I am all seculared out. I have tried all mentioned suggestions on getting the attached GMAX cube model not to show the light effects caused from the sun in FS. I want all six sides the same intensity, all bright or all dark, I don't care which one.http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/cube.jpgAnyone?Step by step, if you don't mind.http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/jimlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

You've probably already tried this, but did you try assigning the cube sides a material that starts with "bright_" yet? That's supposed to make it a self-illuminating object, which one would think would exclude it from the normal shading process. I don't know if it works, but I saw it in the scenery SDK. BTW, I didn't notice your earlier thread -- what is the end result you're trying to achieve?good luck,

No, I didn't try that. I do forsee some problems with that at certain times of day.http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/jimlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

Then you may be running into cake issues. You know, ownership versus consumption, if you know what I mean.

Hi Bill does one have to enable that in 3DSmaxgmax as well?(under self illumination) as I don't get the effect we are looking for just using the above. Thanks (A somewhat confused) Dan

Hi Dan,Believe me, confusion seems to be the norm when working with the gmax/fs2002 combo. The problems mainly stem from the illusion given by gmax that the user has a tremendous amount of control over how the final model looks in the sim. The truth is we're all operating in the fairly narrow confines of the various FS2002 SDKs. I did a quick and dirty test with a cube, and I've posted the screenshots below. The only thing I did was make a cube in gmax, then make a material for it called "bright_yellow", give it a diffuse color of yellow and exported the bgl. As you can see, it didn't completely eliminate the shading effects, but it dramatically lessened them. I'm guessing, although I didn't try it, that the object will also glow in the dark. Probably not what you're looking for, but there it is anyway.http://www.spottedantelope.com/bwomack/images/testCube1.jpghttp://www.spottedantelope.com/bwomack/images/testCube2.jpghttp://www.spottedantelope.com/bwomack/images/testCube3.jpggood luck!

Some comments that are purely guesses, but well founded 'experience' guesses ;)The remaining 'shading' I would guess is actually the specular colour from the sun, not shading itself...This probably doesn't work with textures (I may be wrong, but had a play with the emissive (and ambient) colours in BGLC and that didn't have any effect)...For textures use lightmaps, but they won't work with TEXTURE_BUILDING, only TEXTURE_AIRCRAFT. nightmaps won't work since they only work at night...yes, if you want to get rid of the shading, you'll also get rid of effect that an object gets darker at night. Both effects are handled with the emissive and ambient colours in pretty much every modern app so if you enable emissive colours, you'll get no shadows, but also no 'night shadows'. (ambient colour sets the shadow colour btw)...Why do you want to get rid of the shading anyway? Unshaded objects look pretty stupid, they have no depth... (I'm just curious)...Cheers, Christian

Hi Bill yup do understand that we must work with in the confines ofMicrosoft's rendering engine and we all know they will never let the cat out of the bag so to speak. You are right it does glow at night!.Well I am sure that Jim will keep trying(why he doesn't ask me to play around in 3DSMax with this I am not sure!). Anyway thank youfor takeing the time to respond. Dan

I have created a 3D bevelled road which looks good, (MHO), looking into the sun.http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/road1.jpgHowever, it looks like hell 90 degrees to the sun.http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/road2.jpgSo what I would like is to have a model that always has the sun shining directly down on it so it always looks like picture one.I guess I'll just make it flat and use a no shadow and layer 8 command.I am also convinced that some transparency problems can be rectified if one can create this effect in GMAX.http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/jimlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

>I guess I'll just make it flat and use a no shadow and layer >8 command. I think that's your only option. Tough problem, and you'll find that it isn't a FS2002 only problem. On the other hand, if it's bevelled, but you have no shadow, you won't see it's bevelled anyway. Your pic1 doesn't look bevelled at all...Cheers, Christian

For those following this thread, I gave up on the light shading and simply made my road flat.The effect I wanted to accomplish still came through.http://members.rogers.com/jkanold/kaktease.jpghttp://members.rogers.com/jkanold/jimlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif