GT with 512
Q6600
4 GB RAM
Vista Ultimate 32 bit
FSX with Acceleration

Hi
My rig:
CPU E8400 Dual core 3.00GHz
RAM 4.00 GB
Video card nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB Driver 7.15.11.8048
Widows Vista 32-bit
FSX Acceleration SP2

This setup does not work in VC. Could be interesting to know which setup working rigs have.

putte

Could it be something as silly as a missing dll?  In order to get the POSKY 777 working I had to download the 777 guage from FS9 and have MSVCR70.dll in my root folder.  Could this require something that some of us are missing and others may have from a different download?  Didn't this airplane require guagesound.dll on FS9?

Hi all,

Please notice that of the FA-18E there is also a light, superlight and multiplay version.
I do have the problem with the standard version but the light version works fine. As the versions have different models, it is clear the vc glass opacity has to do with the model.
Anyway, I now fly a tweaked light version and except for the absence of a hud in the vc, everything works fine.

Rob

Okay guys, can you pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease explain step by step how you solved the poblem??????? :o

Callahan18 wrote on Nov 4^th, 2012 at 5:31am:

Okay guys, can you pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease explain step by step how you solved the poblem??????? :o

This is a three year old thread :D.......and as far as I know noone has solved the problem. It works on some rigs and doesn't on others ;)