Bleed through at dusk in aircraft textures

[Sunny9850]

Hi All,

it has been a while since I did post anything around here and I hate to bounce back in right away with a probably stupid question.....but I am losing precious amounts of my thinning hair over this one...so here it goes.

I have been working on a repaint and when the sim is in "dusk" daytime setting I have bleed through of scenery and occasionally interior parts on the fuselage. I have tried all the settings I could remember in DXTBmp and in PaintShopPro but it is still there.

Give an old Fart a little kick in the right direction please

Cheers
Stefan

[Motormouse]

Alpha channel methinks.
You can preview the alpha in dxtbmp, and export / import
a different Alpha with it too.

Ttfn

Pete

[Milton Shupe]

Motormouse is on it.

If the texture name does not have an _t.bmp suffix, then any alpha color other than white will provide degrees of transparency.

Make the alpha white.

[Dev One]

Am I correct in thinking that one also needs a black texture with the _l.bmp suffix for evening/night to stop the transparency? At least for FS9?
Keith

[Mick]

Am I correct in thinking that one also needs a black texture with the _l.bmp suffix for evening/night to stop the transparency? At least for FS9?
Keith

I'll betcha that's it. Not all models need night textures (the l suffix stands for "lightmap"), and I have no idea why some do and others don't, but I'll bet that this is what happens when they're needed but absent.

A simple black square with the appropriate file name (same as the primary texture, but ending in _l instead of _t, should do the trick. If you want to make interior light show through windows, you put in the windows in yellow on the lightmaps. Airliner models use lightmaps to show how those spotlights on the stabilizers light up the logo on the fin.

[Milton Shupe]

Am I correct in thinking that one also needs a black texture with the _l.bmp suffix for evening/night to stop the transparency? At least for FS9?
Keith

Keith,

If you are having issues at night with transparent body parts (and the textures in question use _T as a suffix), and if you are exporting with "HasLightMap" checked (or the modeler did), then you do in fact require a like-named texture with the suffix "_L" that has a black primary channel.

If these are your models, you can also eliminate using "HasLightMap" in MdlCommander and you will not require these extra textures. And, your chrome will look better at dawn and dusk.

EDIT: If you are having issues at night and the textures in question do NOT use the _T as a suffix, then ensure that your alpha channels are pure white 255,255,255.

[arl]

I've noticed a certain Kite displaying this at dawn and dusk round the engine cowling in FS9. Just didn't think of trying that at the beta stage. Sorry Keith!

[Dev One]

I've noticed a certain Kite displaying this at dawn and dusk round the engine cowling in FS9. Just didn't think of trying that at the beta stage. Sorry Keith!

Just tried my Kite in FS9 & have no problem,but the Streak does suffer from transparency unless you switch the lights on (keyboard L)! My excuse is that as it didn't have lights fitted then it was daylight VFR only! The Kite has a _l.bmp, the Streak doesn't.
Keith

[Sunny9850]

Keith,

If you are having issues at night with transparent body parts (and the textures in question use _T as a suffix), and if you are exporting with "HasLightMap" checked (or the modeler did), then you do in fact require a like-named texture with the suffix "_L" that has a black primary channel.

If these are your models, you can also eliminate using "HasLightMap" in MdlCommander and you will not require these extra textures. And, your chrome will look better at dawn and dusk.

EDIT: If you are having issues at night and the textures in question do NOT use the _T as a suffix, then ensure that your alpha channels are pure white 255,255,255.

Thanks for all the replies. I knew I came to the right place
I do have a fuse_t texture and a fuse_L texture.
The alpha channel is not pure white in this case because that is normally where you can set the ammount of reflection on the chromed bits. Though since this is a military aircraft when finished it does not require lots of reflection.


I guess I will test with a darker shade of grey in the alpha channel of the fuse_t texture, to see if the bleed through is then worse and likewise a whiter shade to see if I can get the bleed through to disappear with enough reflection left.


If all else fails I hope that our teams poly-bender can still uncheck that option that Milton mentioned.
This is by no means the first repaint I have done but the first time I have had this issue when the proper file extension is used, DXT3 or Ext-32Bit selection in DXTBmp have always worked for me.

Cheers
Stefan

[Milton Shupe]

Thanks for all the replies. I knew I came to the right place
I do have a fuse_t texture and a fuse_L texture.
The alpha channel is not pure white in this case because that is normally where you can set the ammount of reflection on the chromed bits. Though since this is a military aircraft when finished it does not require lots of reflection.


I guess I will test with a darker shade of grey in the alpha channel of the fuse_t texture, to see if the bleed through is then worse and likewise a whiter shade to see if I can get the bleed through to disappear with enough reflection left.


If all else fails I hope that our teams poly-bender can still uncheck that option that Milton mentioned.
This is by no means the first repaint I have done but the first time I have had this issue when the proper file extension is used, DXT3 or Ext-32Bit selection in DXTBmp have always worked for me.

Cheers
Stefan

Stefan,

Yes, with _T.bmp textures, the alpha channel controls only reflectivity.

If _T.bmp textures are being used and you have a transparency issue at night, then, yes, the models are being exported with HASLIGHTMAP. Therefore, the _L.bmp is required for every body texture.

The _L.bmp in this case controls how much additive light will be put on the body parts so the aircraft will not be so dark at night. So, the primary channel needs to be in the range of 10-30 (depending on the color of the aircraft) to add just a bit of light to the body parts. The alpha channel of the _L.bmp must be white. Pure black in the primary channel adds no light.

I am attaching an example from one of my early aircraft back in 2003/4 when I used HASLIGHTMAP.