Katana Revisit

Thanks Mikey.

Just an update, the CS is complete except for the pilot. Now for the _n and_s maps, then it's off to max for the good stuff.
 
Jeff, I know you've told me before, but what's the secret to rendering normals and specs in wings?
 
Well you're welcome, FE.

Import the _n and _s files using Import picture under the File column. Then in the Material window, pick up the images one at a time, and drop them as Normal and Gloss on the material that has the main .tga assigned to it.
 
I imported this into RF just to take a look at a few things, and discovered something odd. This model is a painted composite, so I'm making it shinier than normal to resemble a clear coat finish. In doing this,RF doesn't render it well at all. My first impression was it looked almost brown at spawn, and the wings looked like water colors that had gotten wet and run together. I then opened the editor, and it got stranger. When looking from one side, the white on the wings is very bright, yet the rest of the wrong is black. Look from the other side, and it's just the opposite, colors are bright, and white is black.

I'm not happy with this at all. Has anyone run into this before? I'll try to get pics uploaded sometime to explain better.
 
I'm not sure what that means. I think they can be modified by the materials import when you import the .obj. I'm sure the Max expert will be able to help you. My forté is Wings.
 
abaser said:
I imported this into RF just to take a look at a few things, and discovered something odd. This model is a painted composite, so I'm making it shinier than normal to resemble a clear coat finish. In doing this,RF doesn't render it well at all. My first impression was it looked almost brown at spawn, and the wings looked like water colors that had gotten wet and run together. I then opened the editor, and it got stranger. When looking from one side, the white on the wings is very bright, yet the rest of the wrong is black. Look from the other side, and it's just the opposite, colors are bright, and white is black.

I'm not happy with this at all. Has anyone run into this before? I'll try to get pics uploaded sometime to explain better.
Click to expand...

Andy, I'm unclear about what you are doing. Have you set the specularity with an _s map or do you have the glossiness setting for the material set high within 3ds max. Or are you mixing them in some way?

I will say that in general what specularity does is make a materials response to light sharper. Take for example a mirror which is very high specularity. Light bounces off it in just one direction (opposite to how it came in). So if you have very directional light, then you will end up with parts highly lit, and other parts very close to black. It sounds like that may be what is going on here.

(For the physics majors, I know the above is technically incorrect. For those who really care read Feynman on quantum electrodynamics).
 
This is with adding the _s map. All material settings are default as I only imported to check just how glossy it was. I'll send you the pics shortly.
 
Andy it sounds like you may have inadvertently saved your normals map as the _s and it overwrote the other. Or maybe the other way around: the _s as the _n.
 
Sorry Andy I was out all morning. I just got back so here are andy's pics for this problem.
 

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Madratter said:
In 3ds max, you have to go through some gyrations to get the _s map to give you some nice glossiness/reflectivity. And a little goes a long long way. Boof gave me these instructions:

https://forums.realflight.com/showpost.php?p=230213&postcount=314

Note that you will need to turn down the refraction amount to something pretty low (below 20) to match the sort of affect you will get in RF6.
Click to expand...

Those are instructions for renders and will not allow an export from max little alone work in RF.
 
Boof69 said:
Those are instructions for renders and will not allow an export from max little alone work in RF.
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You are correct. Somehow, I got mixed up in terms of what Andy was saying although he was clear it was the editor in RF. My bad. :eek:
 
I know you knew that but I wanted to be clear for anyone that may be reading this in the future. No offence.:)
 
Just for future references, I resolved the issue I was having with the _s map by adding an alpha layer to it. Things are now back on track. Now for the _n map, finish pivots, naming and linking.
 
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