Reflective Textures help needed please.

[stinger2k2]

Hi,

I am trying to create reflective textures but all
i am getting is transparent textures instead.

My model has been made in Gmax, which was exported with HasRefletMap
option checked.

I created a grayscale image of my wing textures, saved
it as an 8-bit bmp and then imported this into DXTbmp as an Alpha channel. I then saved my main texture file and my grayscale image(alpha) together as a DXT3 into my texture folder.

What am I doing wrong??

Thanks for any help

Stinger.

[n4gix]

Add an instance of the Diffuse Color texture to the Specular Color slot, so the Alpha channel information will be treated as 'reflective' information rather than 'transparency' information.

[stinger2k2]

Hi Bill,

I'm sorry but your reply went over my head. Is
there any chance you could expand. I assume you are
talking about within Gmax itself?

Thanks

Stinger

[stinger2k2]

Bill,

I have now resolved this. The problem was that
I hadn't re-named my texture with the _t suffix.

Thanks anyway and I hope this may help someone else.

Stinger.

[n4gix]

>Bill,
>
>I have now resolved this. The problem was that
>I hadn't re-named my texture with the _t suffix.
>
>Thanks anyway and I hope this may help someone else.
>
>Stinger.

That is the "old method" of enabling 'reflections' on a texture, and was carried over from FS2k2 to FS9 to allow backward compatibility.

The current method is to simply drag an "instance (not copy!)" of the bitmap from the Diffuse Color Slot in the Material Editor and drop it in the Specular Color slot.

If you know enough to assign a bitmap to the Diffuse Color slot, by looking at the slot immediately above Diffuse Color, the process should be obvious... ;)

[stinger2k2]

"That is the "old method" of enabling 'reflections' on a texture, and was carried over from FS2k2 to FS9 to allow backward compatibility.

The current method is to simply drag an "instance (not copy!)" of the bitmap from the Diffuse Color Slot in the Material Editor and drop it in the Specular Color slot.

If you know enough to assign a bitmap to the Diffuse Color slot, by looking at the slot immediately above Diffuse Color, the process should be obvious... "

Yes, the reason I have been struggling is this....The aircraft I am working on was designed for FS2002 using the first version of Gmax.
I have now returned to it after a couple of years away from design work to update it to FS9. Within the latest version of Gmax the material assignment and tools look rather different to the way I remember them so not only have I been trying learn new methods but I have also had to remember how I did it in the first place!!

Thank the lord for forums such as this. I would have given up long since without it!!

[n4gix]

I know the feeling. I can't even remember what the Material Editor for v1.1 of GMax looks like.

If you think that strange, you should see the UI for the Material Editor in Max8! ;)

[punas1]

Hey I was painting a Meljet Gmax Model with the _T suffix last night and I downloaded the DXT Conversion tool from Martin Wright,[ I dont know if you are familiar wwith this or not] but I was taking the _T suffix textures from the file you download at Meljet.com and converting them as dxt3 for the final work. I noticed the paint wasn't as shiny as I thought it was supposed to be.

I used Corel's trial paint shop pro to paint everything and then converted it with the DXT conversion tool for the dxt1 format. Was that correct or can I leave it after I paint it. Cause either way My paint was coming out like chrome the first way or coming out in a flat color with no gloss? HElp

[n4gix]

Save as DXT3 w/Alpha...

DXT1 only has a one bit Alpha channel, so 'shades of gray' are lost... For sim purposes, DXT1 isn't really all that useful...

[punas1]

Hey thanks for the information. Greatly appreciated.

Here is a link that might give more help to those that need it.

file:///C:/Graphics/MWGraphics/DXTBmp/DXTBmp.htm#Updates