Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
On Tuesday 08 June 2004 01:44, Ampere K. Hardraade wrote: I've just find this out. Check out the Models/3ds folder in your home directory. There is a mesh of KingAir in there. I'm absolutely sure that I have looket through all the 3ds models at one point, but I must have forgotten that there was a King Air model there. That model is much more detailed than the model I'm currently working on. It has over 31 000 vertices while the one I'm vorking on has about 5 000. I'll continue with the one that I've benn using, and maybe move the cockpit interior into the detailed model when I'm done. -- Roy Vegard Ovesen ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
Roy Vegard Ovesen said: Frederic's solution to change the order using select animation in the xml file worked great. I also think that that was by far the most attractive solution too. Thanks Fred. I suspect that moving the fuel panel all the way to the bottom of the of the AC model file would not have worked. When including the fuel level gauge as another AC model, it would be placed below everything else anyway, right? Fred's solution is a good one. I'm curious now about the piper's config. Anyway, moving the fuel panel down the end puts it higher in the stack. That is what you want. Transparent objects won't be blended with colors behind unless they are known, so what you are striving for is getting the transparencies on the stack last or at least on top of anything that might show up behind in the view. If something goes on the stack after the fuel panel then there will be a problem. I can't remember but this probably contradicts my earlier statement. It can be difficult to remember...but basically this is the rule: Last thing loaded onto to the stack is first thing processed during rendering. And you want transparencies processed earlier than stuff behind them. If none of this helps, then send your models and configs and I'll take a look. That wouldn't be until Sunday night at the earliest, because of a trip down to Portland. FWIW when modeling flat panels with bezeled guages I'm not sure there is any advantage to using this method unless there's something specific being modeled below the panel surface (e.g. certain mag compasses). For example on the p51d and the cub it isn't all that obvious that the faces aren't below the surface. On the other hand you may need this method for that side fuel panel, because it is so close...not sure. I guess I would always try it without the transparency to see what looks like first. Keep in mind that there is a performance cost to rendering things through a transparency. Is there perhaps a difference when using a perfectly transparent er... transparency and a semi-transparent transparency, performance wise?! It seems like there should be, but not from my experience. Best, Jim ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
Roy Vegard Ovesen wrote: I've also thought about using a textured needle instead of an object colored one. The textured one might look a lot better with variable alpha creating an anti-alias effect, but I'm concerned about performance. Alpha blending is almost free on modern hardware, so I wouldn't expect there to be any performance difference. So long as you have a sane/natural order to draw your objects in, alpha is definitely the way to go. Then again, on really modern hardware you can use FSAA to get antialiasing for polygon edges anyway... Andy ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
I've just find this out. Check out the Models/3ds folder in your home directory. There is a mesh of KingAir in there. Regards, Ampere ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
On Saturday 05 June 2004 00:25, Lee Elliott wrote: This might be due to the ordering of the transparent objects relative to the non-transparent parts. Is/are the model objects in .AC format? I use Blender, and export to .AC format. If so (I don't know if this also applies to other object formats such as .3DS) try moving the transparent parts to the bottom of the object hierarchy/list. How do I do that? Editing the .AC file with a text editor? -- Roy Vegard Ovesen ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
Roy Vegard Ovesen wrote: If so (I don't know if this also applies to other object formats such as .3DS) try moving the transparent parts to the bottom of the object hierarchy/list. How do I do that? Editing the .AC file with a text editor? In AC3D I can trick the program in doing that by selecting just one object and select merge. I don't know if other editors behave similarly. Erik ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
On Saturday 05 June 2004 04:08, Ampere K. Hardraade wrote: I don't know how things are done in other 3D modelling softwares, but in 3D Studio, each effect has a seperated mapping channel. For example, if you want transparency in certain areas of a texture, you need to assign a map to the transparency channel of that texture inorder for those certain portions of the latter to possess true transparency. Usually, the map can be the same file as the texture itself, though you have to play around with the options a bit so that the transparency is based on the Alpha instead of RGB. Check this out: http://waylon-art.com/uvw_tutorial/tut401_a.jpg Notice the various mapping channels: ambient, diffuse, specular color, specular level, glossiness, self illumination; the list is quite long. As I said, I don't know how things are done in other 3D modelling softwares. Your best bet will be looking for the dialog box that allows you to apply different effects to a texture in the 3D modelling software that you are using. In Blender one can select, at least, opaque or alpha, but I guess that this does not get carried through in the export to AC3D format. AC3D uses alpha. But as you can see from the screenshot the holes _are_ transparent because you can see the other panel texture through it.But you can't see the gauge face texture through it. The difference between the other panel texture and the gauge face texture is that the panel texture is part of the plane 3d model, and the gauge face texture is included to the model through the model xml config file. I suspect that this is what is causing the problem. Regards, Ampere On June 4, 2004 06:25 pm, Lee Elliott wrote: On Friday 04 June 2004 21:44, Roy Vegard Ovesen wrote: Here is a shot of the King Air cockpit i'm modeling: http://home.tiscali.no/rvovesen/king-air-cockpit.jpg Also I have a question: The fuel panel texture on the left has two semi circles that have alpha 0% (transparent) in order to show fuel level gauges that are supposed to be placed slightly behind the panel. The fuel level gauge that is visible on the right side of the fuel panel actually has a textured face, but it is not visible through the transparent semi circle. Note that the Fuel system circuit breakers panel texture is visible through the transparent semi circle. The fuel level gauge has been included in the model xml file as a model tag. Could this be the reason why the gauge face texture is not visible? I believe David Megginson's Piper cockpit uses the same technique: A panel texture with transparent holes and instruments behind those holes, so I guess it should be possible. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel -- Roy Vegard Ovesen ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
Roy Vegard Ovesen said: Here is a shot of the King Air cockpit i'm modeling: http://home.tiscali.no/rvovesen/king-air-cockpit.jpg Also I have a question: The fuel panel texture on the left has two semi circles that have alpha 0% (transparent) in order to show fuel level gauges that are supposed to be placed slightly behind the panel. The fuel level gauge that is visible on the right side of the fuel panel actually has a textured face, but it is not visible through the transparent semi circle. Note that the Fuel system circuit breakers panel texture is visible through the transparent semi circle. The fuel level gauge has been included in the model xml file as a model tag. Could this be the reason why the gauge face texture is not visible? I believe David Megginson's Piper cockpit uses the same technique: A panel texture with transparent holes and instruments behind those holes, so I guess it should be possible. So far this cockpit is really looking great! Very nice work on the control box. Scanning the other responses, I don't think this has been answered yet (sorry if it has). If your fuel panel is part of the main model, then it should be lower on the stack and what you expect should be working. However, I think this might be affected by a select animation especially if the fuel panel is grouped with objects like the fuel guage models (or other animations, but I assume the only animation on a fuel panel would be select). In any case the problem isn't going to be solved by changing texture/polygon/color properties. That hole looks sufficiently transparent to me :-) If none of this helps, then send your models and configs and I'll take a look. That wouldn't be until Sunday night at the earliest, because of a trip down to Portland. FWIW when modeling flat panels with bezeled guages I'm not sure there is any advantage to using this method unless there's something specific being modeled below the panel surface (e.g. certain mag compasses). For example on the p51d and the cub it isn't all that obvious that the faces aren't below the surface. On the other hand you may need this method for that side fuel panel, because it is so close...not sure. I guess I would always try it without the transparency to see what looks like first. Keep in mind that there is a performance cost to rendering things through a transparency. Best, Jim ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
Roy Vegard Ovesen wrote: On Saturday 05 June 2004 00:25, Lee Elliott wrote: This might be due to the ordering of the transparent objects relative to the non-transparent parts. Is/are the model objects in .AC format? I use Blender, and export to .AC format. If so (I don't know if this also applies to other object formats such as .3DS) try moving the transparent parts to the bottom of the object hierarchy/list. How do I do that? Editing the .AC file with a text editor? I recently discovered that you can do that in the .xml animation file using the 'null' animation type. If you have in your model say Object1, Object2 and Object3 and want this order reversed, just add : animation object-nameObject3/object-name object-nameObject2/object-name object-nameObject1/object-name /animation and each mentionned object will be reparented and reordered. You can also have : animation nameNewSubBranch/name object-nameObject3/object-name object-nameObject1/object-name /animation animation object-nameObject2/object-name object-nameNewSubBranch/object-name /animation to make new sub branches if you want to without the need to create an 'empty' object with Blender. You can have a look at ggb-fb.xml. At the end, there is : !-- Transparency fix branch -- animation object-nameBridge/object-name object-nameSolidLights/object-name object-nameStreetNightLights/object-name /animation Bridge will be drawn first, then SolidLights will be blended with Bridge, and finally, StreetNightLights will be blended with the first 2, without z fighting, and no matter blender will rearange them in the .blend file or in the generated .ac file. I also used that trick in sutro-fb.xml Cheers, -Fred ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
On Saturday 05 June 2004 14:16, Jim Wilson wrote: So far this cockpit is really looking great! Very nice work on the control box. Thanks. I found some very detailed close-up photos of a cockpit that I've recreated with a vector drawing program (OpenOffice Draw). Scanning the other responses, I don't think this has been answered yet (sorry if it has). If your fuel panel is part of the main model, then it should be lower on the stack and what you expect should be working. However, I think this might be affected by a select animation especially if the fuel panel is grouped with objects like the fuel guage models (or other animations, but I assume the only animation on a fuel panel would be select). In any case the problem isn't going to be solved by changing texture/polygon/color properties. That hole looks sufficiently transparent to me :-) Frederic's solution to change the order using select animation in the xml file worked great. I also think that that was by far the most attractive solution too. Thanks Fred. I suspect that moving the fuel panel all the way to the bottom of the of the AC model file would not have worked. When including the fuel level gauge as another AC model, it would be placed below everything else anyway, right? If none of this helps, then send your models and configs and I'll take a look. That wouldn't be until Sunday night at the earliest, because of a trip down to Portland. FWIW when modeling flat panels with bezeled guages I'm not sure there is any advantage to using this method unless there's something specific being modeled below the panel surface (e.g. certain mag compasses). For example on the p51d and the cub it isn't all that obvious that the faces aren't below the surface. On the other hand you may need this method for that side fuel panel, because it is so close...not sure. I guess I would always try it without the transparency to see what looks like first. Keep in mind that there is a performance cost to rendering things through a transparency. Is there perhaps a difference when using a perfectly transparent er... transparency and a semi-transparent transparency, performance wise?! I've also thought about using a textured needle instead of an object colored one. The textured one might look a lot better with variable alpha creating an anti-alias effect, but I'm concerned about performance. -- Roy Vegard Ovesen ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
On Saturday 05 June 2004 21:34, Roy Vegard Ovesen wrote: Frederic's solution to change the order using select animation in the xml file worked great. Ooops! That wasn't select animation it was just null animation or whatever I should call it. -- Roy Vegard Ovesen ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
[Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
Here is a shot of the King Air cockpit i'm modeling: http://home.tiscali.no/rvovesen/king-air-cockpit.jpg Also I have a question: The fuel panel texture on the left has two semi circles that have alpha 0% (transparent) in order to show fuel level gauges that are supposed to be placed slightly behind the panel. The fuel level gauge that is visible on the right side of the fuel panel actually has a textured face, but it is not visible through the transparent semi circle. Note that the Fuel system circuit breakers panel texture is visible through the transparent semi circle. The fuel level gauge has been included in the model xml file as a model tag. Could this be the reason why the gauge face texture is not visible? I believe David Megginson's Piper cockpit uses the same technique: A panel texture with transparent holes and instruments behind those holes, so I guess it should be possible. -- Roy Vegard Ovesen ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
On Friday 04 June 2004 21:44, Roy Vegard Ovesen wrote: Here is a shot of the King Air cockpit i'm modeling: http://home.tiscali.no/rvovesen/king-air-cockpit.jpg Also I have a question: The fuel panel texture on the left has two semi circles that have alpha 0% (transparent) in order to show fuel level gauges that are supposed to be placed slightly behind the panel. The fuel level gauge that is visible on the right side of the fuel panel actually has a textured face, but it is not visible through the transparent semi circle. Note that the Fuel system circuit breakers panel texture is visible through the transparent semi circle. The fuel level gauge has been included in the model xml file as a model tag. Could this be the reason why the gauge face texture is not visible? I believe David Megginson's Piper cockpit uses the same technique: A panel texture with transparent holes and instruments behind those holes, so I guess it should be possible. -- Roy Vegard Ovesen This might be due to the ordering of the transparent objects relative to the non-transparent parts. Is/are the model objects in .AC format? If so (I don't know if this also applies to other object formats such as .3DS) try moving the transparent parts to the bottom of the object hierarchy/list. LeeE ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
Re: [Flightgear-devel] King Air cockpit progress (and question)
I don't know how things are done in other 3D modelling softwares, but in 3D Studio, each effect has a seperated mapping channel. For example, if you want transparency in certain areas of a texture, you need to assign a map to the transparency channel of that texture inorder for those certain portions of the latter to possess true transparency. Usually, the map can be the same file as the texture itself, though you have to play around with the options a bit so that the transparency is based on the Alpha instead of RGB. Check this out: http://waylon-art.com/uvw_tutorial/tut401_a.jpg Notice the various mapping channels: ambient, diffuse, specular color, specular level, glossiness, self illumination; the list is quite long. As I said, I don't know how things are done in other 3D modelling softwares. Your best bet will be looking for the dialog box that allows you to apply different effects to a texture in the 3D modelling software that you are using. Regards, Ampere On June 4, 2004 06:25 pm, Lee Elliott wrote: On Friday 04 June 2004 21:44, Roy Vegard Ovesen wrote: Here is a shot of the King Air cockpit i'm modeling: http://home.tiscali.no/rvovesen/king-air-cockpit.jpg Also I have a question: The fuel panel texture on the left has two semi circles that have alpha 0% (transparent) in order to show fuel level gauges that are supposed to be placed slightly behind the panel. The fuel level gauge that is visible on the right side of the fuel panel actually has a textured face, but it is not visible through the transparent semi circle. Note that the Fuel system circuit breakers panel texture is visible through the transparent semi circle. The fuel level gauge has been included in the model xml file as a model tag. Could this be the reason why the gauge face texture is not visible? I believe David Megginson's Piper cockpit uses the same technique: A panel texture with transparent holes and instruments behind those holes, so I guess it should be possible. ___ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
