gMax "proper" material reflex / specular mask settings

[BorekS]

hi guys, having a few questions now...

I would like to ask if there exists some "proper" gmax mesh material settings to export our airplanes with good working specular or reflex masks. I mean for a "virgin" CFS3 game, just without AnKor shaders, in base.

next, is there a way, how to develop such models to work properly with and without AnKor shaders simply by exporting the stuff from gmax, means without any kind of later hexeditations?

if you look the CFS3 SDK samples (P-47D with reflex and Ju-88 with specular body metarials), you may notice the main airplane body material color is dark green for P-47D and a glowy blue is the Ju-88... why?
ok, by past I just thought such colors doesnt matter what they are because the final visual effect ingame solves the mapped texture and texture mask over and so such main material color may take effect only for semi transparent materials, like canopy glass (depends if the canopy is uvw mapped with texture of course but I may be wrong.

well, the main material colors doesnt matter maybe, but the true madness starts if the airplane maker using various material specularity / highlights settings. P-47D is a very dark gray toned specular color. why?

my models usually use "default" mid gray toned diffuse color and lighter gray toned specularity. the material higlights values and opacity settings are same like the CFS3 SKD mentioned models. the rest I am tweaking by current texture paint and mainly by current texture masks dark-toning (_r and _s textures). is it correct?

[MajorMagee]

I do know that when I moved from windows XP to Win 7 all of the specularity functions changed. In XP things looked normal just as the modelers had originally created the M3D files. In Win 7 I either needed to disable the specular functions in the shaders.xml or hex edit every file to reduce the strength of the specular effects. Win 10 works more like Win 7 than XP.

When AnKor's shaders came along it became a lot easier to tune the specular effects to create a realistic look, but there are a few things that still need to be built into the M3D to prevent the need for hex editing. I don't know what in Gmax determines this but the hex segment for drawing type needs to be 00 00 FF 00, the diffuse color can be FF FF FF FF, the ambient color is not used and is 00 00 00 FF, the specular factor is 33 33 33 FF, the glossiness is 00 00 7E 43, the next two pairs are the diffuse texture index number starting with 00 00, the next two pairs are the specular texture index number starting with 00 00, the next two pairs are the reflective texture index number starting with 00 00.

AnKor uses the reflective texture information in his shaders with a range of dark grays from 0 - 16% brightness being effective. Above that the skin surface starts to look like a mirror.

The diffuse color entry is used for the glass effects with the last hex pair controlling the transparency. I'm not an advocate for tinting the perspex, so my default value for thin glass is 99 99 99 16, and thicker glass is 33 33 33 33.

[BorekS]

that are very handy informations, thank you

I am running CFS3 at WinXP :P

[hairyspin]

In XP you can take full advantage of the material settings for CFS3. The main texture is a Diffuse Color map (as you know), specular texture goes to a Specular Level map and reflective to a Reflection map. All other maps in the Gmax Material Editor will cause a material error on compiling.

The Ju-88A model in the SDK doesn't have the material set to display texture in the Gmax viewport. Open the Material Editor, use Pick to select the material applied to the wings f'rinstance and click the chequered blue and white button next to the material name. Presto, boring blue is replaced with Luftwaffe camouflage.

You're not the first to wonder, nor likely the last: there's a running joke among modellers about the well-known FSX developer who kept forgetting that!

[BorekS]

well, I personally have no problem to display textures on the gmax models, I was just wondering, why the main material diffuse color of the gmax mesh objects from CFS3 SDK differs model by model, if it is taking some effect in game. ok, this doesnt take any effect, if it is textured. if it isnt textured or the model miss the textures, the current mesh object just keeps the gmax diffuse color...
needs to note, my final models are fully textured, including the canopy glass, so this all can keep me ice cold.

but the most important is the specularity and highlights material properities together with the specular / reflex mask using.

my goal was just to find a "gold" way, where the airplane specular or reflex material settings in gmax would avoid of later hexedit the final M3D fixation to get it working properly, or decently at least, with / without AnKor shaders. just an universal material settings.

btw, I was trying the current MiG-15 project at WinXP and Win7, exported into two M3D models. one is exported as specular model, the second one is exported as reflex model, using material properities from the Ju-88 / P-47 but the main diffuse color (both using the P-47 dark green). the models looks basically same, means the game keeps the specular material settings or the reflex material settings as it should be. the WinXP CFS3 was used with AnKor shaders off, the Win7 CFS3 is a virgin game installation.

[BorekS]

the hex segment for drawing type needs to be 00 00 FF 00, the diffuse color can be FF FF FF FF, the ambient color is not used and is 00 00 00 FF, the specular factor is 33 33 33 FF, the glossiness is 00 00 7E 43

not sure if I am getting it right, thought the latest two letter or number there are the transparency level. then the 00 00 FF 00 should be fully invicible blue.

the blue toned pallete there may explain to me the AnKor shader bump map / normal map feature inbuilded.

anyway, this is aprox what I got from the values above:

[MajorMagee]

For entries with a color the first three pairs are the color, and the last pair is the transparency. The values from 00 to FF give intensity values from 0 to 255, and the shades they represent are in BGR sequence rather than the RGB used in the Photoshop color picker.

For entries like drawing mode, it is simply an index number, and I don't know what the translation is.

For Glossiness the values are again some sort of an index number as used by Microsoft. They only looked at the last pair as far as I can tell and just a few numbers did anything. The last pair are not used for the transparency value in this case. Ankor is using it to set the magnitude of the effect with 00 00 00 00 being completely broad and flat, and 00 00 7E 43 being the tightest and brightest specular highlight.

Here's the calculator to do the conversion.

https://gregstoll.dyndns.org/~gregstoll/floattohex/

For example if you enter a Float Value of 128 is will convert to the hex of 0x43000000 or 00 00 00 43 in the M3D file.

[BorekS]

ok

I was testing a few color editors, basically with same results, the nicest editor is my loved Inkscape (vector based editor). I am not Photoshop fan at all, btw

eg. the glossiness 00 00 7E 43 would be a blue color partly transparent, see image below.

as a 2d/3d and web design related stuff maker I am getting the standard color logic, not whats going up about hexedit / floats, sorry

[BorekS]

here is a sample of the original P-47 gmax reflex masked material.

if really the ambient and diffuse color isnt important for textured objects, the specular color (dark gray) is almost same as the hexedited AnKor shader correction related... its a good start

the last pair value for glossiness transparency level would be a percentual value at gmax, where the 30 value seems fits well.

what only lefts to know is the specular level, gmax says its 35 percentual value.

[BorekS]

just putting my "standard" gmax aiprlane body material settings sample used for latest projects.
the specular _s texture is way from the pitch dark paints used by other modders and works fine with default CFS3 with / without AnKors shaders (januar 2018 build). repeating: default settings.

Ambient, Diffuse RGB: 150 150 150
Specular RGB: 100 100 100