Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Custom Skins => Topic started by: Kweassa on January 28, 2005, 01:55:29 PM
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From Pyro's 2.02 update:
Added a new option for skinners to set the specularity of their plane's finish. Note that this feature
is only available on the planes that have been reworked to AH2 specs. If a plane is capable of having
its material modified, a new file called material.txt will be created in the export directory that contains
diffuse, specular, and ambient floating point (i.e. 0 to 1) RGB values. This file is not required to be
in your skins directory if you do not plan to modify it.
How does this work? Nate? Superfly? airmess? Anyone know???
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sounds like the shine effect, Diffuse = Camo Specular = Polished metal Ambient = inbetween?
thats my guess anyway, 1 enables the effect, 0 disables the effect
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RTFM...
oh wait - theres not a manual for this....
HELP!!!
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Between 0 and 1 floating point.
Best way to get a feel for it, is to experiment with the values.
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Just been playing with this briefly. To get the materials file, run the game and save one of the latest shapes; p38s, Ki84, B-24 etc. In the export directory you will find the materials file. I tried putting the file generated by the Ki84 into my B-24 skin directory and it turned it fairly matt. However that annoying dark panel in front of the cockpit is still there. Hopefully there is some setting to get rid of it. Time to experiment.
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Greebo, Nate, airmess or Superfly!
These are the contents of the material.txt I got from the Ki-84-Ia.
0.259,0.259,0.259,Ambient
0.659,0.659,0.659,Diffuse
0.000,0.000,0.000,Emissive
0.408,0.408,0.408,Specular
33.420,Power
It seems to have five categories; "ambient", "diffuse", "emissive", "specular", "power"..
Can you explain to me what it means? Also, I understand that you use a value between 0~1.000, but why does each of those categories have three of them?? For instance;
(1) 0.259, (2) 0.259, (3) 0.259, Ambient
What does (1), (2), and (3) value specift??
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where do i do this? maybe this is why my game crashes when i try my skin!
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Those three values represent the RGB values.
I'll get more information Monday.
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Unless the terminology is very different from the programs I've used,
Diffuse = direct lighting from the sun
Ambient = fill light made by reflected surroundings or atmosphere
Emissive = a glow, or self-emitting light source (like fire), not dependent on exterior lighting
Specular = Glossiness, or strength of highlights
Power = would be the strength of all of those together for the combined effect.
Using Kweassa's posted Ki-84 settings as an example, the skin would be: 26% lit by surrounding light, 66% lit by direct light, 0% glow, and 40% glossy. The combination of all these settings has been applied with 33.42% strength.
An ambient setting of 0, 0, 0 would give you black black bible-black shadows. 1, 1, 1 would give you no shadows at all.
Specular of 0, 0, 0 would create a soft (or nonexistent) highlight, like on matte paint. Specular of 1, 1, 1 would make an extreme hotspot of a highlight, like on chrome.
You would not use Emissive on an aircraft, only on objects like fires or lights.
My guess would be that the only setting that we would really ever play with for aircraft skins would be the Specularity setting, and maybe the Power.
For an example of the RGB values, let's say you wanted to give a metal aircraft more of a bluish reflection, you would use numbers like 0.25, 0.25, 0.38 (R, G, and B... Blue being the stronger value) but I seriously don't think this is something you want to mess around with.
Looks like we're in for a lot of experimenting, eh? :)
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Be nice if some where down the road we could get those levels set into a "properties" box - with sliders...say on maybe, an object editor someday....just a little utility :)
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this thing is driving me batty....lmao -
in the "x.yyy,x.yyy,x.yyy, Z" equation - I know what Z is :)
EDIT:
"I can take him...."
I was getting confused, by the "0,0,0,diffuse" being RGB values,
Which means you could put in 255,0,255, diffuse - and have your plane be that nasty pink color. i was looking for a way to choose the color for each property using the 3 values - and then set a level for each property... that was a long road. looks like levels are set in decimal points - so for a color - you need to know the ratio.
As far as changing colors of ambient light, diffuse and speculatiry relections - it'll take some RGB value to decimal / level conversions, but it well help add some "color depth" to the model, if you use shades of color in these properties that are based on the skin. Right now I'm getting some killer polished aluminum looks using only the material properties.
lots to play with and a learning curve here trying to figure out things...
I'll whoop it yet.....lmao!
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Remember, you're not changing the values of the skin, you're changing the values of the light sources. You really don't want to deviate much (or at all) from white light.
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I know - but it can be a fine icing on the skin if you learn to use it tastefully....
already have a few material banks saved for natural metal.... :)
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heres some pics of the differences of a piece in progress.
First one:
Probably the one I'll be basing finer tweaking off of - basically it has a yellow tint to the specularity - gives it a touch of the sepia tone.
(http://www.dangreve.com/images/ahss17.jpg)
This one the speculairty has been changed to a purplish / yellow
(http://www.dangreve.com/images/ahss18.jpg)
This one has way too much blue in the ambient source - specularity is purple / mauve
(http://www.dangreve.com/images/ahss19.jpg)
Ambient has been toned down to a darker greyish blue, with the same purple mauve specularity
(http://www.dangreve.com/images/ahss20.jpg)
all in all, I like the first one best so far....
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Do you like it because it looks cool or because it looks real?
Sorry to sound harsh, but sometimes preconceptions can make you think you're seeing something that's not really there.
I can't stress this enough... these settings are simulating sunlight... not colors of the aircraft. If you want your skin to have a different hue, alter the skin... don't mess with the sun.
I don't want to be a Nazi about it, so this is the last I'll say about it. I'm entitled to an opinion, and so is everyone else. My opinion is that none of your examples look better than the default... but I could be wrong.
Do what you think is best.
I'll STFU now. ;)
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Colors are reflections - Light has no color.
the way light reflects off of surfaces is what gives the impression of color. Hence changing reflective colors / ambient lighting to fit the skin, will benefit the skin. Stand next to a large red object on a sunny day wearing a white t-shirt.....your shirt will be pink.
still lots of experimenting to be done.. :)
I'm sure in time we'll figure it out....lol
BTW - the defaults have color changes in their specularity.
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Am I correct in the fact that if I set all numbers to 0 it will result in no light reflection?
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yes, 0,0,0 will result in black / lack of light relection.
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You're right about the default specularities... interesting. I stand corrected.
But I have to still disagree on one point; light does have color... sunlight is all colors, mixing into pure white. You can filter out other colors to achieve an effect, as in a sunset (which I believe AH simulates by changing the global diffuse values). And, as you say, you can change the ambient lighting by bouncing light off a large red object... but you can't plan to simulate that ambience for every possible setting. In that case, white would be more appropriate.
Yup, lots of experimenting to be done.
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waffle, the original material that is on the p38 (or any other bare metal plane) already has a yellowish specularity to it. ;)
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bah....lol :) least we're on the same page... that was a j model - never thought to go lift the l's model material...
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I agree Waffle, the first one is definitely the best. Perhaps you may want to try backing off on the yellow a tad, but it does looks awesome as is!
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Waffle, can you post the settings for the very first pic? It looks really good for depicting metallic surfaces, and I'm into redoing the metallic Ki-84 since now there's a better way to depict it.