A Texture Problem
-
I have a problem, unfortunately. Let me show you (you’ll need to click on the image to see it clearly):
Inside the oval, there’s a place in which the specular reflection cuts off. If you pan the camera down a little, that part becomes reflective. I want to make this transition seamless, and I know that the problem is texture related, as when I retexture the whole group, it does what I want. However, I don’t want to have to retexture the ship. The entire hull is a single group, so that is not the problem. Any ideas?
-
No idea but I am interested in the cause too.
-
I dont think there is a problem with your texturing process….
As you wrote, the ship’s got only one group at the side, and it seems, the rear part and the cockpit are collateral with each other, and that small part which appears a bit darker on the picture, connects the rear and the cockpit is a kind of constrictor, (i suppose the rear part is wider than the cockpit) so it cant be collateral with them, and the light’s refraction is different on this part because its angular. -
Davis wrote:
@mknoteI dont think there is a problem with your texturing process….
As you wrote, the ship’s got only one group at the side, and it seems, the rear part and the cockpit are collateral with each other, and that small part which appears a bit darker on the picture, connects the rear and the cockpit is a kind of constrictor, (i suppose the rear part is wider than the cockpit) so it cant be collateral with them, and the light’s refraction is different on this part because its angular.Then how do you explain the fact that retexturing removes the problem?
MK
-
Does any faction (npc) have this ship, when you fly around with it?
Did you set additional ambient, diffuse, specular, emissive values when you assigned the material in ms3d?
Anyway i cant explain that, if you retextured this side group, and the problem has been solved… But then what is your question? You dont need to retexture the whole ship if you have already fixed this group. (and it works) -
That’s my fault, I wasn’t clear enough. Let me be a bit more specific.
I… am not at texturing. At all. I can do the most basic stuff, but overall, I’m horrid. The above texturing job was done by SWAT_OP-R8R, and he did a generally great job. The few problems I had with it I was able to fix with my limited abilities - except one. See, the top part of the hull and the middle part (as viewed from the side) had two different textures, but that led to the problem showcased in the picture. Trust me, it does not look natural. So, to fix it, I changed the texture of the middle part to match the top part (fortunately, this looked very well after only minor adjustments), and then combined the two parts into one group in Milkshape (that single group makes up part of the Root component).
Except, that didn’t fix the problem; the unnatural specular reflection remained. As a test, I selected the whole group, opened the Texture Coordinate Editor in MS, and remapped the whole group to the texture. Naturally, this looked horrible, as the parts that weren’t on the port or starboard sides (I remapped to the left) were basically long lines, so there’s no way I can use that for a final release. However, this test mapping did make the specular reflection look natural, as I want it to.
My question, then, is how to preserve the texture while at the same time making the reflection look natural. I’d rather not send it back to OP-R8R, because I know he’s probably busy with Crossfire, so I’m hoping for a solution I can do on my own, even with my limited texturing ability.
Hopefully that clears things up.
MK
-
I remember having similar problems with a model of mine. I pretty much gave up on it, too.
The thing looks much like a “smoothing groups” problem. I remember reading somewhere that FL’s way of handling smoothing is a bit different to the ordinary.IIRC it goes something like this:
The smoothing system of FL is linked to the UV (texture) mapping of the model. If the neighbouring faces (triangles) in the model are joined to each other not only in the model, but the UV map as well, they will be considered one “surface” or “smoothing group” by FL. If the triangles in the UV map are not joined (in other words, the corresponding vertices are not welded in the uv map), the parts will be considered as two separate smoothing groups. For different smoothing groups, different normal (= lighting) calculations are used.This explains why you see the difference in lighting between the two parts, and why does the thing disappear when you remap the whole thing. So, in my opinion, your best bet is to remap the fuselage, if possible, by using one single texture file.
Edit: corrected some bad typos
-
Yes, use LithUnwrap to open up the entire ship “skin”, it’s reasonably straightforward but you probably do need to follow one of the guides the first time you do it.
By the way - remember if your texture is .tga format it MUST be set upside-down! It will look wrong until you load the ship in the game.
If you use .dds format then it MUST be right way up.
BUT - remember only PhotoShop’s nVidia DDS plugin works correctly, the GIMP and PAINT.NET plugins mess up the dds many times. You may be able to correct it by saving as .tga and then using DDS Converter 2 to make the dds.
Here are some links to texture mapping…
http://forums.seriouszone.com/showthread.php?58881-Tech-Tip-UV-Mapping-Tools-and-TutorialsGood Luck.
