Odd behavior when viewing 777 model in ModelConverterX

[Steve Dra 7,601]

Greetings all,

When I'm painting the 777 and want to check alignment of items on the model, these model viewers are a great tool to use without constantly loading up FSX to check something.

 

I noticed that all other models I view display all their textures, but the 777 is missing a slab off the side fuse, as well as the tail.

For any painters (or the model dev here) that may know why this is happening and more importantly, how to fix, I'd greatly appreciate it.  Also if you know why there is a big checkerboard wall splitting the model that would be great too.

 

Please see screen below for reference.

[KriVa 307]

I'm pretty sure I know what's causing this, but I don't have a clue on how to fix it.

With the 777, PMDG changed the way they implement lights on the add-on.

With the NGX, you need to provide an extra set of separate nighttime textures with the landing lights and logo lights added on top of them as a layer. The 777 implements the lights in "some other" way, which doesn't require the extra textures anymore.

[Steve Dra 7,601]

I'm pretty sure I know what's causing this, but I don't have a clue on how to fix it.

With the 777, PMDG changed the way they implement lights on the add-on.

With the NGX, you need to provide an extra set of separate nighttime textures with the landing lights and logo lights added on top of them as a layer. The 777 implements the lights in "some other" way, which doesn't require the extra textures anymore.

Thanks Thomas, that explains a few things.

You can tell that they add the lights into the model when you see all the little sprites modeled for the strobes when you view the model.  This is a great way to (maybe the only good way) to make sure your wingtip lights move with the wing flex.  

This may also affect the tail, since the Logo light splash would be part of the model as well, but not sure why it blanks out the area you see in the checkerboard in my screenshot.

 

As luck (bad luck) would have it, this impacts my current paint that has stripes that continue from the fuse up to the tail.   I need that little piece to show in the viewer so I can line them up.

 

Hope we can get someone to enlighten us on this anomaly.

[downscc 1,327]

Thomas might be right.  Due to the wing flex and moving lights but I don't recall the details either.  Have you been to the AVSIM paint shop here: http://forum.avsim.net/forum/200-the-paint-shop-the-aircraft-painters-forum/

[CODY614 6]

Material editor is your friend....Find the "Light's" that are getting in your way...And "COPY" those "Light's" to your folder for your re-paint and there you are.

"/texture.common200LR" is where they were located for the above pic's......

 

Hope this helps?.....

 

 

 

[Steve Dra 7,601]

 

 

Material editor is your friend....Find the "Light's" that are getting in your way...And "COPY" those "Light's" to your folder for your re-paint and there you are.
"/texture.common200LR" is where they were located for the above pic's......

 

That was it Jeff!   Thanks a ton!

It's amazing the collective knowledge on these forums.

 

Learned that if you're painting the Freighter, not ALL the common textures are in the F common F folder, some still hang out in the LR folder.  That one had me scratching my head, but does make sense when you understand the complete folder structure (which I'm beginning to, slowly...LOL)

 

Hey Dan,

I've been to the painters forum, but I felt this was an issue specific to the PMDG 777 and may get a clue here as I'm not sure all painters (including myself) hang out there as much as we used to in our heyday.

Turns out this is specific to PMDG 777 and its unique folder structure on how they store their common textures (a lot of planes don't even do this and dump all the textures in the texture folder of each livery.)  While not a bad thing if the texture maps are not many in number or large in size.  But the PMDG 777 is both, and it saves all us consumers a big portion of duplicate files when we download a livery....very good planning on PMDGs part.  One of those things that go by most people, but folks who paint them get free lessons into a lot of the background stuff, hehe.  Don't know if that's a good thing for most, but for me personally, I like learning about how its done (one of the reasons I became a painter years ago)

[CODY614 6]

That was it Jeff!   Thanks a ton!

It's amazing the collective knowledge on these forums.

 

Learned that if you're painting the Freighter, not ALL the common textures are in the F common F folder, some still hang out in the LR folder.  That one had me scratching my head, but does make sense when you understand the complete folder structure (which I'm beginning to, slowly...LOL)

 

Hey Dan,

I've been to the painters forum, but I felt this was an issue specific to the PMDG 777 and may get a clue here as I'm not sure all painters (including myself) hang out there as much as we used to in our heyday.

Turns out this is specific to PMDG 777 and its unique folder structure on how they store their common textures (a lot of planes don't even do this and dump all the textures in the texture folder of each livery.)  While not a bad thing if the texture maps are not many in number or large in size.  But the PMDG 777 is both, and it saves all us consumers a big portion of duplicate files when we download a livery....very good planning on PMDGs part.  One of those things that go by most people, but folks who paint them get free lessons into a lot of the background stuff, hehe.  Don't know if that's a good thing for most, but for me personally, I like learning about how its done (one of the reasons I became a painter years ago)

Your welcome...Took me a bit to get this one figured out, Carenado has been doing this a while....

[fs4fun 366]

This is because MCX doesn't read the texture.cfg file? I think Arno has that on the MCX wishlist but not done yet.

[downscc 1,327]

 

 

Don't know if that's a good thing for most, but for me personally, I like learning about how its done (one of the reasons I became a painter years ago)

 

I know exactly what you mean... I've always been like that too.  I've spent a lot of time in scenery, airports, navdata/sidstars and now beta testing. Haven't painted aircraft but I played with 3D modelling a little bit and of course there's a paint of sorts involved.  So many aspects to this hobby... hard to explain to outsiders who think it's just a flight simulator.

[mcbellette 145]

It's not a flight sim Dan, it's just a game!

[JB3DG 225]

It's not a flight sim Dan, it's just a game!

 

Dude....Don't walk through this forum after saying that. RUN!!! FLY!!! Assume the crash position and dive for cover!! :LMAO:

[Steve Dra 7,601]

 

 

I know exactly what you mean... I've always been like that too.  I've spent a lot of time in scenery, airports, navdata/sidstars and now beta testing. Haven't painted aircraft but I played with 3D modelling a little bit and of course there's a paint of sorts involved.  So many aspects to this hobby... hard to explain to outsiders who think it's just a flight simulator.

 

Agree there are so many aspects to this hobby...so many hobbies within this hobby.  Look at the cottage industry JUST for AI and that whole world..AFCAD, WOAI....LOL..we have so many acronyms in this multi-faceted hobby that we could probably form whole paragraphs just on the jargon we spout here like its our natural language. 

In my hobby within a hobby (painting of course), its words like:

DXTBMP

FLATTEN

Copy Merged

Invert (applies to FSX repaints, not FS9, hehe)

Multiply

Merge down

Push brush (my favorite tool)
Invert Selection

Warp

Imagetool

DDS

Vector

Raster

BMP (or bitmap)

TIF

Alpha layer

Gray Scale

MIPS

Targa

DXT1 through 5 (but I think they skipped 4, or I've never used it)

32bit

Every iteration of 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192,12288 (the PMDG 777 master fuse is 12288x4096 pixels, with texture maps broken into 3 4096x4096 maps, something you memorize when you move your paint from the master to the 3 texture maps..at least as often as I do it, hehe)

LOD

Clone

Fill

Oh my....I'll stop now...got carried away, LOL.