Simviation Forums

Hey all,
a short question from me.

I'm busy painting the Just Flight C152, but there is no specular layer in the paintkit.

My question is what exactly should I do in the paint to make the "specular" shine?

In the original specular paint, there are white lines wherever there was red in the livery (and dark grey lines in the alpha), but I can't use it because then I have these lines shine, which doesn't fit the livery I'm currently working on.


Thanks in advance!

Hey all,
a short question from me.

I'm busy painting the Just Flight C152, but there is no specular layer in the paintkit.

My question is what exactly should I do in the paint to make the "specular" shine?

In the original specular paint, there are white lines wherever there was red in the livery (and dark grey lines in the alpha), but I can't use it because then I have these lines shine, which doesn't fit the livery I'm currently working on.


Thanks in advance!

[color=#000000]Wish I could help, but I don't even know what specular paint is.

patchz.... still stuck in FS9

Check the alpha channel of the diffuse texture, see if there are variations in the shades of grey that match up with the shiny lines. That is one of the ways to specify the shininess, but it has to have been set in the model during building.

Is it a payware aircraft?

Check the alpha channel of the diffuse texture, see if there are variations in the shades of grey that match up with the shiny lines. That is one of the ways to specify the shininess, but it has to have been set in the model during building.

Is it a payware aircraft?

Oh... That's a bit too much for me. What?

Give me a few mins then fella, and I'll check it out for you.

Oh, before I forget... the diffuse texture is what forms the basis for the plane's colour. That Bushy Tail repaint we did, you were editing the diffuse texture there.

Ok, there are two things you will need to work on.

If you have DXTBmp, load in C152_T1.dds and notice that in the Alpha Channel window, there are some pale grey shapes against a white background. That is the image you need to edit to affect how reflective the aircraft is. Black = very reflective, White = not reflective.

As well as that, there is also C152_T1_specular.dds. This texture controls how shiny the aircraft is. Note, reflective and shiny are not the same thing with the textures, that's the confusing part.

Reflectivity controls the reflection of the environment map, shininess controls the highlights on the aircraft.

So in theory, you could have paint that reflects a lot but doesn't show any defined highlights. It's the balance of these two textures that is the key to it looking convincing.

In the C152, they've done what appears to be a quite common technique for the specular texture, desaturate the main texture and invert it to create the different levels of specularity.

The danger with that is that it can create false levels of specularity. In reality, you should consider what materials you are representing in your texture, and then set a specularity level to match. Rubber would be very low, so would be dark, glossy paint would be quite shiny, so would be pale grey, or even white.

I've seen a few aircraft that are made less reflective/shiny underneath because they used that technique, which is fine until you fly the plane upside down, and then it all goes wrong.

I would suggest, make a copy of the texture folder and call it texture.repaint (or similar) create a new version of the aircraft in the aircraft.cfg and point it at the new texture folder. Then just lay blocks of varying levels of black to white on the textures (even black, mid-grey and white will be enough). On one side, do the specular texture, and then the other side, do the alpha channel of the diffuse texture. That way, you can see each effect on it's own.

I'll keep checking back on here over the next 2 or 3 hours, if you have any more problems, shout up and I'll help if I can.

Wow, thanks alot.
I'll try the desaturate+invert method, and then I'll tweak it as I think I should.
I'll post if I'll have any other issues.

Make sure you only invert the painted panels, otherwise, you may end up with highly shiny wheels and things. 

[color=#000000]Wow Lee, though I don't understand it all (apparently, the models I have painted do not have the specularity channels/layers), your explanation is great. Would you consider writing a tutorial for advanced repainting, or at least get this in a sticky?

[quote][color=#000000]Wow Lee, though I don't understand it all (apparently, the models I have painted do not have the specularity channels/layers), your explanation is great. Would you consider writing a tutorial for advanced repainting, or at least get this in a sticky?

Patchz,

The one part of your question Lee did not answer is specular and bump maps are not available to us FS9 users, FSX only.

And the people that know how to paint them do amazing things with them.

I am not one of those people...

JoBee,
Thanks for adding that... I only have FSX, so I didn't want to comment on FS9. Would rather say nothing than something wrong. 

Some of those repaints on that site are real nice... and they highlight a point I was trying to make to someone else in another repaint thread, good texturing = good repaints.

If only every model was mapped well enough to allow that level of detail on everything eh?

[quote]Patchz,

The one part of your question Lee did not answer is specular and bump maps are not available to us FS9 users, FSX only.

And the people that know how to paint them do amazing things with them.

I am not one of those people...

patchz, I don't think my knowledge of repainting is up to the standard yet to be worthy of a tutorial, it's just an examination of the textures and some trial and error experimentation that told me all that. Some of the techniques are quite different to the more standard game techniques, but they're similar enough for me to get a reasonable grasp of them.

If I get chance to spend more time with the model building and texturing, then I'll be happy to do so. Unfortunatley, with developing 2 games at the moment on my own, time is in short supply.

If I don't know what something does, I paint big blocks of black and white on there and then go and look at the results. But not every aircraft is the same. You might find one that uses the alpha channel for transparency, or simply doesn't use any effects whatsoever.

[color=#000000]Maybe so Lee, but your knowledge and abilities far exceed mine and I welcome all the help I can get. Thanks.

[quote]
If only every model was mapped well enough to allow that level of detail on everything eh?

[quote]
If only every model was mapped well enough to allow that level of detail on everything eh?