Falcon 50 - VC - Specular Shine and Shading ?

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Mark,

RE: P3Dv4

I've been looking at the VC textures fairly closely in P3Dv4...

Someone sent me an image of their VC in FSX (see below) - and it seems to look far better than what I'm seeing in P3Dv4...

If you note - the rotary knob and push buttons in FSX seems to have specular shine and there is actually shading on the side of the twist knobs - these effects are most definitely not present in my P3Dv4 setup... Even upon the closest of inspections - I can't detect the shine or edges...

In the image below - all the faces of shapes not directly facing the light are darker - I'm missing that in P3D...

IIRC - I don't think I've noticed shadows in the VC...

I've done some modeling - mostly in other sims - not with anything as sophisticated as 3D Studio Max - or on your level - but we had an option called "creasing" where you could remove the "lighting" highlights on object... For example - a cylinder - to make it appear perfectly smooth and round (by removing the edge detection) instead of looking like a multifaceted cylinder... That's kind of what I'm seeing on many of the buttons and switches in the VC... There's no edge or side definition - shading - no matter how acute the angle... In my modeling software "creasing" was adjustable based on the angle formed by two adjacent faces... No clue if that has any relevance - just what I equate it to based on my experience...

As a test I maxed out the specular map for shine in the VC - it seemed to have no effect... Does specular work in the VC in P3D ?

Would you have any idea why FSX looks better or if there is a way to correct it in P3D ?

 

 

Regards,
Scott

Edited December 6, 2018 by scottb613

[Flysimware 647]

This is a P3D V4 issue not a modeling issue. There lighting is bad. I am also wondering what others do. I will ask at FSDeveloper.

Edited December 7, 2018 by Flysimware

[scottb613 1,188]

11 hours ago, Flysimware said:

This is a P3D V4 issue not a modeling issue. There lighting is bad. FSX is way better. I am also wondering what other do. I will ask at FSDeveloper.

Hi Mark,

Much thanks - yeah - I'm very curious myself...

Many of the VC's in P3D look so real - with the lighting and shadow play over the panel - you can seriously forget you're in a sim... I've looked very closely at your work - and the 3D detail in the VC is all in there - I think this lighting issue is just biting you in the butt... It's masking your effort spent modeling the mesh... The most common gripe we hear on the forums from people who haven't tried your products - relates to the look of the VC - "it's so FS9" - I can't recall how many times I've heard that... I think this could be the root cause of much of that criticism... Anything we can do to improve this aspect of your product - I think - would be a good investment of your time...

Regards,
Scott

Edited December 7, 2018 by scottb613

[scottb613 1,188]

On 12/6/2018 at 8:07 PM, Flysimware said:

This is a P3D V4 issue not a modeling issue. There lighting is bad. I am also wondering what others do. I will ask at FSDeveloper.

Hi Mark,

I took our question and went straight to Lockheed Martin - and they answered... I’m not going to be home to look at this for another week or so - but here is what they said (they actually do answer posts on their forum - I’m surprised)...

Now this doesn’t explain how others get around it - unless they are mapping each surface - of say a knob - to its own piece of unique texture real estate and hand painting highlights to each surface ? Someone needs to check some other products that look good and see if we can identify an example... If you have any interest in testing this theory - I can certainly work with you for the texture part...

Here’s a link to the post - Lockheed Martin is looking - seems like a good opportunity to get any questions on the subject answered...

Given his answer - I’m assuming FSX doesn’t have shadows in the VC ? I’ve never used FSX - went from FS9 to P3Dv3...

 

Quote

 

Beau Hollis Lockheed Martin Posts: 1841 Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 11:25 am Contact: 

 

Re: P3D Shading Issue in VC

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•  

by Beau Hollis » Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:30 pm 

If you have VC shadows on, perhaps they are in shadow. Specular and diffuse light from the sun won't shade surfaces that are in shadow. With the new pbr material you would still pick up some environmental reflection. Try opening the time preview window and using the slider to adjust the time of day. That'll give you a better idea of how it looks in different lighting conditions.

Beau Hollis
Prepar3D Software Architect

 

Regrds,

Scott

Edited December 8, 2018 by scottb613

[ark 1,288]

Hi Scott,

You are not old enough to recall, but mannnny years ago there was a mystery radio program called The Shadow Knows.....

So, based on your info above, I found a setting in FSX called Aircraft Casts Shadow on Self.  When I turned that on, I got the following picture (same time, location, etc as previous FSX pictures):

So still somewhat better than P3Dv4 (especially the throttle handle separation), but clearly not nearly as good as when Aircraft Cast Shadow on Self is off.

Al

Edited December 8, 2018 by ark

[Flysimware 647]

Here is a good example of why P3D V4 does not have good shading.

For example I can't add shadow between the white handles because 1 handle may get moved forward exposing the other handle. So it up to the sim to produce shadow casting on itself. In the FSX example you can see the shadow is half way on the throttles. 

For P3D the shadow is not showing more detail and depth. Also the knobs look like a flat disc.

So the reply from P3D was correct that casting shadow in itself makes the depth better in FSX but even without it it still looks better than P3D with shadow on. So P3D needs batter shading.

FSX

P3D

Edited December 8, 2018 by Flysimware

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Folks,

Thanks for the interest and yep - concur...

I’d also suggest we try to make the case to the guys at LM who can make changes happen... Every year - with the advent of new features - P3D is grabbing a larger share of the market - eventually - FSX will fade like my much loved FS9... Eventually it will need to be addressed...

That said - I’m always looking at how different models are textured - here’s an image from a competitor with a  very similar overhead in P3D... They have the same knobs that your Falcon has - see how they textured them ? I guess it comes down to painting the shading ?

Regards,

Scott

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flysimware 647]

We already have plans to add some shading to just those type of knobs since they are so bad. Al has been asking for a while now.

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Mark,

Sounds good - just trying to help out...

Regards,

Scott

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Mark,

Just more confirmation of what we already suspected - most of the VC is in pretty dark shade - yet we can still see what (we now know) must obviosly be painted on shine and contrast on various shapes...

 

 

Regards,

Scott

Edited December 8, 2018 by scottb613

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Mark,

Beau offered some follow up alternatives - like a dim source of light in the VC ?

Quote

Beau Hollis Lockheed Martin Posts: 1844 Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 11:25 am Contact: 

 

Re: P3D Shading Issue in VC

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•  

by Beau Hollis » Sat Dec 08, 2018 1:34 pm 

You could either turn VC shadows off, or place a dim point light effect in your model. When objects are not directly lit, they get their lighting from ambient lighting. In our standard material, the ambient light color is based on the time of day. As you noted, objects in shadow still have some shading to them in the real world. This comes from ambient occlusion and from the fact that ambient light isn't uniform because its comes from light bouncing off of other things. Typical process for non-pbr materials (in any game or sim engine) is to bake occlusion into your diffuse texture by darkening areas like corners where less light bounces. For PBR, the occlusion is stored in a separate map or channel. This allows for more physically correct simulation of light. In both cases there is some artist work needed to author the textures. There are tools out there for simulating bounce lighting and using the results to "bake" occlusion data into a texture. This can save a lot of artist time.

Thanks

Beau Hollis
Prepar3D Software Architect

Regards,

Scott

[Flysimware 647]

8 hours ago, scottb613 said:

Hi Mark,

Beau offered some follow up alternatives - like a dim source of light in the VC ?

Regards,

Scott

We would simply use 3DS MAX to create some Ambient Occlusions for those parts like we do for most of the other major non animated parts.

 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Flysimware