Flickering textures, textures too bright or dark

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Author	Topic: Flickering textures, textures too bright or dark
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-16- 12:10 AM I've got my plane texture mapped except for some little bits and pieces. Parts of the plane in game appear brighter or darker than others. Sometimes while I'm flying around, sections of the plane will have a yellowish flicker. Wassup? On a brighter note, the export as quads seems to work, at least all the polys are showing up. Could my problem be caused by non-planar polys? TS ------------------ ________________________ TS Aircombat IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-16- 12:38 AM As far as the anomolous variations in tone, I'm getting some of those too. I'm going to try exporting with and without smoothing groups. I'll let you know what I find out. Us Max users have many dragons to slay right now :-( IP: Logged
Zoycite JAG	posted 01-16- 02:33 AM Good hunting guys I ran in to some flickering. Black not yellow though. After much frustration I just re-did the offending object. ------------------ Zoycite {GS} GUNSLINGERS visit The War Paint Factory IP: Logged
Laika 801 Pilot	posted 01-16- 03:01 AM tailslide : Sorry (for placing a question in here) !!!! I decided to build up the I16 in OPS per hand - thats just a bit more work - but thats no problem. When I save the sm file and try to fly the I16 in SDOE - all my textures didnt appear in the game - must I change some texture names/references in OPS ? I will read the docs I´ve got but if you know that problem or if you know how to fix this maybe you could help me again ! thanks alot ! LK801 IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-16- 03:51 AM Hi Laika, SV's excellent tutorials cover this well. You'll want to take an existing plane and import the new 3d shapes into different parts of it. You also need to go through and rename all mention of the old plane to the new plane. For example, I used the 190 and every time I saw fw190 I replaced it with Yak3, including the directory and file name of the texture file.. Now you need to create a new directoryin your aircraft directory with the new name and put your new textures in there. TS IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-16- 03:53 AM I tried exporting the offending sections using triangles instead of quads and it is indeed caused by polys that aren't coplanar. However, I still have a couple stubborn pieces that even this does not fix. I notice even on the objects I set to have no back faces, I can still see them from the back side, with the outside textures showing through in SDOE and OPS. Does this mean my single sided objects are not single sided in the game? TS [This message has been edited by Tailslide (edited 01-16-2000).] IP: Logged
Laika 801 Pilot	posted 01-16- 04:01 AM thanks alot man ! !! I´ll try this now ! IP: Logged
Bryan Russell Pilot	posted 01-16- 04:53 AM Tail: Where did you set the back faces? OPS will show 2-sided polys if the poly flag is set this way. A note on the texture flickering ; Some instances of this are caused by long normals in the OBJ export. If you get OPS B1.1.1, with the included OBJ.FFP this will fix these up on import. IP: Logged
Pete Hawk Pilot	posted 01-16- 12:54 PM Tailslide, Bryan, and all Max users, here is how I successfully got rid of the flickering textures on my planes. Have the part in question highlighted (make sure if it's a two part or two sided object that it's ALL highlighted). You should have already textured it, positioned it, and sized it. Now go to your Modify rollout. Click on the More button uptop (for more modifiers) and in that huge list select Smooth. Now with the part still selected Check and then UNcheck Autosmooth. Now, not doing anything else, when you export the object as an OBJ file (using that Habware plugin from www.habware.com) make sure smoothing is UNchecked as well. Now go into OpenPlane Studio (OPS) and import your part in question. It "should" be fine now. Load up SDOE and try it out. This technique works everytime for me if I have flashy parts/textures. Hope this helps. IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-16- 01:51 PM Yeah, I would second that. Smoothing groups seem to produce some ugly results. As long as you export normals the object will appear smoothed in SDOE, so don't even use smoothing groups. Pete, that link is dead. Here are the links to all the Habware plugins for Max... Max 1.2 users go here... http://www.habware.at/duck.htm Max 2.x users go here... http://www.habware.at/duck2.htm Max 3.x users go here... http://www.habware.at/duck3.htm [This message has been edited by JT (edited 01-16-2000).] IP: Logged
Bryan Russell Pilot	posted 01-16- 04:49 PM I don't have anyproblems with the auto smooth thing, I don't have any of the smooth groups 'checked' though. I thing the trick is to get the threshold right. The only problems I had was with the Normals thing I mentioned above and that went away when I fixed the normals in OPS. I'll try your trick, but I think that this just took off smoothing last time I tried it on a newly created mesh. IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-16- 05:41 PM Bryan, I just created my objects without backing faces so they're invisible from one side in 3d studio. Is there some place else I'm supposed to set this? Thanks for the tips guys can't wait to try them.. TS IP: Logged
Bryan Russell Pilot	posted 01-16- 07:59 PM The two sided options in MAX are not transferred via the OBJ, unless you use the hacked up material naming thing I included. There is a OpenPlane poly flag that tells SDOE (and OPS) what to make two sided or not. Two sided means that it is one poygon that can be seen from both sides rather than a polygon that you have added another polygon to on it's backface. Bryan IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-16- 10:50 PM Did some experimenting. Appears to be two problems. They yellow "flashing and flickering" was from non-planar polys. Exporting as triangles made it go away. The second problem is funny lighting on the polys.. some flicker between shadow and light as the plane rotates in the light. Turning the smoothing off did not help and neither did exporting as triangles. I'm going to give up trying to correct this and move on to something else maybe someone else will figure it out, I'm still beat from my last texture mapping battle = ) TS IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-17- 12:51 AM >They yellow "flashing and flickering" was from non-planar polys. Exporting as triangles made it go away. Hmmm, I was under the impression that Max2Obj breaks up the quads into tris automatically instead of making goofy quads when the triangles aren't planar. If what you're describing is indeed due to it not doing that, that's kind of disturbing. What threshold setting do you use when you hide edges in Max? I usually use a threshold of .5 or 1. Also, do you get flickering in OP Studio also or just SDOE? Finally, have you checked the .asc? Maybe the poly flag is incorrect. [This message has been edited by JT (edited 01-17-2000).] IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-17- 01:42 AM I set all the invisible edges manually as I was building the object, trying to make it so everything that will be planar in the final version is grouped together. I haven't actually gone through and made all those polys planar yet, this will be the final step after I'm done everything else. I just get flickering in SDOE not OPStudio. I don't know about poly flags.. I also tried the new beta OPStudio and I'm still seeing the flickering shadow issue. TS IP: Logged
Pete Hawk Pilot	posted 01-17- 03:39 AM Tailslide if you want me to look at your files I'd be happy too. I no longer have the problems you're mentioning. Maybe I can help IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-17- 09:18 AM I'd be willing to take a look at your files too. Sometimes all it takes is an extra set of eyeballs looking at your work. jtrivelli@adelphia.net [This message has been edited by JT (edited 01-17-2000).] IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-17- 09:18 AM oops, double post [This message has been edited by JT (edited 01-17-2000).] IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-17- 11:30 AM Ok, thanks guys I'll fire it off. I got my model single sided using Bryans' naming conventions (I used &metal_00 is that correct?) After doing that I found some glitches in the facing on my model so I fixed them up. Also tried some of the other suggestions again. Now I have a model that flickers yellow, and has no shading at all on it. TS IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-17- 11:51 PM Hey, The good news is, I can fix it. The bad news is, I don't know what caused it. I looked at your LOD files. The parts that flicker and have no shading got their vertex normals hosed somehow. In some of your LODs ALL the vertex normals got set to 0 and in other LODs all got set to a really high number.... very wierd. Anyway, I just took the fuselage into Max, exported texture coords and normals and then added it to the plane in OP Studio. I messed up the scale somehow, but I could still see it. I then tried it out in SDOE... aside from being too small, it looked lovely... no flicker and normal shading. I am going to scale it up now, and send you the .sm. Anyway, I think the key is finding out what step in the process is hosing your vertex normals. You do have "normals" checked in the Max2Obj export dialogue, right? I hope there isn't a problem with the Max 3 version of Max2Obj. Anyway, I'll be back in 20 min. IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-18- 01:17 AM Ok, I scaled it up, but now I made it too big :-) At least now I can see what's going on. It's still got some problems. The yellow flickering is gone and the lighting is back, but the smoothing is all wierd. I exported as triangles, and it still gets the same results as if it were quads, so I'm fairly convinced the problem is unrelated to that. I even tried replacing your fuselage with my p47 fuselage and it has the same smoothing problem. This is the same problem Pete has been having with his planes. Bryan, do you think OP Studio is doing somethign wierd to the normals? I am using the latest beta Op Studio, by the way. Anyway, TS, I will send you this SM. Make sure you don't copy over anything important with it. By the way, the only part I worked on was the fuselage, so the other parts are still the same as before. [This message has been edited by JT (edited 01-18-2000).] IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-18- 03:01 AM I'm using whatever settings bryan said to use.. the funny thing is, losing the shading is a recent problem that happened when I tried some of the suggestions people posted to fix the lighting problems I had. Before some of the pieces I had were shaded correctly and some weren't. There's something besides or in addition to the export process causing this. Thanks very much for looking into this JT. Wasn't the latest beta version supposed to fix this problem? I can't tell any difference in my plane's appearance when I use the beta or the release version. TS IP: Logged
Pete Hawk Pilot	posted 01-18- 03:48 AM JT, not using smoothing has fixed my problems. I wish I could use it but when I do I get shading troubles. That's why my Tomcat isn't smoothed. It still looks cool in the game though. I did the same things you did (except open the LOD file) and still had that bizzare yellow flicker. Very very wierd stuff! IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-18- 08:38 AM Well, for what ever it's worth, I replaced the Yak3 fuselage with the SDOE Spit fuselage and it looked totally normal..... smoothly rounded. I have some ideas; I'm going to do a few more tests. IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-18- 08:52 AM (yes I do have normals checked in my export dialog) Just for kicks I ran my .3ds file through polytrans (import and export right back out). It seemed to fix it. The only option I had checked was "align normals to smoothing groups" or something like that. If I didn't use that option some normals would be flipped when I imported the model again. This option may have nothing to do with the flickering problem though could just be it's parsing something funny out of the file. I've still got the problem with shadows looking funny on some faces but it seems like I'm not the only one seeing this.. Off to realign all my objects and un-triangle about 800 faces by hand : ( TS ------------------ ________________________ TS Aircombat IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-18- 09:04 AM Aha! I was getting textures fine on the plane in SDOE since the texture maps were still there, but the material for the map hadn't been assigned. I went in and assigned the material with the map on it to the objects and the plane started flickering again! Come to think of it I started having trouble about the time I added the &metal_00 to my material to make it single sided.. Any ideas? TS [This message has been edited by Tailslide (edited 01-18-2000).] IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-18- 09:53 AM Some more tests I went back to my original max file, and: -removed all textures from project result: no textures in OPStudio -renamed textures to something other than &metal_00 result: still flickers -removed all texutures except for the one image map, changed its name to something other than &metal_00 result: still flickers I'm running out of ideas here.. TS IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-18- 11:09 AM I DID IT! I figured it out!!!!!! Here's what you do. Take your Max file and export it to OBJ making sure that normals and smoothing groups are unchecked in the export dialogue. Then import that OBJ file back in to Max and make sure that normals and smoothing groups are unchecked in the import dialogue. Next, export it to OBJ again, but this time, make sure that normals is checked! That's it!!!!! Greg, if you want to check this out I can send you the .sm. I used my P-47 fuselage shape, but it should work the same with your Yak pieces since my P-47 fuselage had the same problem. [This message has been edited by JT (edited 01-18-2000).] IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-18- 11:11 AM By the way, it even worked if I exported as quads! We are in business! IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-18- 11:28 AM But aren't I going to have the same problem next time I apply a material? I guess I'll have to do this every time I change the texture map. I wonder if I can add on to Bryan's script to do this. Thanks JT ! TS IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-18- 12:29 PM >But aren't I going to have the same problem next time I apply a material? I don't know, but I'm not convinced that that's what caused it. I think the problem probably has to do with importing and exporting obj format. I don't know why I didn't try this eariler. I had solved problems like this before by just exporting and importing without normals, and then exporting with normals. It's sort of a lather, rinse, repeat process. When I get back from work, I'm going to try this with your Yak fuselage just to make sure everything is OK. IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-18- 12:43 PM JT, I did very close to the same thing (exporting and importing through polytrans). This also fixed the problem for me. The plane showed up fully textured, in SDOE, with shading. However, if I reapplied the material to any of the objects they started flashing again. I'll try again going to .obj and back (at least I'll have quads!) TS IP: Logged
Bryan Russell Pilot	posted 01-18- 01:00 PM What the export and import of a OBJ without the normals etc checked is doing is basically reseting or collapsing the MAX Modifier stack (IMO anyway). I had a lot of wierd things happening when I first started working on my model, that I solved either by reseting XForms, the export/import trick or dicking with the modifier stack. I don't know for sure but maybe its something to do with originally using a mesh derived from a SDOE model where the faces all have independant verts. For all of the SDOE derived meshes I used I imported them without normals or tex verts, and then did the vert weld thing, and for the things I had problems with I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't weld all of the verts properly since some may not have been in the threshold. ( I had quite a few vert welding sessions. ) Anyway, the only advise I can give with troublesome meshes in MAX would be to do the thing JT has done i.e. export/import the Mesh as a OBJ with normals, texture etc all unchecked, and make sure that all of the verts that need to be welded are welded. I don't have too many mesh export problems anymore, maybe this has a lot to do with the fact that every thing I have done in OPS for import has been tested only with meshes I have made and therefore taylored to my particular MAX habits, whether they are right or wrong. When I get some time I will release the current version of OPS with auto positioning on import etc and a set of instructions on what exaxtly needs to happen for a successful import. All the B1.1.1 version does to the normals is to normalise them so that they have a length of one unit. There used to be 'long' and 'short' normals (which by definition aren't actually normals) exported to the OBJ file, and because the normal is used as a intensisty baseline for lighting it would cause darker and lighter patches. Make sure you actually have B1.1.1. I notoced recently that becuase of the case sensitivity on fightersquadron.com, I had a download.htm and a Download.htm, and the old downloads page without the new links to B1.1.1 was being published. I only fixed this recently so you may not actually have the latest beta after all. Bryan IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-18- 01:17 PM That worked JT! It looks great now, even the shading problems are fixed. I can also re-apply materials now. Here's the steps I had to do. -export with Bryan's settings but with normals off -delete all the objects in the scene (do NOT reset scene) -re-import .obj file with same settings -re-assign materials to all the objects, you should not have to re-position maps or make new materials you just need to re-assign them -fix up all your pivot points as they're hosed now. -re-export this time with normals turned on. However (there's ALWAYS a however in OpenPlane isn't there?) However, I see that the rendering engine is hiding some of the single sided poly's before they rotate out of view. This problem may have always been there and I didn't notice it. I only see it on some of the polys along the fuselage. I could make the fuselage double sided I suppose, but why is this happening? If the normals are pointed the right way you should never actually see any of the poly's pop out of existance? Bryan, yes I'm running 1.1.1 and yes I made my models in max (using JT's lofting technique). Also, yes definitely I am welding all my verts, it's all I've been able to do with textures not working for me hehe TS ________________________ TS Aircombat [This message has been edited by Tailslide (edited 01-18-2000).] IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-18- 01:43 PM >When I get some time I will release the current version of OPS with auto positioning on import etc and a set of instructions on what exaxtly needs to happen for a successful import. Thanks, Bryan. By the way, now that I'm familiar with OP Studio, I'm really liking it! I used to do stuff manually. It's so nice to just be able to import an OBJ into OP Studio, save, and go! I'm really excited about building my plane now. IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-18- 01:50 PM I can't imagine how you could build planes before OPStudio. I agree it's great to just have one step between max and OPStudio. Can't wait until it's working for pre-made planes too. Want the tail bigger on that FW190? Just hit a button, move a few verts, save and fly the thing. Wohoo! If there's another contest this time next year I'm sure people will be knocking out planes in no time. Salute ! Bryan TS IP: Logged
Pete Hawk Pilot	posted 01-19- 04:36 AM JT, thanks for the fix! It works now. Only prob for me is that I hardened my fuselage's edges with Nendo IN ORDER to remove that flashyness stuff, and it worked. But now with my final texture mapped fuselage I can't soften the edges in Nendo (to then import to max and do that routine you mentioned) without losing all my mapping!! This sucks! I tried a simple "top down" map on the entire fuselage and the smoothing looks great, no flashys. BUT I need help (if it can even be done) to soften my edges in my Max file, and then do the export thing while maintaining my hard work of mapping. I really don't want to do it all again. It took about 2 full days to get where I was really happy with it. If I have to I have to though. The improvement graphically would be well worth it. [This message has been edited by Pete Hawk (edited 01-19-2000).] IP: Logged
Pete Hawk Pilot	posted 01-19- 08:20 AM Ok, being the nut that I am, I just traded sleep for remapping my fuselage, and now it's smoothed and really nice looking. Only thing is though that I find very irritating (I guess the TNT card?) is that the textures when zoomed in do that wavy thing that most SDOE planes do also. When it wasn't smoothed the texture was much more rock solid and pleasing to look at, although not smoothed. I guess it's give and take. I'm happy with it either way really but figured the majority of you would like the smoothed look better. One nice benefit from all this trouble is that my next project will go this much quicker now. Thanks JT and Tailslide for the great info, and Bryan for the great program! IP: Logged
JT Pilot	posted 01-19- 12:39 PM ... not sure about the wavy gravy texture effect. Isn't that common to a lot of games? I wonder what causes it. IP: Logged

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