Texture problem on a tube????

[Guest]

Hi Guys,I'm hoping someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong here. When I paint the fuse in GMAX it looks fine - but when I export it to FS2002 it comes out looking like this :(.It is supposed to be a BAE ATP - but at the moment it has this awful translucent look to it... Very frustrating.The texture is DXT3Hope you guys have some ideas?Thanks,Julian

[Guest]

Hmm...I don't see the problem. Doesn't look translucent from this angle. Maybe another picture would illustrate it better?I do see a different problem, though...it looks like the normals are flipped on the starboard wing. Let me guess: you created the port one first, then used the Mirror Icon on the toolbar to create the starboard wing? Delete it, clone the port wing, and apply a mirror modifier to the stack of your new clone.Matt

[Guest]

One more thought...if your fuselage is coming out slightly transparent, it might be that your alpha channel is being interpreted as transparency and not reflectivity. Is your texture file named with a _t at the end?Matt

[Guest]

Hi Matt,Thanks so much for replying - it is so frustrating :). Yes I think you are right on the mirroring - I will give that a go.Here are a few more shots of the problem - It is not the _t extension, but thanks for that ( I needed to check :)).It has my confused - I'm using two mesh selects and then two UVW maps (but positioning them so I can use one bitmap). Both the materials I have the same bmp associated with them.Any more ideas?Thanks again,Julian

[Guest]

Aha, now I see the problem.You've got a whole lot of flipped normals on this plane, sorry :(You've got a tube for a fuselage, right? It has an outer surface and a separate set of polygons for the inner surface. All of the normals are flipped the wrong way, so from the outside, you see the inner wall, and from the inside, you see the outer wall. Furthermore, your texture is applied to the inner wall. So what you are seeing is a transparent outer wall (because the normals are flipped) with your texture applied to the outside (because these normals are flipped too) of the inner wall.Try flipping normals and reapplying the texture to the correct surface, and see how that goes.Matt

[Guest]

JulianFrom looking at the images did you create your fuselage as half then use the mirror tool to create the other half?If so you have encountered the dreaded mirror tool gotcha.to correct this you need to select the fuselage.go to the tools panel in the modifier i.e the little hammer tab.select Xform reset.Click on Xform selected at the bottom.Go back to the modifier tab and apply a normal modifier from the stackclick the flip normals button.then convert back to an editable mesh.this allows succesful use of the mirror tool button.The only thing that is a drawback is that pivots and animation can be reset. Possibly the texture mapping will be lost.hope it helps.Paul H

[Guest]

Paul,That sounds like a great procedure to recover from the mirror tool gotcha...thanks. I'm not sure if that's Julian's issue, because it appears that both sides of the fuselage have flipped normals, but it may still work. It should work for the right-side wheel in each pair, the starboard wing, the starboard engine nacelle, and the starboard horizontal stabilizer, which all do suffer from the mirror tool gotcha.Matt

[Guest]

Hi Guys,Thanks for your help here - it looks as though I have stuffed this up somewhere - it has been good to gett your advice.I'll let you know how I get on,Thanks again,Julian