Maddog X 1.3b351 with PBR out and 83-88 tomorrow

[Steve Dra 7,588]

16 hours ago, Wanthuyr Filho said:

No down-scaling here, using 4k resolution in a 55" screen. Just to make sure what I was seeing I took 2 screenshots, one for each case (DR on and off). It seems to be really something related to reflection, with DR activate it might "reflect" the surrounding environment and thus creating this "brightness" around the fuselage. And it's more visible in the edges of the fuselage in the boundaries of the view.

But the main issue to me seems to be the PBR itself, as it made the airplane too bright to my taste (I've only tested this old AA livery so far), something the HDR sliders won't help because it's more related to the contrast between sunlit areas and shadowed areas (I like a bump of more contrast particularly). And yes, I'm aware sky textures make a huge difference in the overall appearance of the whole simulator, it's complicated! In the end it's really a matter of compromise, until maybe the graphics engine is revamped from scratch.

 

I can tell you 1st hand that working with PBR textures is very tricky, and we're all getting used to everything it can and can't do.  These first few months will be more of a discovery session rather than an informed, educated effort to paint aircraft in this new medium.

Like new kids getting an erector set for Christmas, ripping open the package and starting to build without reading the instructions, the same applies here...except that we have no real instructions to go on at the moment, literally painting by the seat of our pants as it were, hehe.

When the smoke clears, what you'll see is painters adjusting many (and I mean MANY) different parameters within the multiple texture and now RGB channels within a custom map (that we've never worked with before)

Compound the issue of newness... that bare metal paints in particular bring a whole, additional level of complexity and you'll find that the 1st few early releases of them will vary greatly in the overall effects as the painters try to grapple with this new way to paint.  Fully painted aircraft (like most aircraft now) will be much easier to paint and render, so most of the issues you'll see in the beginning will be with bare metal liveries.

I just released my version of the new Leonardo Maddog in American Airlines colors (link to my paints in my sig), and you'll see that my interpretation of how metal should look in the sim is rather different than the other 2 paints available of the same livery.  This has nothing to do with who's is better, but everything to do with trial and error, and the painters visual representation of metal.  We may find that until we learn how to better manipulate the textures, and/or new updates come to enhance the look, metal is going to look stunning at some angles and time of day, and grey and plastic-like at others.  So far ALL variations I've seen suffer from this, so we'll all have to decide if we can live with that as simmers, or chose to not enable PBR.

I can tell you my decision is that PBR is the way I'm going, and some of the views I've seen panning around my paint at certain times of day AND season AND weather simply took my breath away...so much so I pulled the rare, call-the-wife-into-the-room-to-gawk card!  Even she was more than mildly impressed...so that should tell you something, LOL. 🙂

 

 

[kdfw__ 542]

bare metal at dusk/dawn with pbr layers just doesn't look right, it casts a gold-ish yellow glow on both the lit and unlit side.  so for metal liveries so far i'd prefer the original non-pbr paint schemes which still look super nice with the prominent bump maps.

[regis9 4,013]

Steve, I always find calling my wife in to look at something that has impressed me to be a bit of a gamble, glad to hear it worked out for you 😀

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

I just released my version of the new Leonardo Maddog in American Airlines colors (link to my paints in my sig),

Time to try your efforts, many thanks.  Agree with you on learning and getting used to working with PBR.  I don't know if you have Substance Designer, but several developers use this tool to make it easier to work with PBR and verify material results.

Cheers, Rob.

Edited December 25, 2018 by Guest

[Steve Dra 7,588]

1 hour ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Time to try your efforts, many thanks.  Agree with you on learning and getting used to working with PBR.  I don't know if you have Substance Designer, but several developers use this tool to make it easier to work with PBR and verify material results.

Cheers, Rob.

Thanks Rob!  I'd like to get your take on the different approaches we used to arrive at our versions of a bare metal paint.  Folk's preferences will be very subjective and I like certain aspects of the other bare metal PBR paints I've reviewed, but sadly I can't incorporate those features without drastically changing the look of mine.  Probably best if all us painters give you a multitude of versions to choose from. 😉 

I know I'm still working on mine and you'll see some flaws as you pan around her...but my motivation  was to get her under everyone's tree for Christmas...so I had to release her with some things that are nagging me, but she'll get updated as I have time after the holidays and I learn more about PBR painting.

Thanks for the tip about Substance Designer...checkin' it out now. 🙂

[Wanthuyr Filho 83]

14 minutes ago, Steve Dra said:

Thanks Rob!  I'd like to get your take on the different approaches we used to arrive at our versions of a bare metal paint.  Folk's preferences will be very subjective and I like certain aspects of the other bare metal PBR paints I've reviewed, but sadly I can't incorporate those features without drastically changing the look of mine.  Probably best if all us painters give you a multitude of versions to choose from. 😉 

I know I'm still working on mine and you'll see some flaws as you pan around her...but my motivation  was to get her under everyone's tree for Christmas...so I had to release her with some things that are nagging me, but she'll get updated as I have time after the holidays and I learn more about PBR painting.

Thanks for the tip about Substance Designer...checkin' it out now. 🙂

Cool Steve, thanks for your nice work. I shall try some of your paints in the near future, but I'd like to ask you what happens if I decide to turn off PBR option using your paint, does it behave similarly to the Maddog default paint?

Edited December 25, 2018 by Wanthuyr Filho

[Steve Dra 7,588]

1 hour ago, Wanthuyr Filho said:

Cool Steve, thanks for your nice work. I shall try some of your paints in the near future, but I'd like to ask you what happens if I decide to turn off PBR option using your paint, does it behave similarly to the Maddog default paint?

Yeah it would.  One of the 1st things we learned about metal paints in PBR is that the metal's color depth is way over-exaggerated on non-PBR renderings, so we had to adjust that right off.

Here is a comparison of how the nose maps look in each version.  On the version that came with the Leonardo package, the effect is even more washed out (almost white)

So through the master paint kit...you adjust the opacity of the metal layer to achieve this...then apply it to the 3 main texture maps.

But that is just a tiny portion of the new painting requirements...now we have a whole new texture map specifically for the metallic effects.  Every texture has the ability to be broken down into its Red, Green, Blue (RGB) components.

On the left you see the metallic map with all 3 channels combined.  On the right is just the red channel, which controls the reflections and shininess...you also have to modify the green channel for shadows, and thankfully the blue channel is not used (that we know of).

 You cant see it in the pic...but in order for the metal's shininess to appear correctly you have to apply a gray-scale gradient to the channel, with a slightly darker hue on the top of the aircraft.  This is tricky to get right because (getting techie here)...the channel is only built with a 256 color gray-scale color scale, so any gradients you need to apply will look completely horrible if you try to apply the gradient directly on the red channel.  What you have to do is copy the channel and paste it as an individual texture, increase the color to 65k or higher, do the gradient, then copy/paste that texture back into the red channel. Then once you get that done and adjust the shadows on the green channel, you're almost 25% done. LoL.  Let's dont even get me started on the alpha channel on the main texture or the 2 layers on the bump maps (which are now required on PBR paints).

And...there are 3 main maps for the fuse of the MD...so multiple the steps above x 3. 🙄

In addition to learning this all on the fly and with no real, flightsim-specific PBR guidelines, you can see why it took me over a week just to "adjust" my existing non-PBR AA paint to the new technology. 😱 

Not what a "retired" painter wanted to see...a new painting method that makes his metal paints look fantastic (again, at some angles).  Oh well....you can get my non-PBR paint in the same link below...its either at the bottom of that page of paints or on the next page.

 

Edited December 25, 2018 by Steve Dra

[Dreamflight767 312]

Hi:

With the expansion pack (MD-83/-88), is anybody having issues when arming the spoilers?  When I arm the spoilers, they both arm and deploy.  Thanks.

[Steve Dra 7,588]

Thanks for the like simbol!   Check your Ai Lights email. 😉

Have a happy and safe Holiday season!

[simbol 5,819]

@Steve Dra,

If you open the learning centre inside your PD3 instalation folder, you can find the documentation regarding PBR materials were it explains the requirements for the metal map, RGB requirements, smooth channels, emisive maps, etc.

It doesn't say much, but since you have your hands already on this field the information will be very useful to you as it will allow you to perfection your work, I know you are a perfectionists 😉.

Great Work btw.

Simbol 

Edited December 25, 2018 by simbol

[Steve Dra 7,588]

1 minute ago, simbol said:

@Steve Dra,

If you open the learning centre inside your PD3 instalation folder, you can find the documentation regarding PBR materials were it explains the requirements for the metal map, RGB requirements, smooth channels, emisive maps, etc.

It doesn't say much, but since you have your hands already on this field the information will be very useful to you as it will allow you to perfection your work, I know you are a perfectionists 😉.

Great Work btw.

Simbol 

Documentation? Documentation?  Who takes time to read that stuff? 🤣

Thanks for the heads-up my friend...I'll take a look at it for sure....probably been doing it all wrong LOL.

[gregda 21]

Unfortunately I had to disable PBR.  It is beautiful up close but in any outside spot view past the wingspan or so the shimmying is awful.  Removed PBR and it stopped.  Anyone else see this?  I'm using a monitor with 2560x1440 native resolution and have 8700K with a 1080.  The PBR problem isn't really a big deal to me as I'm so engrossed in trying to learn to fly this challenging bird, but was just curious about others experiences in outside spot views (and especially panning) with PBR enabled.

Thanks,

Greg

[Neonx95 11]

7 hours ago, gregda said:

Unfortunately I had to disable PBR.  It is beautiful up close but in any outside spot view past the wingspan or so the shimmying is awful. 

They are aware of it as many others reported this problem in their Facebook Group. Just something they didn't notice during beta testing, so we have to see if this something that can be fixed. I just hope this not a downside to PBR in P3D.

[Epikk 62]

18 hours ago, Dreamflight767 said:

Hi:

With the expansion pack (MD-83/-88), is anybody having issues when arming the spoilers?  When I arm the spoilers, they both arm and deploy.  Thanks.

If you're arming spoilers on TO with a non-ABS equipped Maddog that's normal.

[Dreamflight767 312]

1 hour ago, Epikk said:

If you're arming spoilers on TO with a non-ABS equipped Maddog that's normal.

Thank you!  That explains that.  So, on non-ABS A/C, I assume spoilers aren't armed for T/O?