My old buildings glowing in Railworks 3???

[jpetersjr]

Hello all. I have a problem with the textures on my buildings in Railworks 3.

I have tried to fix the problem, but so far haven't had any success.

Does anyone know how the textures should be to work right in Railworks 3, and stop the building from glowing like a light bulb.

If I can't fix this problem I will no longer be able to build assets for the game.

I am using 3D Crafter.

Sincerely jpetersjr

Trying to update my buildings to work, and appear right in Railworks 3, to not glow because of the light. How do you set Diffuse, Ambient and Specular in 3D Crafter so the buildings don't come out glowing???

[PapaXpress]

Its your alpha channel. You need to darken it, say 80% gray (something I have found to work nicely with rolling stock).

If you are using Gimp reading this may help:
http://thegradecrossing.blogspot.com/20 ... ayers.html
http://thegradecrossing.blogspot.com/20 ... mbers.html

On a side note you may want to drop out a few of the windows so at night they appear to be "on".

[jpetersjr]

How do you edit a alpha channel, what is a alpha channel, and I don't use gimp, since I could never figure it out. My textures were done in Windows Paint.

[PapaXpress]

MS Paint does not support alpha channels. Gimp is free and a big step up from Paint.

[jpetersjr]

I have gimp, but have no idea how to use it.

How do you import a texture, work on it, and then export it so you can use it in Crafter in the correct form. And size it to 512 x 256.

[jpetersjr]

Well, I figured out how to import a image, but I have no idea of what to do with it, how do you add a 80 gray alfa channel?

I hope to be able to do the update soon.

[Kali]

RW pays attention to the emissive colour of a material now too, so you might want to set that to black routinely.

[PapaXpress]

This is where I kinda have to leave off. I use CS3 for my repaints so I never really had to work with Gimp. MadMike and others here would be able to better assist you. The reason I know about this problem in Gimp and how to fix it is because I was working closely with Mike when I QA'd several of his repaints and started identifying these problems (I could see them in CS3 where as he did not), for a short while I was doing all his alpha work until he discovered how to create a "background" layer by adding a texture. He was kinda working in the blind and was tossing this test cases over the fence to me to see if it really worked or not.

[Hawk]

Question. If Jonathan doesn't know what an alpha channel is (or didn't before yesterday), how could that be his problem?

[Bananarama]

Question. If Jonathan doesn't know what an alpha channel is (or didn't before yesterday), how could that be his problem?

Sometimes alpha channels are automatically generated using certain functions in several programs. For instance, selecting a layer on a PSD or PSP file in Paint Shop Pro and using the "Select All" command, creating a copy of that layer will automatically generate an alpha or transparency channel for that file (transparency channels are bad; alpha channels are good - sometimes). If you save, then that alpha or transparency channel is saved to the original, which is then transferred to the finished ACE. Depending on the material used in the source model ( a bump specular fx type), the object may show up bright white and shiny (white alpha channel) or dark and dull (black alpha channel).

[jpetersjr]

I'm going to try another texture that when I put it on the test item it looked like that strange glowing aura didn't appear. My darker blue boards.

Though, I might have to learn how to use gimp and make a alpha texture, don't know yet though.

Also, I have a good friend that knows how to use gimp, and he's already agreed to help me learn to use it.

[spec5sx]

Could you show us a screenshot of your glowing problem?

[jpetersjr]

Unfortortunately no, since the update I can't switch to half screen mode so I can take a screen shot. Has anyone figured out how to go to the original half screen, the small screen in Railworks 3?

[jpetersjr]

Great news though, Classic Town House 1 Version 3 came through without a glowing aura around it. I think I might have figured out how to fix it with the help of SMM Digital. Now I'm going to try the other models the same way.


As well, does anyone know how to go to half screen in Railworks 3?

[jpetersjr]

Well, that did fix it, Classic Town House 1 Version 1 just came through correctly. I still have more to update, but now I can say that my projects aren't doomed.


Sincerely jpetersjr

Now, the problem is, how do you take a screenshot in Railworks 3, seems like it's stuck on full screen and won't run in half screen. Because when I click off full screen I get a Settings Are Not Usuable message and it won't open???