Aiport design: how to apply ambient texture?

  • Hi everybody,

    Can anyone explain me how to successfully apply an ambient texture on a runway when designing an airport?

    I’m using 3DSMax 2017, I designed my LSGY airport (Yverdon) some 2 years ago according to the wiki tutorial.

    My initial release went fine and I managed to darken the runway asphalt with an ambient texture picked from the Kingsman example.

    Since an AFS2 upgrade early this year (or was it last year ?) the ambient texture doesn’t work anymore.

    I started lately reworking my LSGY to feature our brand new fuel station, and spent a few hours trying to apply ambient textures to my runway, but whatever I do they have strictly no effect. I can change the diffuse texture, the UV mapping, it works, but whatever ambient texture I define it has strictly no effect on texture appearance in AFS2.

    The Wiki tuto says one shouldn’t forget to set channel ID 2 to the ambient texture, what is it for? I tried various ID values, but to no avail...

    Is anybody else encountering troubles with ambient occlusion in airport design?

    What puzzles me is it used to work previously...

    Thanks in advance to whoever can help me.

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Are you using a multi-material assigned to the ground plane, then assigning different vertices to different sub-material IDs (usually with vertex painter).

    I think the wiki is wrong there. The screenshot shows the polygon being set to material ID 2, which is the runway material.

    Maybe post the diagram from the Slate Material Editor (not the classic material editor) so we can see what's going on?

    If I remember correctly, Aerofly is fussy with material bitmap naming, and I think the files have to end with _color for ambient and diffuse.

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • Are you using a multi-material assigned to the ground plane, then assigning different vertices to different sub-material IDs (usually with vertex painter).

    Yes, as described in the wiki. What is strange is, it used to work and without changing anything but an update of AFS2, it stopped working from a day to another, and I couldn’t get it to work again.

    I’m currently at my chalet in the mountains, but when I’m back home I’ll check and post the Slate editor diagram. As the case may be there is 1 among the 500 parameters that is set wrong...

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Well here are Slate Editor displays of my runway textures... I have no clue why the ambient isn't working, is there maybe a way to set a different UV mapping for the ambient compared to the diffuse channels ?

    The only difference I notice is a Bezier Float controller I don't remember having set, that I couldn't delete. I've searched for hints on the net, it's well described how to setup, but I found no clue about deleting a controller...

    yverdon__airport__runway details


    yverdon__airport__outside details


    yverdon__airport__apron details

    Multiobject details

    Hope somebody could help me...

    Does any of you manage to use ambient occlusion on runway?

    Thanks in advance

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Hi Antoine

    in aircraft design we apply a exterior or interior tag to get it to work, might be something to try

    Steve

    Where and how do you set that tag, Steve?

    Thanks in advance

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Does the name of the map need to match the name of the bitmap?

    I don't know how fussy the IPACS exporter is, but you see this in the example airports.

    I've never used the diffuse / ambient amount controller as you have. Not sure if that makes any difference.

    Do the ambient maps in the Kingman and Oceanside example airports work as you'd expect?

    AeroScenery - Easily create photoreal scenery for Aerofly

  • Hi Steve,

    Thanks for your hint. I tried both external and internal tags for shaders, to no avail.

    I tried deleting my textures and reassigning them from stratch, same result.

    I can change the diffuse texture, this works fine

    Whatever texture I set for ambient occlusion, it has no visible effect in AFS2.

    I even tried renaming the texture as _ambient instead of _color, it still doesn't work...

    I have no clue...

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • The fact is, it used to work fine, as illustrated by snapshots below dating April 2018 :

    Then came an update of AFS2 sometime mid-2018 and, from that day on and without changing anything to my scenery, the ambient occlusion stopped having anymore effect on my ground textures.

    Picture from July 24th, 2018, note the much lighter gray shade for the asphalt...


    Does the name of the map need to match the name of the bitmap?

    I don't know how fussy the IPACS exporter is, but you see this in the example airports.


    I've never used the diffuse / ambient amount controller as you have. Not sure if that makes any difference.

    Do the ambient maps in the Kingman and Oceanside example airports work as you'd expect?

    In my case I simply used texture and texture names from the Kingsman example.

    Anyway, it would be a good test to check if ambient texture still work in the Kingsman exemple, if I knew how it was supposed to look like...

    EDIT: just reconverted both Kingsman and Oceanside and both display tire marks, thus a working ambient effect. The Slate Editor allows comparing parameters, will have a closer look...

    EDIT2: had a close look at Slate Editor, but couldn't find any hint of mistake from my side...


    Does anybody from IPACS read this thread? Any hint please?


    Thanks in advance

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

    Edited 3 times, last by Trespassers (August 20, 2019 at 11:50 PM).

  • You could also try a png file. I used transparent ones for tire marks and general grunge plus concrete/tarmac colour changes.

    Steve

    Do you mean adding a decal texture? or is it a standard diffuse layer for the ground polygon?

    Does alpha channel work progressive in this case, ie. transparency can be adjusted by means of gray shades?

    or is it digitally on/off like in ground texture masks (Geoconvert)

    Thanks for the tip, I'll consider this if nobody from IPCAS can help on ambient textures

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Hi Antoine

    I only used it as a decal, never needed to add a ambient layer. The addition of the decal successfully lowered the appearance brightness.

    There is no alpha channel but it is a transparent png and as the effect is quite strong, very little colour is needed in the layer, in fact it's very difficult to see what you are painting as the colour is so transparent.

    Steve

  • Ok, thanks for the decal hint, that could be a workaround to add a modifier to the asphalt, despite obviously quite touchy - decal shaders render quite glossy effects in AFS2...

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.

  • Does anybody from IPACS read this thread? Any hint please?

    Thanks in advance

    Cheers

    Antoine

    Config : i7 6900K - 20MB currently set at 3.20GHz, Cooling Noctua NH-U14S, Motherboard ASUS Rampage V Extreme U3.1, RAM HyperX Savage Black Edition 16GB DDR4 3000 MHz, Graphic Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB, Power supply Corsair RM Series 850W, Windows 10 64 bit.