OK - still battling through G-Max......On my first project I have started texturing but for some reason my right wing is too dark on top, and underneath it is brighter than the rest of the aircraft. I created the wing by mirroring the left wing and it is at the point of mirroring that the dark and light shadow effects seem to switch - however I can find nothing in any of the parameters that I can see that would affect this.The Flaps are fine but the aileron's shadow/brightness is also reversed. I'm sure it must be a simple button somewhere but I can't for the life of me find out what is causing this. Any ideas??? ThanksSF

A picture might help us to understand better.My guess would be that you need to flip the (inner face) edges so the shading appears the same in the given lighting.

Thanks for your reply, I'll now try to work out how to flip the inner face edges!!!!These are screen shots in FS9 - if I forgot to mention earlier, the wings appear fine in G-Max, it is only in FS9 that I have this problem.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Laf...hadingProb1.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Laf...hadingProb2.jpg

Well, your pictures look like only some of the polys are textured. Could that be the problem?I'm still not clear on what part of this is the problem. You are going to have to be clearer I think.As far as fliping the edge, in edge sub-object mode there is a button "flip", and if you push it, then any edge you click will flip witin a given poly.

Apologies - I have obviously not ben as clear as I should.All of the polys are textured. To explain the pictures:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Laf...hadingProb1.jpgThis is the wing viewed from above in FS9. The darker portion on the right is fully textured but just appears to be in shadow.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v638/Laf...hadingProb2.jpgThis second picture shows the underside of the same wing (usually all in shadow) as you can see the underside of the polygons that were in shadow on the top surface are now very bright -whereas the rest of the wing is, correctly, in shadow.I think it must be something to do with using the mirror function but can't see any noticable differences with the parameters and views in Gmax.Thanks again in anticipation.SF

Ok, I understand now.First, why would you texture the underside "in shadow"? You want to let the game shade things depending on the lighting and attitude.Second, assuming your UVW unwrap is correct, then you are likely right that this has to do with the mirror tool. The one on the toolbar has issues (whereas you can usually safely use the modifer in the stack) - or is it the reverse... I can't remember.Anyway, the solution should be to reset the mesh so that the mirror is "burned" into it, and then it is as if you never mirrored in the first place.Select the part, go to the Hierarchy panel, Adjust Transform rollout, and in the Reset group, click transform and scale. You might want to save first before you experiment with this to see if this fixes it for you.Others might have other suggestions.

You used the "Mirror" tool on the upper toolbar. This is a very well-known trap that virtually every Max/GMax modeler has fallen into at least once... ;)There are two solutions:1)a) Select the right wing and use the "Mirror" tool from the upper toolbar again.:( Apply a "Mirror" modifier to the stack.2)a) Delete the right wing.:( Clone the left wing and apply a "Mirror" modifier to the stack.c) Shift/Move the cloned/mirrored object into place.Finally, don't do "it" again... :-lol

Patrick, Bill than you both very much - I have traced it to the mirror button on the top row. I have finally skirted rounded it by (as I think was suggested?) cloning the left wing, then used the the top menu's Modifiers/Parametric Deformers/Mirror which seems to work. Its almost as if Gmax and FS have some compatibility problems!! :)Patrick - just to clear up, I wasn't applying a shadow to the texture - that was what FS9 did to the same top and bottom textures that I was using.Thanks again - now all I need to be able to do is be able to texture well and somehow get the textures to appear in Gmax as they do on the aircraft.....aaaagggghhhh. :) Thanks for all your help.SF

>Patrick, Bill than you both very much - I have traced it to>the mirror button on the top row. I have finally skirted>rounded it by (as I think was suggested?) cloning the left>wing, then used the the top menu's Modifiers/Parametric>Deformers/Mirror which seems to work. The "Mirror" tool on the top row does exactlly what you'd expect a "mirror" to do, it reflects everything - in reverse. This means that all the face normals are also "mirrored" which is what caused the odd shading issue.Simply flipping the normals won't cure it, because the faces are also "mirrored." You'd simply wind up with even stranger looking mesh in the sim... *:-* In general, your best bet it to avoid most of the "stuff" on the upper tool bar and simply use the stack on the rightside toolbox. In spite of the name being the same, the "Mirror" modifier in the stack doesn't work the same at all, since it does not invert the faces and normals...I removed all the "dangerous and unneeded stuff" from my GMax desktop ages ago so I'm not going to make those particular mistakes any longer... ;)As far as texturing goes, there are some really excellent tutorials at http://freeflightdesign.com