Carenado Skymaster... Missing Reflections...

[robnewman76 0]

Hi all...

 

I'm hoping one of you gurus out there might be able to let me know where I'm going wrong with this...

 

I attempted my first repaint of the Carenado Skymaster last night and while the textures were saved with an alpha channel and look just fine (albeit a little tweaking needed just yet!), the bump mapping is called just fine and I'm guessing the specular is also called just fine (though it's hard to tell), BUT I still do not get any of those nice, glossy reflections that show up on the inculded paint jobs.

 

I've tried saving as regular BMP, Extended BMP, DDS, saving through the Nvidia tool in Photoshop, Using DXTBmp, Using Imagetool... Nothing seems to give me the desired result.

 

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Alpha channel could be configured to be either chrome or environment reflections... but only one... Is this something to do with it? And if so, how do I save my files with the appropriate settings?

 

 

Thanks in advance...

[N60JBravo 27]

Have you tried darkening the Alpha channel?

 

The darker the Alpha the higher the reflectivity.

 

Too dark and you will get the chrome look.

 

regards,

Joe

[robnewman76 0]

Thanks Joe...

 

I gave that a try, but it's not the effect I'm looking for... It did make it more chrome like, but I'm sure that there is a way somehow to tell the alpha channel to be either chrome (replaces the underlying texture with the chrome map) or glossy (applies the environment map over the texture)... For some reason, despite the original textures being glossy, whenever I save the new ones the alpha is set back to chrome... I'm really not sure how to switch it back to glossy.

 

Any ideas?

[N60JBravo 27]

You can't tell the Alpha to be anything.

 

What the Alpha controls is determined by the model creator and there is no way for us end-users to change that.

 

The only control we have is how dark the Alpha is. If the effect is too chromy for you, then try lightening up the Alpha.

 

regards,

Joe

[robnewman76 0]

Thanks for the help Joe... Interesting... in which case, Carenado made the model glossy... every paint scheme that comes installed with it is glossy. The blank white textures are glossy when unaltered, but something must change when I save them... its the process of saving them that seems to switch the glossiness off...

 

 

 

[robnewman76 0]

A quick update...

 

What I thought was more chrome, actually wasn't... Guess it was me looking too hard...

 

However, I seem to have narrowed the issue down a little further, but now it has me even more puzzled...

 

I used Imagetool to open an existing (working) texture (saved as extended .BMP by Carenado)... I noted the format (DXT5) and the Alpha was there. Incidentally I discovered that the alpha channel for this aircraft is for glossiness... not chrome... This is set by the model as Joe noted above.

 

I then opened my texture in Photoshop, added an alpha channel, copied the alpha channel in from the working file so it was identical, then saved as a 32-Bit .BMP with Alpha.

 

Next, I opened it up in Imagetool and set the format to DXT5, checked the Alpha was still there (it was) and saved the file.

 

It was now identical (according to Imagetool) to the working texture provided by Carenado, but still I have no gloss on my repaint... It's as if the model is ignoring my Alpha channel altogether.

 

 

I'm thinking at this point that I must be having a mismatch of formats somewhere...

 

 

Any ideas (or even guesses at this point!) would be most appreciated!

[N60JBravo 27]

Rather than using ImageTool I suggest DXTBmp, which is free and available here- MW Graphics

 

I don't know if it will fix your problem, but it has always worked for me.

 

regards,

Joe

[Leen3131cs 107]

I am confident it will Joe.