Simviation Forum - Gets VERRRRY Windy

Reply #15 - Oct 29^th, 2006 at 7:49am

Daube Offline
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..mm...care to explain textured Material and untextured material?............never heard that mentioned before....maybe give me an example of a plane using an untextured Material...........commoner;)

Here is a try:
In the first one, you are using a fully transparent piece of 3D mesh, and over it you display a semi-transparent texture.

In the second one, you are not using any texture, instead you use directly a semi-transparent piece of 3D mesh. This way is less good-looking than the texture, because you can't display any details on the glass (like color variations, for dirty effect).

Default aircrafts in FSX use semi-transparent textures with a technology that your card is not able to display. So you see no texture, just the 3D mesh, which is fully transparent, that is invisible.

Got bloom ?
Got mountains ?
Got damage ?

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Reply #16 - Oct 29^th, 2006 at 7:51am

Daube Offline
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PS: the plane with transparent cockpits in FS98 all use the semi transparent untextured windows (3D mesh is set to semi-transparency).

The mirage F1 from Kirk Olson use a semi transparent texture, which lets you see those strange details on the glass in the older versions.

Got bloom ?
Got mountains ?
Got damage ?

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Reply #17 - Oct 29^th, 2006 at 7:02am

chrisco17 Offline
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Did you overwrite any file from FS9 into FSX? ???

No I didn't overwrite anything.

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Just a thought but maybe this is related to your problem. http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=FSX;action=display ;num=1161961492
You could try temporarily removing the xxx_reflections.dds from the Texture folder of offending aircraft to see if that fixes it.

I've seen little bugs like this in the past & the problem is usually related to video card/drivers & incompatability with the current version of DX. I believe an updated version of DX9.0c is now available from the Windows Update site. You might like to try it but I can't guarantee it won't make things worse. Unless anyone comes up with better ideas it might be safer to leave well alone & put up with it for now.

I will try updating my DirectX I can always go back with system restore if it makes it worse.

But I believe I will find that my card does not support the new shading of the glass as n4gix and Daube have explained very nicely.

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Reply #18 - Oct 30^th, 2006 at 7:13am

commoner Offline
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.......OK.....well despite Ashar saying that Microsoft never reply to queries Tongue

....I got the following which though it doesn't help with the No Glass issue, at least throws up one or two interesting points, not least that there are significant programming differences between The North American and other versions....mmm.... Also sounds like they have been inundated with requests for help with FSX. Wonder why that is?

Here is the email in it's entirety for anyone interested...........

Hello Derek,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Online Customer Service.

I apologize for the delay in our response to your issue. Due to an unexpected increase in requests, our response time is longer than usual. I appreciate your patience in this regard.

I understand that you are experiencing issues with Flight Simulator X. I realize the importance of the issue and will assist you in reaching the appropriate resource.

Unfortunately, I am unable to assist you with your support request. At this time, our Support Professionals are only trained to troubleshoot issues with North American versions of our products whereas the Support Professionals at the local Microsoft subsidiaries are trained to troubleshoot issues with localized versions of our software.

Derek, from the information you have provided in your message, I found that you are located in United Kingdom. If you have purchased the Microsoft product in United Kingdom, your best resource for support is the Microsoft United Kingdom subsidiary.

There are significant programming differences between North America and localized versions of software. You will be best assisted by the subsidiary that specializes in the version. You can locate contact information for the United Kingdom subsidiary from the following web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/worldwide

I hope your issue gets resolved soon and appreciate your patience in this regard.

Thank you for using Microsoft products and services.

Jaya
Microsoft Online Customer Service Representative

If you have any feedback about your Online Customer Service experience, please e-mail my manager, Abhijit Rao, at managers@microsoft.com

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."

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Reply #19 - Oct 30^th, 2006 at 10:57am

Fr. Bill Offline
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..mm...care to explain textured Material and untextured material?............never heard that mentioned before....maybe give me an example of a plane using an untextured Material...........commoner;)

That would be difficult...

The term "Material" refers to the collection of textures and properties applied to any part within the modeling program, such as Max or GMax.

Every "part" in the modeling program must have a Material applied to it prior to exporting as an FS model.

Each Material has a list of properties, such as Specular Color, Diffuse Color, Ambient Color, Gloss, Opacity, Self-Illumination, etc.

Each Material may also have specific textures assigned to override the basic property values, such as:

Diffuse Color = fuselage_t.bmp
Specular Color = fuselage_t.bmp
Self-Illumination = fuselage_t_L.bmp

etc.

In FS9, a part could be exported using only the Material's Properties, and it would display in the sim. For example, "glass" could be exported using Specular Color of "dark gray" RGB values, with 60% opacity, and Specular Level of 80, which would show up in the sim as a "dark gray glass with specular highlights."

The same part will simply be invisible in FSX, as FSX requires that all parts have explicitly assigned textures in the model's source file prior to compiling...

Hence, it is a problem that is not solvable outside of having the original source file, adding the missing texture assignments and recompiling.

HOWEVER! It is critical to note that the above applies only to imported FS9 (or FS2002) models.

Invisible parts for FSX built models is a video card shader issue, which is a completely seperate issue, and solvable only at the hardware/driver level... Wink

Bill
Gauge Programming - 3d Modeling Eaglesoft Development Group Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600-4GB DDR2 Crucial PC6400-800 GB SATA-ATI Radeon HD2400 Pro 256MB DX10 NOTE: Unless explicitly stated in the post, everything written by my hand is MY opinion. I do NOT speak for any company, real or imagined...

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Reply #20 - Oct 30^th, 2006 at 12:12pm

commoner Offline
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...mmm...thanks for all that .......doesn't really mean much to my old braincells but thanks for trying...........commoner Wink

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."

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Reply #21 - Oct 31^st, 2006 at 1:13pm

chrisco17 Offline
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I think it is safe to assume that it is definately a video card issue.
Thank you all for your help.
(P.S. this my first multi-page post 8) )

&&Scratch built PC: 2.8G P4HT, 250G 7200RPM Hard drive, 1024 RAM ,GForce FX 5200 128,&&TrackIR3 Pro with Vector 6DOF Expansion&&Voice Buddy, AudioFX Headset&&Saitek x52 HOTAS&&

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