Preview Image

[technoid]

I wanted to do something different with a new plane I created (E-flite RV-7 Night 1_1m) so I copied all the normal plane parts and named them ~CS_GLOW_partname. I wanted the entire plane to glow in a night field, not just certain parts. I also adjusted the brightness of the glow at night by setting the alpha channel for all the normal plane parts to #808080, so the plane wouldn't be that bright. So all the normal plane parts (fuse, wings, hstab, vstab) were cloned as a copy and then named ~CS_GLOW_planepart. The material for all the normal plane parts uses a normal material named "01 - Default", NOT ~CANOPY or ~ALPHA. In the SIM when the normal plane parts are rendered RF honors the material type so it ignores the alpha channel in the TGA file. All the glow plane parts have a material named ~ALPHA applied to them so when the SIM renders them it honors the material type and renders them using the alpha channel which is set to #808080 for the glow parts (fuse, wings, hstab, and vstab), so they glow but it looks dimmer because the Alpha Channel is set to #808080. When the Preview Image in the Select Plane dialog renders the plane in RF 9.5 DVD the plane looks fine but in RF EVO the plane looks washed out, which I think is because when it's rendered it uses the alpha channel to render it but doesn't honor the material type applied to them, so the plane appears washed out. At least I think that's what's happening. Remember all the normal plane parts have two copies, one for the plane and another for the glow parts, which is the same part just cloned using the copy option. So all the parts, normal and glow, use the same space in the TGA. Which works fine in the SIM because the alpha channel isn't used for the FUSE defined as a normal part named 01 - Default, but the Glow parts (overlaid on the normal parts) uses a material named ~ALPHA so I can dim the glow parts with the alpha channel. If you need the RFX file let me know and I can send it to you.

Here's the preview image in RF 9.5 DVD and RF EVO.

 

[asj5547]

Yes the preview is a "washed out" color image on my PC too, when using RF Evolution.
No problem with the preview or night time glow when using RF7, RF8, and RF9.5s, thanks for this great model Technoid.

 

[Ryan Douglas]

I was about to file a case for this issue, but now I'm wondering if it's the same thing that was described here. It's less extreme than some of those examples, but the same basic problem appears to be occurring--namely, alpha from the model leading to incorrect alpha in the preview.

 

[technoid]

I was about to file a case for this issue, but now I'm wondering if it's the same thing that was described here. It's less extreme than some of those examples, but the same basic problem appears to be occurring--namely, alpha from the model leading to incorrect alpha in the preview.

I'm not sure if it's the same thing, but overall it's the same. In this case you need to make sure all the "glow" objects I defined for the main plane parts isn't being rendered (and I assume they aren't because they're named GLOW), and then it seems the issue is when the plane is rendered in the preview it uses the "alpha channel" to determine transparency. BUT... the material I applied to all the main plane parts is a standard material named 01 - Default so all the normal plane parts "do not" have any transparency so the preview should be opaque, not transparent (even though the alpha layer for those parts is #808080. To me that's the trick, the plane is being rendered in the preview window using the "alpha channel" when the plane parts have a material that should turn off any transparency. BUT... all the normal plane parts "also" have a copy that "does" have transparency (material named ~ALPHA). So I suppose this report should be tied to the report you linked to. Since they are definitely related.