Shiney Pretty Things

[SMMDigital]

Well, i've discovered quite by accident how to put an alpha map in the environmental slot to make a face or an object glossy and reflective (3DC 8.2). Now I need a materials guru to tell me how to get the effect into the game. What shader do I use for this? Do I apply it in the Rail Sim field or is there a different property to apply?

[Trainguy76]

You can use
TrainBumpSpecEnvMask.fx or TrainBumpSpec.fx

TrainBumpSpecEnvMask.fx uses a Normal Map.

[SMMDigital]

Ok, that makes sense. Now the next question - can u use more than one fx map at a time? For example, I have the front bumper of a truck, and I want it to have both a bump map and gloss. I'm thinking it's going to be one or the other, but not both.

BTW, the reason i'm asking is that this is the first time i've ventured into using more advanced shaders. Up until now, it's been TexDiff and no lightmaps.

[Trainguy76]

I haven't tried, but you might be able to just add a second material to the faces.

[ricksan]

The TrainBumpSpecEnvMask.fx shader lets you apply both reflective and bump effects simultaneously. It's a three-slot shader.

Slot 1 contains your "diffuse" RGBA texture. There are six available UV Arguments, of which only #1 is apparently active. It defaults to zero, but if you set it at, say, 32, the material will be more glossy in appearance. Higher numbers actually reduce glossiness. Setting Specular Power to higher numbers controls the intensity of the specular "highlight" that appears on the material. See Develper Document 4.07, "Train Guidelines.pdf," paragraph 6.4.2 for additonal information and graphics illustrating the use and effects of these settings. (As is often the case, the graphics are missing from the Wiki.)

Be advised that the alpha channel in the diffuse texture only controls the degree to which environment reflections are visible. With TrainBumpSpecEnvMask.fx the alpha channel cannot be used for transparency or translucency. If you need those effects, you'll have to create a separate material. I use the TexDiff or theTrainBasicObjectDiffuse.fx shader with Transparency set to TRANS when I want punch-through alpha; I use BlendATexDiff with Z-Buffer Mode set to TEST ONLY when I want translucent alpha.

Slot 2 contains the normal map. The RGB channels of a normal map are used to "bend" the surface normal slightly so it will be lit or shaded differently, giving the illusion of additional detail.

Slot 3 is a placeholder. You can put any texture map there. The game engine replaces it with something called a cube map which is a generic image of the surrounding sky and terrain.

Make sure that the UV Channel for each of the three slots is set to 1.

Sorry, but as a Max user I don't know what setting options and their titles appear in the 3D Canvas shader plug-in. Even if the terms are different from what I just described, similar options should be available.

[SMMDigital]

Thanks Rick for you input on this. The options for 3DC are : Slot 1 - Primary Texture, Slot 2 - Secondary Texture, Slot 3 - Translucency Map, Slot 4 - Bump Map, Slot 5 - Specular Map (I'm assuming this is the map for drawing the light and shadow areas of the model?), Slot 6 - Environment Map.

I was able to get a bump map into the game, but i'm still working on getting the "shiney" into the game.

[GreatNortherner]

Hi,

In 3DC: to use the TrainBumpSpecEnvMask.fx, put the bump map into its slot. Then put a BMP-copy of the texture's alpha channel (for glossiness) into the specular (5th) slot. Add the little black environment texture into the 6th slot and you should be all set.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Michael

PS: For the spec slot in 3DC, you can actually use any greyscale image you want, it does not have to be the actual model's alpha channel. The exporter will reference the IGS file to use the one in the main texture's alpha channel instead, but it needs a texture in the 5th slot to become aware of the spec map (at least that's how I understood it, not sure if it really works this way though.)

[eyein12]

Hi,

I use max 2011 as well, can a BMP texture be used in these multi-slot shaders or is the law always an ACE file which i have been just a customed to using anyway?


Rick,

"I use BlendATexDiff with Z-Buffer Mode set to TEST ONLY when I want translucent alpha." would this be a wise method to essentially keep the windows/or walls of a house translucent enough to allow vision of say a pre-lit texture behind it at night? or just do two seperate objects, essentially the same object, one for day and one for night using texdiff and addatex?

I plan to light up the buildings/ scyscrapers in the seatlle route i'm beginning soon


ian

[ricksan]

I always convert everything to ACE format for Max, Ian, but that's just habit. Someone else I know uses PSD files in the Material Editor (internally, Max flattens the layers for you) so I suppose a BMP or TGA would also work though I've never tried it. That said, an ACE file having the same name as the PSD/BMP/TGA must reside at the appropriate place in your Source folder structure before the Blueprint Editor will export it, so sooner or later you have to do the conversion anyway.

If you used BlendATexDiff on the base model and gray-scale alpha the windows, whatever is behind the building would still show through during daytime. Not what you want. Since you'd be making two models anyway, it'd be simpler to have separate _day and _night versions of your model. Use Edit\Clone to make a copy (not an instance) of the _day version, name it ****_night, and apply the night texture to it. Done!

[eyein12]

Rick,

so updated to win 7 and now trying to run blueprint editor, everything works fine but I use 3dmax2011 to create models and point to textures for the objects. So this was a flawless procedure when i had win vista.

now I do the same procedure to export my .igs with textures located in the directories i assigned my textures from, but the blueprint editor cant locate that folder now all of a sudden. although it exists It thinks the textures should be in another location of which i never assigned them from. If i move the textures to where blueprint editor "thinks" they should be... problem solved. but i dont want this clutter. i had a nice clean filing system last time. each model had its own folder of textures. what am i doing wrong that i did right last time? any ideas would be great!

thanks.

ian

[ricksan]

It's still not clear to me exactly how your files are organized or how your file structure differed from one OS to the other, if at all. I upgraded to Windows 7 a year or so ago and I had to work through a few minor problems, but none of them involved RailWorks.

Having seen how a few other modelers set up their files, I know that everybody arranges things a little differently. That's OK as long as the folder structure and file paths remain constant from the time a model is initially created to the time it gets exported into the game.

Usually if I get file-not-found errors in the Blueprint Editor it's because I reorganized folders containing source files, thereby changing their paths. For example, if I moved or copied files--including IGS files--from the folder structure of one project to a new project, the paths are now different. Texture paths are evidently coded into IGS files, and if the Blueprint Editor can't find the texture along that path it generates an error. It can be frustrating because everything seems to be in the right place.

In Max, look up the texture paths under Summary Info and verify that they reflect your RW Source file path structure. If not, you may have to redefine each of the texture paths in the Material Editor. Export a new IGS and see if that helps.

[eyein12]

Thanks Rick,

will let you know! I have a theory which i will try. moving my railworks into the program files folder and not using it under programs file(x86) which its under now. (64-bit system) that may be causing the problem of it not working.

ian

[g_nash]

Thanks Rick,

will let you know! I have a theory which i will try. moving my railworks into the program files folder and not using it under programs file(x86) which its under now. (64-bit system) that may be causing the problem of it not working.

ian

I had to setup copies of the RS/RW folders the exact same way , the result was no more errors under 64bit with non standard ( no user ) 32/64bit Max installs . You can check the .igs files for pathing issues .. look at the last lines in the files in an good editor if you suspect this is the problem.

.

[ricksan]

not using it under programs file(x86)

That'll do it every time! I was using 32-bit Max 2010 in Vista "Program Files (x86)" and continued doing so under Win 7 to avoid having to redirect everything. Next project will be 64-bit Max 2011, so it'll be a fresh start.

Well, mostly.

[eyein12]

Hey rick,

I still have the problem but i narrowed it down to the .igs file from 3ds max. if i export the igs file to the same folder as the textures then no errors in blueprint editor. but this is not what i want still. so its 3ds max not recognizing the paths of the textures as i narrowed it down to that. SO the $50 million dollar question is how do i tell 3dsmax to stop assuming that those assigned textures should be in the same folder as the .igs file. I looked at the summary and the paths are correct. but blueprint editor insists they are not correct! anyother process say for horns and paths work fine in blueprint editor so its only on 3dsmaxs' end. or what is a good program to read the .igs file to manually change the paths after export? but i would have to do that everytime in order for the process to work....I would rather get it to the way it was before... that could be a pain!

this is holding production up until i get this back to the way I had it in vista

thanks