CFS3
Major, can you give a brief explanation on how this +sr.dds is created. I have tried this on several different aircraft without success. I'm begining to think maybe my rig/driver is fouled up.Originally Posted by MajorMagee
Major, can you give a brief explanation on how this +sr.dds is created. I have tried this on several different aircraft without success. I'm begining to think maybe my rig/driver is fouled up.
I would start with the *_t.dds, make a copy, rename it, and then repaint it.
The repainting is typically done in shades of grey, but leave it in the rgb file format (not greyscale). Black areas will have no environmental reflectance, and white areas would look like a perfect mirror. You’ll need to experiment a bit based on how a particular m3d might be set up, but generally you want most surfaces to be fairly dark, as too much reflectance looks unnatural on military aircraft. You don’t have to be too fussy about the fine details of the original texture as small errors will not be noticed, but areas like anti-glare panels, and insignia on polished metal backgrounds should have pretty sharply defined black / grey edges.
The pattern of light and dark reflectance information is applied to the same areas that the *_t.dds textures is mapped to like the _s or _r would be. These should be in the DXT1, no alpha layer format.
The new discovery this morning with the F6 Mustang was that the m3d file still needs to contain the right drawing mode hex information or the *_t.+sr.dds file will be ignored.
This is still a useful capability since a relatively simple edit of an m3d file that does not have any *_r.dds reference listed can still be made to read the reflectance data. Be careful to make a copy of your original files because if you turn AnKor's shaders off after you make this edit the plane will turn into an all over perfect mirror like the silver surfer.
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
So, it functions like a normal r.dds then? That's what I assumed but did not have any success. I reviewed my GPU settings just in case and then . . .
I stepped into an even bigger pile when I updated my GPU driver (Nvidia GTX 750Ti with the 365.19 update). Rising Sun wanted to reconfigure the graphics before starting and once in, I set all sliders to max. I now have no water, less than detailed ground textures and a big horizontal band that overlays the horizon across everything. I've reconfigured the overrides twice, deleted the uisel/unlimitedpilots/view xml's, removed and replaced the current Ankor Shaders.
This is over Haliewa facing the ocean. Shorelines appear but no water.
I grow weary of this never ending fixing.
Hi Foofighter,So, it functions like a normal r.dds then? That's what I assumed but did not have any success. I reviewed my GPU settings just in case and then . . .
I stepped into an even bigger pile when I updated my GPU driver (Nvidia GTX 750Ti with the 365.19 update). Rising Sun wanted to reconfigure the graphics before starting and once in, I set all sliders to max. I now have no water, less than detailed ground textures and a big horizontal band that overlays the horizon across everything. I've reconfigured the overrides twice, deleted the uisel/unlimitedpilots/view xml's, removed and replaced the current Ankor Shaders.
This is over Haliewa facing the ocean. Shorelines appear but no water.
I grow weary of this never ending fixing.
check that dual pass render is turned off in your configoverrides file, it has a sneaky habit of turning itself on. That should get rid of horizon effects.
...and its another nice mess we've gotten yourself into
If you're able to make the repairs w/o reinstalling, please post your magic...
...oh and best of luck!
(...reminds of the way things look when the actors have left the theater!)
yeah foo its dual pass turn it off..
ETO? How do I install it? Download Links?HERE Horizontal lines at menu after installing ETO? - FIX - choose a wingman, plane, then try quick mission.I found this config setup ArgonV posted at simhq, works good HERE Graphics card updates change your game settings? With error? Ankor's Shader fixes it HERE Nvidia HERE
THANK YOU!!! Dual pass was the problem. I was ready to throw my monitor out the window.
Now all I need is an example of a configurationoverrrides.xml with ultra high res settings? Anyone?
BTW - I strongly recommend the use of MajorMagee's Nvidia GPU settings from the Knowledge Base sticky thread. WOW!
Gang...
I just thought I'd mention this on the off chance its relevant...
I've noticed that the stock models for the P-51d, p-47d25 and the p-38 seem to retain their reflectivity
no matter how flat everything else is(?)...
Yes, their m3d files had the reflectivity function already built in.
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
I apologize for being so dense. Major, if you could hold my hand just a little longer I think I might figure this out.
I created basically an r.dds, white on shiny parts and black on non-shiny parts. Gave it the same name as the t.dds (c488w_t.dds) but with a .+sr.dds (c488w_t.+sr.dds) at the end. Without any mods to the M3D, the model appears dull black all over and no hint of a t.dds.
If I do the same again, but change only the second set of the material string into 00 00 ff 00 (into reflective), then the t.dds appears with shine/reflection but it is very dark.
Original material string:
ff ff ff ff-00 00 00 00-ff ff ff ff-00 00 00 ff-00 00 00 ff-00 00 00 40-02 00 ff ff-ff ff ff ff-ff ff ff ff
Any suggestions?
Try
00 00 FF 00 For Drawing Style
FF FF FF FF For Diffuse Color
00 00 00 FF For Ambient Color
33 33 33 FF For Specular
00 00 00 43 For Glossiness
02 00 FF FF FF FF for the Texture References (assumes from what you asked that the *_t.dds is listed as the third entry in your texture list since the list numbering starts with the first entry as 00 00)
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
I've been going through my DPC Korean War install making the aircraft more compatible with AnKor's 2016 shaders. This typically involves some minor M3D tweaks, and sometimes an adjustment in the _r.dds or _s.dds files.
When I got to the B29S Sky Queen by Christophe Rosenmann I found that there was quite a bit more work required. In this case most of the 2D textures had been painted with gradients to make them look more 3D as they wrapped around the fuselage. While this was more needed in the past, it has always led to incongruous lighting situations as the plane maneuvered to anything other than straight and level. The large difference between the light and the dark parts of the original textures now causes the shaders to be confused about the relative glossiness of the different surface areas. This completely bleaches out portions of the skin when the sun hits it.
With the self-shadowing and environmental reflections of the new shaders I could redraw the textures as more uniform aluminum skins and let the program render the 3D characteristics dynamically. Here's a before and after comparison so you can see what I mean.
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
How di you do this? Please go through the detailed procedure.
Thanks.
Yes, things like drawn-on shadows, highlights and other shading are no longer needed and actually detract somewhat from the finished result. This also includes highlights in specular textures.
Basically I had to redraw the *_t.dds files again, but I was able to take a few shortcuts.How di you do this? Please go through the detailed procedure.
Thanks.
In Photoshop I first deselected the areas I wanted to preserve like the markings, and nose art.
Then I used the levels function to clip the low and high end of the brightness range. This had the effect of reducing the contrast to a fairly narrow range. I then used brightness adjustments to get the shade right, and colorizing to set the tint. In this case a 5% saturated blue grey.
Next I redrew the panel lines with a slightly darker grey, and then applied an overall 2% monochromatic noise filter. Now the textures looked like panels of uniformly tarnished aluminum with the original markings intact.
Then I addressed the *_r.dds files. These were a bit easier to deal with because they were generally just an overall 17% brightness grey. A quick adjustment with the brightness tool to lower this to 10% made the environmental reflections much more subtle and natural looking for weathered aluminum.
For reflective areas of the skin the *_r.dds should typically be in the 10-16% brightness range depending on the *_t.dds luminosity and your personal tastes. (Try something >50% some time just for fun.) For matte painted areas the brightness should fall into the 0 - 5% brightness range.
The tweaks to the M3D involved setting the glossiness to 00 00 7E 43 so that the highlight reflections were fairly tight / narrow rather than diffused over a large area.
Here's a shot of FiFi passing over my house one clear sunny morning a couple of years ago.
and Sentimental Journey the next year in the afternoon
As you can see there is a range to the environmental reflections that depends on the condition of the individual aircraft's finish.
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
Sticky perhaps?
Cato said "Carthaginem esse delendam"
I say "Carthago iam diu deleta,sed enim Bellum Alium adhuc aedificandum est"
Are my B-29 skins compatible with the Korean Skies one? If so I can certainly provide someone with blanks with markings removed.
It looks like they are.
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
I agree. There are a lot of answers to technical questions sprinkled throughout these pages.
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
I would add a detailed installation guide in one post for the total package: shaders, ENB Injector and Flight FX.
BTW - I found the solution to most of my alpha probs. The models I was experimenting on were in the KTO with the old shaders installed. Once I installed the current shaders, the model shadows went away and some models accepted the alpha without incident. Still get some bomb crater flickering and a few models will not accept an alpha. Example: I tried to add the extra bombardier windows to the Firepower B-24J and they refuse to be transparent, sometimes with varied shades of gray. Still experimenting.
I agree. It's getting confusing as in Foo Fighter's other comment "I had Gecko's new KTO environment installed (without his shaders.xml) and then installed Ankor's new shaders with MajorMagee's tweaks. Everything seemed to work just fine, but I liked Gecko's environment and re-installed them (assets, weather & effects folders only) over Ankor's current shaders. Everything still works and looks great"I would add a detailed installation guide in one post for the total package: shaders, ENB Injector and Flight FX.
BTW - I found the solution to most of my alpha probs. The models I was experimenting on were in the KTO with the old shaders installed. Once I installed the current shaders, the model shadows went away and some models accepted the alpha without incident. Still get some bomb crater flickering and a few models will not accept an alpha. Example: I tried to add the extra bombardier windows to the Firepower B-24J and they refuse to be transparent, sometimes with varied shades of gray. Still experimenting.
Plus also adding WOFF 3 stuffall needs to be pulled together some where!
Cato said "Carthaginem esse delendam"
I say "Carthago iam diu deleta,sed enim Bellum Alium adhuc aedificandum est"
Once again I had to go back and bring this up to the top to find an answer to a question about the shaders.
Please make this thread a sticky.
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
Yes please!!!
Once again I had to go back and bring this up to the top to find an answer to a question about the shaders.
Please make this thread a sticky.
Cato said "Carthaginem esse delendam"
I say "Carthago iam diu deleta,sed enim Bellum Alium adhuc aedificandum est"
I've just found the cause. Simply forgot to add a line of code which enables standard _t/_r textures when +nm is used. Now they work as expected.
This will be fixed in the next update which I hope to make soon.
Exciting news!
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