Daddy ain't no glass maker

[SMMDigital]

One thing i've never mastered is making a part with 3DCrafter that has the TrainGlass.fx shader enabled. The forum post on this subject at Amabilis is missing. Anyone have any advice? Im looking to make a building with darkly tinted.but see- through windows. So far, ive gotten complete transparency or transparent with black dots.

Here is what I do know to do in 3DC:

- Slot 1 : Diffuse (Main) texture with alpha-window cutouts.
- Slot Env : 8-bit greyscale of main texture, for reflection.
- Rail Sim Slot : TrainGlass.fx
- Tx Alpha Slot : Transparency

[artimrj]

I vaguely remember something Dick Cowen said about window glass in the engine, the black dots were from a compressed texture file. By not compressing them the black dots went away. It is here in his forum on one of his update threads. But I have no clue what goes on in the 3D world.

[SCLALINE]

the dots also show when UV mapping is incorrect, i can make glass in 3dsmax, but not much of a help in 3dc

[SMMDigital]

Most of the time, as on this project, I dont use UV mapping unless precise edges or painted on shadows are required.

Ok, i've been playing around with this, and here is what i've come up with ( feel free to add to or revise ):

Diffuse Texture: Black with Alpha mask set to around 45%. This will give a dark tinted window that will not be totally transparent. Texture name (example): glass_nm.tga
Secondary Texture: 128x128 solid dark color (navy blue, black, deep purple, etc.). Texture name: glasstint_nm.tga
Environment Texture: The main duffuse texture, minus alpha, resized to 512x512, grayscaled. This is a simple placeholder texture that will be replaced by natural reflections in the game. The reason I use the main diffuse instead of a solid color texture is so that it will show up in 3DC. Texture name: glass_env.tga

Setup in 3DC:

Settings:

- Diffuse: 35
- Ambient: 2
- Specular: 0
- Translucent: 1

- Slot 1: Main diffuse texture.
- Slot 2: Tinted texture. Set translucency to 10%.
- Slot Environmental: Environmental texture.

- Properties Rail Sim: TrainGlass.fx
- Properties Tx Alpha: Transparency

It's a work in progress, but it works right now.

[dick8299]

Have you been able to produce the reflectivity shown below using 3DC?

[SMMDigital]

I have not tried to replicate that particular scene. I'm not using a specular highlight on mine to produce the shiney dot, I think RSC calls it a phong. But the windows i've made are dark, transparent, and do reflect light. Once i've finished them I will post a screenie.