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B777ER
April 2nd, 2014, 09:05
Paul -

I believe when you were over at avsim you hinted that Steve may be working on getting VC shadows to work with aircraft such as the NGX. Anymore on this you can elaborate on?

Paul J
April 2nd, 2014, 09:50
Paul -

I believe when you were over at avsim you hinted that Steve may be working on getting VC shadows to work with aircraft such as the NGX. Anymore on this you can elaborate on?

This was done, as far as I know, Eric - the cockpit walls; that's what the mod is - adding a second (external?) wall to the cockpit. I think the VC must be a completely sealed unit - no gaps anywhere, and I think that's the case with that particular aeroplane. Do you not have any shadows at all? Are you using the ToolBox? Does the model contain a 737NGX.mdl file and a 737NGX_Interior.mdl file? - or is there just one file? If there is no interior file to modify - then there won't be shadows. The xxx_interior.mdl file is the key. Here the full process to getting it done. For large aircraft you should just tick all boxes. Pic #7 (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jc22hm45hgv503a/1-OBNPMqob)

pj

B777ER
April 3rd, 2014, 04:55
There is a VC model file. Will modify that one and give a try.

Paul J
April 3rd, 2014, 05:39
There is a VC model file. Will modify that one and give a try.

Good Morning, Eric:

You didn't do this - use the "Toolbox" >> "Aircraft" >> "Turn on VC Shadows" before?

pj

B777ER
April 3rd, 2014, 07:04
No, I did not know about that. If it was in your guide or the fixer manual, I missed it.

Paul J
April 3rd, 2014, 08:30
No, I did not know about that. If it was in your guide or the fixer manual, I missed it.

Aaaah! Mystery solved! No - it's not in the How-To, Eric - it's in Steve's User Manual, but easily missed. I've just penned a sticky at the top of the forum, and there is a pictorial guide showing the process.

All the best, now go and fly!

pj

B777ER
April 3rd, 2014, 18:03
Got it going but I am however unsatisfied with what I am seeing. I do like how the cockpit brightens and darkens when above and below clouds. However the shadows are not distinct or dark, especially when the sun is low on the horizon. Anyone have some good NGX VC Shadows and if so what are your fixer settings? I tried ticking all boxes including shadow booster and increasing slider to 50% with no real change. Thinking what I have is about best that can be done with the NGX.

Paul J
April 4th, 2014, 05:58
Got it going but I am however unsatisfied with what I am seeing. I do like how the cockpit brightens and darkens when above and below clouds. However the shadows are not distinct or dark, especially when the sun is low on the horizon. Anyone have some good NGX VC Shadows and if so what are your fixer settings? I tried ticking all boxes including shadow booster and increasing slider to 50% with no real change. Thinking what I have is about best that can be done with the NGX.

Do you have bloom turned on, Eric, and have you used the Contrast, Shadow Boost and the other shadow "adjusters" on the General Shaders Options panel? What are those settings at this moment?

pj

Paul J
April 4th, 2014, 11:10
Just had a note from Steve, Eric:-


For Eric, Shadow strength is based on weather visibility unless the option to disable that is ticked in general dialog which it is by default. Then it comes from the upper row pixels of sky textures which are set by e,g shade or the rex textures.

Hope this helps!

pj

B777ER
April 4th, 2014, 13:54
Paul, I am pretty sure it is ticked (what Steve is talking about) unless you are saying to untick it? I don't use Shade (I did with dx9) and I installed the Fixer with the default shader files per the manual. I do have bloom enabled and moved the contrast down to .02 from .03. I will double check the option Steve mentioned. I am curious, with the NGX do you know if the VC Walls in the general section need to be ticked?

I unfortunately am away on the road (stuck in Tallahassee, FL... ugh) until the the 13th. Will try again on the 14th and let you know.

Paul J
April 4th, 2014, 15:17
Paul, I am pretty sure it is ticked (what Steve is talking about) unless you are saying to untick it?

I don't use Shade (I did with dx9) and I installed the Fixer with the default shader files per the manual.

I do have bloom enabled and moved the contrast down to .02 from .03.

I will double check the option Steve mentioned. I am curious, with the NGX do you know if the VC Walls in the general section need to be ticked?

I unfortunately am away on the road (stuck in Tallahassee, FL... ugh) until the the 13th. Will try again on the 14th and let you know.

No - don't untick it, Eric, and no, I don't have the NGX. (I wanted a replacement for the DreamFleet 727 and held off buying anything for almost a year before deciding that Paul Golding wasn't going to finish an FSX version, so I purchased the F1 "Super 80" - found it wasn't so "Super" and took a refund on it, and replaced it with the most excellent LH Maddog.)


However the shadows are not distinct or dark, especially when the sun is low on the horizon.

I tried ticking all boxes including shadow booster and increasing slider to 50% with no real change. Thinking what I have is about best that can be done with the NGX.

I would tick all of the boxes and push the contrast and shadow boost to max, test it, save the flight, then disable shadow boost and run the test flight again. Same with any of the others - if only just to see what it does, if I haven't read the fine manual..... It has to be a controlled test with specific weather, time, season, conditions, etc.. That's how I do amost all testing.


moved the contrast down to .02 from .03. What does this mean?

pj

B777ER
April 5th, 2014, 07:52
I might have confused what I was referring to. I moved the slider in the top right corner of the general setting section from 3 to 2.

Paul J
April 5th, 2014, 08:20
I might have confused what I was referring to. I moved the slider in the top right corner of the general setting section from 3 to 2.

Aaahh - ok.. Thought that might be it - the top one, though, is for small aircraft, and the lower one is for aircraft ~DC3 sized and above - such as the NGX.

Best,

pj

Paul J
April 6th, 2014, 11:55
Hi again Eric:

Steve has suggested that the NGX shadowing will not work for a couple of reasons: see this post:-

forum.avsim.net/topic/434140-vc-shadows-in-the-ngx/


What he is seeing is the change in lighting depending on whether a surface faces the sun or not – that’s in DX9 and DX10 – to get clearly defined VC shadows you need a cockpit model with solid walls.
The NGX doesn’t have these.

The cockpit contains textures which have alpha channels present, and a requirement of shadows is there be no alpha attached to those textures. This is something which would involve the Fixer modifying PMDG textures - and that would not be kosher.

Hope this helps,

pj

B777ER
April 7th, 2014, 14:50
Thanks Paul for checking into it. A no go it is then... however still loving dx10:applause::jump: